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- [00:00]
A
You know, we just got a big RV and are doing a big, like month long road trip this weekend. My task is like, build a little mini office inside my rv. I'm going to screw this mic arm into the table. I'm going to.
- [00:12]
B
You have to have it build it out. Like your whole entire income comes from that. But also if you don't have workspace, I've noticed you like your habit slide. You have to have an office. Otherwise I just get lazy.
- [00:24]
A
Yeah.
- [00:25]
B
I'm like sitting at my kitchen table. I don't work nearly as often.
- [00:28]
A
Yeah. So.
- [00:29]
B
Yeah. Hey, are you ready?
- [00:31]
A
Yeah. What are we talking about today?
- [00:33]
B
Oh, we're gonna do another historical breakdown.
- [00:36]
A
I love these.
- [00:37]
B
We haven't done one in a long.
- [00:38]
A
Can I guess what it's about?
- [00:40]
B
Yes. Okay.
- [00:41]
A
Because I, I had a thought coming out of the shower the other day. It's not weird. Don't worry.
- [00:45]
B
Shower thoughts are the best. Though.
- [00:48]
A
I had a thought there about Q tips because. Q tips.
- [00:52]
B
Oh, I'm writing that down.
- [00:53]
A
Say that you're not supposed to clean your ears with them.
- [00:57]
B
Yes.
- [00:58]
A
That's like their official stance.
- [01:00]
B
Yeah.
- [01:00]
A
And I'm like, well, then why do they exist? And I just, I know there's a story behind it. I want you, because I don't prep for the show. I want you to go do the research, figure out what happened with qtips. And then I'd be super interested to know, like, what are they doing marketing wise? These days? Are they doing anything or are they just cvs?
- [01:20]
B
That would be so interesting. Because seriously, like, if not like for cleaning here, why you?
- [01:25]
A
Yeah, if don't go in here, then. Yeah, why, why, why in my bathroom
- [01:29]
B
perfectly shaped for this? That's a good one. It is not today's stuff. It's not Q tips, but Q tips. Okay, we'll put that down. I'll go find out what happened with Q tips and what's happening. Somebody check out Q tips. We'll figure out if she's doing okay. This one though, I. I truly think that I found one of the oldest examples of influencer marketing.
- [01:50]
A
Oh, okay.
- [01:50]
B
And this one is making me want to buy pickles. And there's a distinct reason why. Yes, that is a manufactured hook. But is it.
- [02:00]
A
What's the pickle company Heinz like?
- [02:03]
B
Heinz pickles?
- [02:04]
A
Heinz makes pickles? I thought they make ketchup.
- [02:07]
B
Are you cheating? Oh, we gotta get into this.
- [02:10]
A
Okay, wait, so wait, when someone says Heinz, you think pickles before ketchup?
- [02:15]
B
You don't.
- [02:16]
A
Guys, in the comments, please Let Sarah know. I don't know if this is an age gap thing because she's pushing 40
- [02:21]
B
or what you're about to be.
- [02:23]
A
Heinz is ketchup.
- [02:24]
B
Yep. I'm gonna hand it to you because this is really interesting that you think ketchup. Because I'm like, one. I'm a little embarrassed for you as a marketer that you don't know this story. But also, this is gonna be fascinating because Heinz has not always done ketchup. People, okay, they are well known for ketchup, but they have not always done ketchup. So. So here we go. Year is 1893. We are in Chicago at the World's Columbian Exposition. Do you know anything about or what that is or have you heard of,
- [02:51]
A
like, the World Fair? I've heard it called World's Fair.
- [02:54]
B
Yes. No, Chicago World's Fair. This was a fair that was held in Chicago from May 1 to October 30. So it was a freaking big, long fair. This one lasted six months.
- [03:04]
A
They, like built buildings for it and.
- [03:06]
B
Oh, my God, I had no idea. This is crazy. Crazy. 46 countries were involved. This was where the very first Ferris wheel came into play. Like all kinds of different things. More than 27 million admissions. 27 million people back then, back then came to this fair just to see what it was about. Crazy. On a single day in October, three quarters of a million people walked through the gates at one point. So this big, big. Okay, this World Expo was really interesting because.
