Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
When Life Gives You Lemons, Squeeze Them For All Their Worth.
Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
WRITTEN BY
Updated on: April 4th, 2024
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
10 minute read
The Fall of the House of Usher’s iconic dialogue about how you make lemonade in the 21st century is a prime example of how the biggest businesses approach an idea. You see something that has potential, you immediately want to make the most of it. Although they take a few steps further…
"Roderick Usher: When life hands you lemons-
Auguste Dupin: make lemonade?
Usher: No. First, you roll out a multi-media campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply, then a media blitz. Lemon is the only way to say “I love you,” the must-have accessory for engagements or anniversaries.
Roses are out, lemons are in. Billboards that say she won’t have sex with you unless you got lemons. You cut De Beers in on it. Limited edition lemon bracelets, yellow diamonds called lemon drops. You get Apple to call their new operating system OS-Lemón.
A little accent over the “o.” You charge 40% more for organic lemons, 50% more for conflict-free lemons. You pack the Capitol with lemon lobbyists, you get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape. Timotheé Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes.
Get a hashtag campaign. Something isn’t “cool” or “tight” or “awesome,” no, it’s “lemon.” “Did you see that movie? Did you see that concert? It was effing lemon.” Billie Eilish, “OMG, hashtag… lemon.” You get Dr. Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement to get rid of toxins ‘cause there’s nothing scarier than toxins.
Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes the lemons look just a little more like tits… and you get a gene patent for the tit-lemon DNA sequence, you cross-pollinate… you get those seeds circulating in the wild, and then you sue the farmer for copyright infringement when that genetic code shows up on their land.
Sit back, rake in the millions, and then, when you’re done, and you’ve sold your lem-pire for a few billion dollars, then, and only then, you make some fucking lemonade.
This excerpt resonates with almost everyone on an existential level as it manages to explain the dystopian but true side of how ‘successful’ corporations and at large, markets have operated around the world.
Before influencer marketing, corporations figured out a way to influence markets on a global scale. They created a need that wasn’t there. Simultaneously, they also introduced a supply of their solution in the form of a brand that infiltrated not just the lives, but even managed to become a part of the target market’s language and culture.
For reference, just look at how diamonds became a thing or the research on disease mongering that shows how pharmaceutical companies create diseases, sell the idea to the people and then offer cures for them with a placebo if not some other medication.
Although some corporations take it too far, the idea behind every successful product launch and consequent marketing has been simple.
Make It a Need
Control the Supply and Monopolize
Become a Brand
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
Make It a Need
Although simple, milking everything for what it’s worth by making it the most essential part of everyone’s lives can be tricky. But it does make one thing clear; whatever your product is, if you’re not highlighting the problems it can solve, you’re not marketing it right.
From conceptualizing to marketing your product, like a lemon, you have to think about the bigger picture in order to understand your audience and let people know what your product is about. Rather than highlighting benefits separately, successful brands go about highlighting problems that their consumers are facing.
In fact, some top-tier brands have even had success in directing people to think that their current problems are not how they think them to be, but instead, they’re related closely with the product that the brand offers.
The more problems you can highlight, the better chances you have of reaching bigger audiences. Even though there are some advantages to restricting yourself to a specific audience in the beginning, you are limiting the scope of your business. Everyone can be your target audience.
Big brands like Amazon or Apple don’t target a particular audience. And even if your brand’s still experiencing success in niche specific markets, expansion is always on the table. Look at how Porsche is offering subscriptions to cater to far more audiences in other economic classes than before.
Control the Supply and Monopolize
If you can’t stockpile lemons, at least make sure nobody is offering what you offer. Making yourself unique is one sure way to eliminate competition. This puts you in control of the supply. Assuming you’ve made it past step one, controlling the supply affords you the opportunity to create a monopoly.
Roderick Usher’s dialogue points to being in full control of the supply and obviously, if you can, you’d go for the patent infringement route. The recent suit filed by Nintendo against emulator provider Yuzu is a good example of how companies protect their monopolies.
