Captain James Cook is most known as an avid navigator of boats, but in a book I’m reading (well, listening to on audible), it seems as though he was quite the marketer, too.
In his early years, Captain Cook brought fermented German Cabbage with him on one of his long trips as an innovative way to fight scurvy.
The book notes that he knew it was going to be “a tall task” to get his sailors to eat this not-so-popular, weird, stinky food – mainly because scurvy is a long-term issue and not something you try to solve after you get it.
So, Captain Cook exercised his EQ & knowledge of the power of status roles:
- For the first 2 weeks of the voyage, only the captain and the officers were allowed to eat Sauerkraut.
- And then every else followed.
Demand creation through status roles seems to have a very long history – and it still works VERY well.