- [03:34]
A
Because if you want five Morgan Wallen concerts, that's how I measure crowds of people, by the way.
- [03:41]
B
I was gonna say, does Morgan Wallen, like, command that kind of audience? That's crazy. So if you were a company in 1893, a booth here was the single best distribution moment, opportunity on earth. You couldn't get better than the World's Fair. Our guy, this one little random dude, was a pickle and condiment maker out of Pittsburgh named Henry Hines.
- [04:03]
A
Henry Hines, of course. That's such an 1893 name.
- [04:08]
B
It's such a pickle manufacturer name. I freaking love it. I'm like, I wish I knew this guy. This poor guy. Poor little Henry Hines out of Pittsburgh selling his pickle and condiments. Got the worst booth at the entire fair. He was on the second floor, upper gallery of the agricultural.
- [04:25]
A
And this is before escalators existed, I'm assuming.
- [04:28]
B
Oh, my God. Can you imagine? He's also in the worst state smelling building on the property. He's in the Ag Building. Like, have you ever been to A yes to, like, a county fair. And there's that building. And it's just cow.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah, it's just cow and allergies so bad.
- [04:44]
B
So the stuff that everybody wanted, like, the stuff that people were actually seeking out, was the foreign food exhibit, right? So that was all the way downstairs on the ground floor. People were wandering in, just looked around, basically, like, jetted over to the foreign food exhibit bit and then left. Almost nobody was climbing stairs. Hines paid for a spot at the biggest event in the world and basically got stuck in the attic, which I was like, poor little guy. So if you can't move as a marketer, what are you supposed to do? Right? I find this so relatable because I'm like, we can't move. I can't get off of Meta, right? Like, I can't not be on TikTok. I can't not be on Instagram. We're stuck in these particular platforms, can't do anything. So here's what he did. Obviously, in 2026, the answer would be spend more. But this guy did not. He didn't want to buy a better spot. He actually did something like opposite of what most marketers think of. He printed thousands of these little teeny, tiny cards, hired a bunch of local kids to scatter them on the ground. Literally just printed a bunch of cards. They handed them out to poor child laborers. That's just that. Go dust these all over the ground. Don't hand them to people. Just put them on the ground. So they were on the ground floor at the midway, everywhere. Every single card promised a free souvenir if you came up to the Heinz booth to claim it. So this is the first.
- [06:03]
A
I like it.
- [06:04]
B
Free example.
- [06:05]
A
This is like a free plus shipping lead gen offer.
- [06:08]
B
Yes, Free plus shipping gen offer with micro influencers. Kids.
- [06:13]
A
Yeah. They.
- [06:14]
B
He didn't send adults out, which I would love to stop and talk about. Like, he did not ask.
- [06:19]
A
I feel like 1893 was probably the pinnacle of child labor. The golden age of child labor, some would say.
- [06:27]
B
This is not legal anymore. Don't do this.
- [06:30]
A
No, but. But I do think it's important that, like, his. His chosen placement, if we can call that an ad placement. Yeah. Was unique and cheaper than other placements. Like, this is how I kind of felt about, like, sponsoring YouTube creators eight years ago. It's like, all right, this is, like, a relatively immature placement. These creators don't know what they're worth yet. The views are great. It's cheap for us to get, and, like, it's going to be impactful because not many brands are doing it. That's what. That's what he did.
- [07:04]
B
Yep. Yeah. He 100% just like took something that was super simple and just was like, how do I get people up here? I have to make it incentivized. Right. You can't just like assume that people are going to do whatever you want to do. So he gave them an incentive to give up there. Do you want to see what it was that he was giving away? Because.
- [07:19]
A
Yeah, would love to see.
- [07:21]
B
So bad. This is what it was. It was a tiny little bin. I love this story so bitterly much.
- [07:29]
A
And you should buy that, by the way. That's only 40 bucks.
- [07:31]
B
I'm gonna freaking buy it because I need that stair.
