Golden. Delicious?

Marketing is powerful. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.

Allow me to re-hash a story about beer. Brits started holidaying in Europe from the 70s. And drank lager there. They wanted to drink lager at home too. So brewers brought it to the UK. But not at 5+% ABV. No, Brits wanted to drink pints (and pints) of it. So they made it weaker. Naturally, it tasted terrible. So they needed very good marketing: “Probably the best…refreshes the parts…I bet he drinks…” And for 30-odd years we chose to drink terrible beer. That’s powerful.

And Hugh Fearnley-Whatsit got me thinking about another old marketing story. When the common market opened access to Europe, we got Golden Delicious apples. And it usurped a lot of traditional varieties. Ask anyone, in a rational moment, what’s the better tasting apple, and a Cox kicks its backside. Golden Delicious is an inspid apple. Neither tasty nor juicy. Often unforgivably mushy. But they have something going for them. Consistency. For all it lacks in anything you might actually want from an apple, on the supermarket shelf it’s always the same size and colour. As a variety, it’s got its own in-built marketing. As shoppers, we like that standardisation. 

But thinking about marketing employers, we often don’t want volume of customers (employees / applicants) – we want quality. When you look at your employer reputation it’s easy to pitch a broad appeal, to fail to differentiate. It’s easy to match the other apples on the shelf. Your ambition should be bigger. You should aim to dig out your unique characteristics and circumstance, to market how your heritage, culture, vision combine to create a unique working opportunity. Wouldn’t we all rather be an Egremont Russet, a Red Pippin, a Worcester Pearmain? And wouldn’t the discerning candidate choose them?

Don’t settle for being a Golden Delicious – find your unique qualities.