You can kill a solid product

There’s nothing like good marketing to kill a bad idea. The opposite can also be true.

Photo by CA Creative on Unsplash

It’s the afternoon. Wicker, garish floral print, and leafy green plants dominate your view. Four old ladies in bathrobes lounge in their living room. Three have come down with a case of the flu. 

In stuffed sentences, they discuss medicine, doctors, and home remedies.

“In Sicily, we never went to the doctor,” shares Sofia, the fourth and oldest lady, who managed to avoid the flu. “We went to the Widow Caravelli. Whatever you had, she had a cure.”

As it turns out, the Widow Caravelli was most famous for her cure for ear infections.

One patient named Salvadore misunderstood her directions and put the green-colored salve on his linguine instead of in his ear.

According to Sofia, the stuff tasted great, and Salvadore decided to market it. At first, things didn't go so well. “Linguine with Ear Salve on a menu doesn’t look too appetizing. But once he changed the name to pesto sauce, it moved like hotcakes.”

I was told once there’s nothing like good marketing to kil…