- [07:34]
A
That's a cool little piece of marketing history.
- [07:37]
B
The interesting thing was it's early plastic resin. It was not metal. It was basically the same stuff they used for dental filings and wire insulation. It was like rubber.
- [07:46]
A
Probably felt like futuristic at the time.
- [07:48]
B
All people were probably like, look at this for a crazy thing. It was a little green hinds pickle with a hook that you could like wear.
- [07:55]
A
It's super interesting. Okay, so couple things. Red Bull did something similar, I believe, a couple decades ago. I think they filled up trash cans with empty Red Bull cans.
- [08:07]
B
Oh, yes, I remember this story.
- [08:09]
A
I think it was them. It might have been monster, but I'm like 80 sure it was red Bull. But that was their way of like trying to prove, like proof of concept. Basically was showing people, like, look, hey, these are empty. That means someone drank them.
- [08:23]
B
Someone drank them. And there's a lot of them. Like, it filled up. They filled it all the way to the top with these empty kids. Such a smart marketing move. If you can even, like allude to the fact that a lot of people are doing this. Apple has done it. Heinz has done it. Freaking Red Bull's at like. If you can just kind of allude to the fact that a lot of people are doing this without having to say it. Like, this is why I'm like, critical key, guys. If you're walking around at the World's fair and there's 27 million of you walking around and half of you have pickle pins. You don't think that you would stop somebody and be like, where the hell are these pickle paints coming from? 100. Well, and that was like the key of it. Yeah, go ahead.
- [09:02]
A
And what I love about this placement choice too, is that like, this would. This would have been more effective than handing someone pamphlets because the minute you're handing it to someone, they know it's a sale. Like, they know it's a strategy. If you find something on the ground that's essentially a golden ticket to win something free, you're going to feel like you're getting away with one. You're going to feel like, I didn't earn this, but, like, I like sneaky. Got this.
- [09:25]
B
Mm.
- [09:25]
A
And I better take advantage of it. Cause, like, it must be good if no one's handing them out.
- [09:30]
B
And we've talked about this in several episodes where there have been specific marketing tactics on this psychology, which is just like, if it's not meant for you and you just randomly get it, you feel a lot more like you're lucky. Right. So you got something that was just meant for you type of thing, even though it wasn't meant for you. One of the last things I think I want to touch on here is the fact that it wasn't meant to go in your pocket. He was really smart and he put a hook on it that when they were actually giving this way, I guess at the World's Fair, they had it pinned so you could actually just like, use a. I don't know, like a safety pin or whatever and stick it on your shirt and wear it out of the building. And that was the only reason why it took off.
- [10:07]
A
Yeah.
- [10:07]
B
The numbers on this are absolutely crazy. So people climb these stairs to play them the surprise. So many of them were were going up to get this rubber pickle that. That the police had to be called in to manage. Crowd that were trying to get the fiddle. The commotion was so bad that it got written up in the New York Times as like, Wyatt basically.
- [10:30]
A
Yes.
- [10:30]
B
People were like, give me pimples.
- [10:32]
A
Free PR off of creative marketing placements. That's what we love.
- [10:36]
B
Free frickin PR. Heinz had given away 1 million pickle pins by the end of this entire.
- [10:41]
A
And by the way, pr, when it probably meant a whole lot.
- [10:45]
B
If you got written up in the newspaper, then you were big business. Like, you're get ready. You're about to become the next whatever.
- [10:52]
A
Like, especially. Yeah, I mean, like the New York Times paper before they were the failing New York Times.
- [11:00]
B
Jesus.
- [11:01]
A
Like, about the World's Fair was probably like super bowl ad level back then.
- [11:06]
B
Super Bowl. I mean, this was literally the epit. The epitome of just like getting everybody to talk about you, an entire nation. Like, you are the most interesting person in the world. Yep. And the nice part is it had longevity. As soon as they got it Pinned it, took it home. Now it's sitting somewhere in their house and also doing work.
