Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the store and avoid the temptation of Christmas cookies and Valentine’s chocolates, Girl Scouts stand ready at the door to guilt you in to purchasing boxes of the available-only-once-a-year and childhood-nostalgic Girl Scout cookies.
The cookies that they started baking in the 1950s are still with us: just-enough-chocolaty Thin Mints (now labeled as “vegan” for an extra marketing umph), that classic Peanut Butter Sandwich, and plain old buttery Shortbreads.
But every year, the Girls go out on a limb and try to take advantage of the latest culinary craze, which in the past few years has sometimes meant low-fat or low-calorie. Why anyone would want to eat such a cookie is beyond me; eat an apple. Anyway, they always see fit to introduce a new cookie each year, in hopes of establishing a new standard that will one day ready the legendary status of the Thin Mint. Sometimes they’ll stick for a while – thank goodness the Peanut Butter Pattie did – and other times, we never see them again. I don’t suppose we’ll see this year’s Mango Cremes again, or at least I hope not. Even the Girl Scouts I know don’t like them!
Change is inevitable, no matter what industry you’re in. We’ve seen in it our industry: door-to-door salesmen have evolved to direct mail, which has evolved to cold calling, which has evolved to email, which has evolved to social media. Vestiges of all of those selling techniques remain – even door-to-door – but there are stronger performing campaigns that take advantage of the culture of the moment.
The gold standards remain; Thin Mints have been baked for more than 60 years, but I sure do like the recent addition of Lemonades, a butter cookie with lemony-sweet frosting on the bottom.
In sales and marketing, cold calling and direct mail may still be a part of your repertoire. We have one prospect who mostly sends his salesmen door-to-door (man, I wish they’d let us add email – sure would make their jobs easier!).
But you should also be on the lookout for Lemonades – new techniques and processes that will capture the guy who doesn’t like minty chocolate, or who doesn’t respond to a telephone call.
