Marina on Marketing

The best salespeople can sell snow to Eskimos, as the saying goes. Even so, you can imagine my surprise when an enterprising Eagle Scout showed up at my front door in our new home in Eagle, Idaho selling…potatoes. Yes, potatoes!

My first reaction was to laugh and he laughed right along with me. I liked this kid and his chutzpah on a cold November evening. He and his mom had a minivan loaded down with huge, Idaho-grown spuds. Turns out, his troop sells them every year. And they do a brisk business.

Which made me think about this from the perspective of a marketing writer. How often do companies really embrace their quirks? Mostly, it seems, corporations want marketing copywriters to spiff up their image with slick press releases, sparkling brochure copy and eye-catching web writing. All of that is well and good. But there’s also something lovable and appealing about a company that knows itself and puts that personal quality out to the buying public.

It’s a little like Les Schwab Tires with its fresh-scrubbed mechanics and sales folks running to greet you, selling you some new snow tires, and yep, rewarding you with some free beef! After all, Les Schwab was from Prineville, a Central Oregon town whose denizens know plenty about cattle and cold-weather tires.

Here in Idaho, the potato is more than a vegetable: it’s an emblem of state pride. Heck, Famous Potatoes used to be on many an Idaho license plate. So when I bought some of those potatoes from the Boy Scouts I was embracing a little of what it means to be an Idahoan. And because the Scout at my door is a natural at sales, he made sure to deliver a persuasive marketing message--as potent as any dreamed up by a marketing communications writer.  He emphasized these are “export quality” potatoes, meaning they were grown in Idaho but are a higher grade of potato than Idahoans normally get to eat. These were, in essence, gourmet potatoes!

So I bought a big bag of special potatoes—great for state pride, a nice contribution to the local Boy Scout troop and a starchy staple I needed anyway. Now I just need to find some way to use all these spuds!