- [11:25]
A
Well, I was going to say because of what a pickle is, like, it's a crunchy, salty snack. Every time you see one, you're going to be. I could go for one of those right now.
- [11:35]
B
And this is why I'm like, oh,
- [11:36]
A
it's the billboard that just keeps on selling.
- [11:39]
B
Oh, Heinz equals ketchup. Now we get. We need to do another episode on how all of a sudden Hines went from selling pickles to selling.
- [11:47]
A
Yeah, I do want to come back to that. But first, free consulting time for me. I'm going to take shooting doubles to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this fall.
- [11:58]
B
Well, that's going to be so good. Okay, okay.
- [11:59]
A
I want to do something like this. What do I do?
- [12:02]
B
Ooh, okay.
- [12:03]
A
Do I drop a bunch of shit for free hats?
- [12:06]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [12:07]
A
To come by the booth or free whiskey to come by the booth. That's probably what I.
- [12:10]
B
What's your ultimate goal? What are you optimizing for what?
- [12:13]
A
Awareness, essentially, impressions. I want to get hats on people.
- [12:18]
B
Okay, so you're going long term. It's not like you want to sell out your booth that day. Okay, no, whatever it is.
- [12:22]
A
I mean, that'd be cool, but like.
- [12:24]
B
Yeah, see, well, and that's, that's where we kind of need to like, go it back into the story. Because Heinz didn't expect that people were going to come buy pickles.
- [12:31]
A
Right?
- [12:31]
B
That was not the point. The point was I want people to know that I exist forever, not just at this point.
- [12:37]
A
So I'm down to like, give away like 500 hats.
- [12:40]
B
To be honest, I don't know that I would give away hats.
- [12:44]
A
Okay.
- [12:45]
B
It needs to be something small, lightweight, and odd. We've done another episode on this. I hope I can find all these episodes that I'm referencing. Do you remember that episode that we did on the fact that, like, sometimes odd or weird things that you couple with the brand makes you seem more cool? Right.
- [13:00]
A
I remember.
- [13:01]
B
And it should be dumb stuff. It should be like chicken shoes or
- [13:04]
A
like, I think we came up with like fortune cookies for a brand and
- [13:07]
B
like, yeah, fortune cookies. Go get your fortune cookies. This is a fantastic way to get people to come is like, figure out your fortune. Right? Like, what's in it for you type of thing. Come get a fortune cookie. Because it's not supposed to be very valuable. It's supposed to be interesting and fun and small. Yeah, go get those, like, whiskey themed fortune cookies.
- [13:28]
A
I like that. And every One of you is like, I see seven shots of whiskey in your future.
- [13:34]
B
Butcher cookies are cheap to produce. I can't imagine they're going to be very expensive for you to buy. And if they're all whiskey themed, people will come just because it's gamified. That's the reason why they came over here is because it was gamified. It was like, I have a ticket. I give it to you, you give me something in return.
- [13:48]
A
I like it. Now all I need is an army of kids to do my work for me and we'll be. We'll be in business.
- [13:53]
B
I mean, if you got an army of kids, that also, by the way,
- [13:58]
A
he definitely just used kids because they
- [13:59]
B
were cheap, because they. He probably didn't pay them. I'm assuming it's just like, kids go out there and do it. So the last little bit of this that I want to talk about is something that I've been mulling over for a very long time, which is the fact that I think marketers think marketing is fishing when it is not. Marketing is hunting. Hunting.
- [14:18]
A
Okay.
- [14:19]
B
It's not fishing. It is hunting.
- [14:20]
A
Okay. By the way, I love you coming up with South Carolina Redneck.
- [14:25]
B
I mean, I did a few things.
- [14:28]
A
Explain that to me because that's super interesting. Because I don't know if I'd agree with that right off the bat.
- [14:32]
B
Oh, I think we focus way too much on passive bait. Focused injections of cash.
- [14:40]
A
Okay.
- [14:41]
B
In marketing. This. What this man did is not passive at all. He specifically used bait. Yes. However, his goal was to get people to come to him, not go to them and wait till they bite. This is the reason why I'm like, the fishing versus hunting thing. I'm like, you're still using the same bait.
