Sometimes It’s The Simple Things

As legend has it, back in the day, the kitchen cleaner Comet was suffering from weak sales. The parent company hired an expensive sales and marketing consultant to help them solve the problem. Was it the color of the package? The price? The target audience?

The consultant looked at the green cylinder and said: “Poke more holes in the top.”

Sales soared as more Comet came out of the can with each use, compelling customers to buy the product more frequently.

Sometimes it’s the simple things. 

We were reminded of this story by the recent announcement that Murphy-Goode Winery wants to pay one lucky person $60,000, or $10,000 per month, for a six-month stint as a their “wine country lifestyle correspondent.” The job requires blogging, Tweeting and otherwise spreading the “Goode” word via social media. 

Of course, the job was announced via a colorful press release and a snazzy web portal, generating extensive media exposure and drawing a crowd of 10,000 applicants in San Francisco. It’s worth noting that Murphy-Goode belongs to the Kendall-Jackson portfolio, so there’s no shortage of marketing dollars to embark on an effort of this scale. 

From a publicity standpoint, the genius of the announcement was the wage. By limiting the job contract to six months, the winery was able to publicize a salary of $10,000 per month. 

You see, offering $60,000 a year to handle social media for a winery might be news, but offering $10,000 per month is much bigger news—as evident in the many resulting headlines such as “$10,000 a month to Tweet?” and “Winery Offers $10,000 a month tasting and talking gig.”

We’re not suggesting that the job is without merit. But it’s obvious that publicity was a big part of the agenda here, and it worked.  

Which brings us back to the Comet story. In both instances, the solution to the challenge—how to sell more Comet or how to leverage a job offer into a publicity event—was deceptively simple: Poke more holes in the top. Divide your investment by six months, not twelve. 

All of which goes to show that great ideas are not always the biggest ideas. Indeed, sometimes a smart and simple tweak is all it takes.

New Ancient Peaks Web Site

We are excited to see our words in action on the new Ancient Peaks Winery web site at www.ancientpeaks.com. 

Our goal was to help tell the Ancient Peaks story in an engaging manner while clearly and strategically articulating the winery’s numerous unique selling points. 

Other work that we have performed for Ancient Peaks includes wine fact sheets, wine label content, media kit and press releases.