# 262: Marketing Writers
Story behind the Passage
Whenever I think of marketing, I think of Brownie Wise. I already blogged about her but not about this book. Today she is on my mind because I am involved in some pretty cool marketing projects that are really fun. And the joy I am experiencing is a deep joy from within which can only unfold if you do stuff that you love doing. The only problem that is in the way sometimes is a prison you build yourself. These kinds of prisons usually arise because you do not let go of something. That something holds you back from seeing your own situation, your own business, from a completely different perspective. It does not matter how skilled you are in helping others do this. It means nothing. You have to let go of something before you can apply this skill to yourself.
Brownie Wise was a pioneer of marketing and sales because she was the one who made Tupperware big. Without her, Earl Tupper would not have sold (m)any of his plastic miracles. Yes, he was the inventor of the product but, as any business wo/man knows, the product is secondary, you have to market it. Wise did that and in a way that really shows what any good marketing person needs to have: You need the gut feeling to know who needs the product for what and in which life situation. If you know all this, you can meet the clients’ needs. In the case of Tupperware, the primary target group consisted of housewives. But just reading the very concept now might be misleading. The women did not just look for some new product that would make their daily lives easier. They were looking for a change in their boring routines and they were looking for some appreciation, even challenges. This is how the famous party plan emerged and it is the story that everyone knows about Wise.
The story that many people do not know about is the one behind Brownie Wise’s capabilities. Now that I am thinking so much about marketing, which is something that I have been neglecting for a few years, I start seeing how many of the people I learned a lot from are in marketing and how their diverse life experiences in turn factored into their future unique selling position. Wise was outstanding in this way and now when I opened the book again, this passage caught my attention. It seems that the passion for writing and the ability to become a good marketer are somehow connected.
My Learnings
“I was trying to piece together some of the many lessons I learned from my mother, my teachers, my ministers, old friends.” This is the sentence that really struck me just now. I mean, we all have many different teachers in the course of our lives. But for people with a particularly good instinct for marketing, this experience of learning from and thus studying so many different people and characters is crucial. I think, not even because of these particular people or the details. It is the diversity of them that makes you connect the dots in your head and enables you to think and plan ahead strategically.
Remember, the product Wise was trying to sell was new — innovative. That might sound very easy but the truth is, it is very hard to do if you cannot really pitch into any kind of existing conversaion that people know about. Tupperware is Tupperware, not silverware or simple camping appliances. So, not only do you have to come up with the idea of how to reach whom, you also have to communicate this in a way that is not only understandable but also attractive. This seems to be where the writing urge comes in.
Wise in this paragraph is not depicted as someone who wrote for mere money purposes. Yes, she had to earn a living as a single mom but she also felt an inner longing to write and to pass on her experience, it seems. That is exactly where the strategic marketing ability intersects with the operative task. No matter if you tell the story of your product in writing or orally, the story behind it is key. But that is not the entire story. The most important thing happens before that. You have to know the target audience in detail. Actually, it is not the product that decides about the story, it is the target group. Since the target groups are getting more and more diverse nowadays, there is much need for creative storytelling, i.e. the tailormade version of the real story.
I have no idea how I could not see this strong connection between all the things I learned from in the past and all the teachers that taught me these things. Well, actually, that is not true. I can explain it. As I said, I built my own prison. Now that I got rid of it, the path is clear. For Wise, this meant that she continued working in many different jobs that finally took her to Tupperware. I bet, every single career step was crucial for building up the potential to see the home party plan as the solution to Tupperware’s problem. I just wonder if she, at the end of her life, after Tupper had thrown her out and dumped her books, had achieved her personal vision. As she writes:
“I wanted to be a successful human being”
I dearly wish she did.
But maybe marketers will remain the least best to market themselves.
If they enjoy what they do —
It does not matter.
Reflection Questions
1) What do you know about Tupperware and the home party plan?
2) Do you think that people in marketing have a special talent in writing?
3) How do you define “success” in your life?