- [15:01]
A
Was going to say, because we're allowed to use bait to hunt in South Car Carolina. So we plant a bunch of.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah.
- [15:06]
A
Grass and throw apples and corn out there, and then we sit in the tree and wait.
- [15:10]
B
Now, depending on what state you're in, somebody's going to come at me and be like, well, you can't do it.
- [15:13]
A
You're not allowed to bake in our state. Yeah, your state hates freedom.
- [15:17]
B
You get what I'm saying, though? Hunting is not passive. You're doing something when you fish, you stick a thing on the hook, you throw it out there, you hook to God for the best. Some days you get something.
- [15:27]
A
Most st. Yeah, you're going at the fish hunting, waiting the. For the deer to come to you.
- [15:31]
B
I don't think we generate Enough reasons for anyone to come near us. I think we actually do the opposite.
- [15:38]
A
Yeah, that's a bar. Every. Every piece of marketing we put out is, like, very hardcore, coded as, like, hey, we're coming after you. Like, we are. We are the chasers. And we shouldn't be. We should be the. The.
- [15:54]
B
No, because I. Oh, and this works everywhere in dating with your kids, with your spouse. Like, nobody wants to just, like, be constantly harassed to come do something for me.
- [16:04]
A
Yeah. I mean, at its core, it's the difference between, like, selling and marketing.
- [16:10]
B
Oh, thank you.
- [16:10]
A
Like, fishing is serious. Fishing is like, hey, fish, look, we're here. Here's this lore. Check it out.
- [16:16]
B
Yeah.
- [16:17]
A
Marketing is like, damn, isn't this nice Clearing in the forest full of apples and corn. Come on, dear.
- [16:24]
B
You do it. You though, like, if you want to come and hang out in our little field, you can. And the deer's like, absolutely. We are not doing the things that we should be doing. We are optimizing constantly for a very passive, like, oh, no, I don't. I can't do anything about it. It's meta. No, you're just boring.
- [16:42]
A
I heard a great analogy the other day. I was like, if we pretended all Ecom stores were. Were like strip mall locations, all of us are just focused on hiring the best sign twirler to stand out on the street instead of just building, like, a sick store, instead of just building something where people come in and enjoy themselves and spend their money, we're like, what if we added an 11th sign twirler to sand stand out front? It's like, oh, probably not like, back
- [17:14]
B
to back to back on the same exact street that all of our competitors twirl.
- [17:18]
A
Like, oh, this guy can do cartwheels. Let's get him. He's a better sign twirler. It's like, all right, let's build a dope store analogy.
- [17:24]
B
I'm dying. All this to be said, people. I. I mean, and we'll probably do more episodes on how. How you're supposed to do that. I'm not trying to give you the whole how in this particular episode. All I'm trying to say is, like, yeah, we got to keep a freaking, like, rubber made, like, washer focus, kind of silicone ish. Pickle. And told people, I'm not even asking you to buy. Just come on in here. You want a weird little pin pickle? I got it. And they were like, yes, pin pickle. Humans are real simple guys, okay? They don't need a whole lot of motivation to do things. You're stunting your own creativity by optimizing for a passive sales focus ecosystem. And I'm kind of done.
- [18:05]
A
Bang. Let's end it there. But let's do another episode on how you think Heinz is pickled and I think that joke because I think you are in this vast minority.
- [18:14]
B
We will do a whole episode on how they migrated from the coast to ketchup. But yeah, that's interesting too.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah. Thanks so much for listening to Brain Driven Brands. If you want to work with either me or Sarah, hit us up on Twitter. Although I'll spoiler alert. My thoughts are on the waitlist of August. Now you are going to wait. If you want to get on that wait list, let me know. Sarah handles her business better, has more optimized systems in place so she can take on new clients currently. But thanks so much for listening to Brain Driven Brands. We will see you next week.
- [18:45]
B
Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm Sarah Levenger. Anywhere you consume content, he is at Nate Lagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you.
- [19:04]
A
It.