The AAA game developing studio found Tropic Haze’s Switch emulator, Yuzu, to be ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’ and therefore sued them, settling for a $2.4 Million fine, forcing the company to close out of bankruptcy.
For other companies, such as those in the tech industry, a good direction to look at is the ride-hailing niche. Uber monopolized the market and let its competitors’ drawbacks drive more customers towards their quality.
Although you only worry about doing something about your competition once you have established your monopoly, it’s something that you need to plan ahead for.
Becoming a Brand
Rather than just going to market, think about the best ways to infiltrate it. Establishing your brand name as part of your audience’s lingo is one sure way to do it.
“Google it!” (instead of saying, let’s browse the web or use a web search engine)
“Get a Band-Aid! Quick!” (instead of saying bandage, plaster or gauze)
“I’ll leave a Post-it” (instead of saying memo or a note)
“I need a Chapstick” (instead of saying lip balm)
These are known as generic trademarks or proprietary eponyms and are the envisioned goal of any brand as it starts out. Becoming a part of everyday language, getting people to adjust the brand name as a verb or replacing generic words for the product category is what every brand aspires to.
(Fun fact: You’d be surprised at how many people used to refer to operating systems in general as Windows.)
Of course, becoming this huge isn’t an everyday story and you can’t just get there that soon, especially in today’s market. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying.
Pick a market. If you can’t offer a unique solution, offer something better than what’s already there. Combine products to make a bigger deal or try to offer a much better customer support.
A dog food company, The Farmer’s Dog outsmarted its competitors just by offering a personalized packaging option, giving customers the ability to have their pet’s name on the package. Others took the idea and offered a way to add a picture as well.
Similarly, internet companies and even famous SaaS providers have had churning clients that moved to their competition simply because they were lacking in providing quality support.
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
To put it in business terms, you need to maximize your customer lifetime value (CLV) before you can be completely satisfied with your business model. Cross selling and upselling are easy. Think bigger. Go for affiliate marketing. Better yet, you can use your existing traffic for almost anything. Literally.
All the biggest companies like Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nestle, Huawei and others started out as something specific but then evolved into conglomerates that now dominate several different industries with a variety of offerings.
Even now, they invest in R&D and launch a large variety of products and services, trying out several approaches and ideas. Many of these fail, and are discontinued accordingly but even if one sticks out as a minor success, it’s doubled down upon until it becomes the next biggest thing.
And even when they’re not the best in each space they exist in, they certainly end up picking a significant market share in each domain. They’re using their existing brand image and consumer base to reap profits in any category they can.
And Only Then
Should you make lemonade. To sell or not to sell out later on to rake in the billions is a different decision in each case. And in a world close to having trillionaires, many are starting their journey to the first million.
And an agency like FOR is ready to help everyone reach the ceiling because we’d like to be there to see you break it! Call us, and let’s make some lemonade!
Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
When Life Gives You Lemons, Squeeze Them For All Their Worth.
Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
WRITTEN BY
Updated on: April 4th, 2024
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
10 minute read
The Fall of the House of Usher’s iconic dialogue about how you make lemonade in the 21st century is a prime example of how the biggest businesses approach an idea. You see something that has potential, you immediately want to make the most of it. Although they take a few steps further…
"Roderick Usher: When life hands you lemons-
Auguste Dupin: make lemonade?
Usher: No. First, you roll out a multi-media campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply, then a media blitz. Lemon is the only way to say “I love you,” the must-have accessory for engagements or anniversaries.
Roses are out, lemons are in. Billboards that say she won’t have sex with you unless you got lemons. You cut De Beers in on it. Limited edition lemon bracelets, yellow diamonds called lemon drops. You get Apple to call their new operating system OS-Lemón.
A little accent over the “o.” You charge 40% more for organic lemons, 50% more for conflict-free lemons. You pack the Capitol with lemon lobbyists, you get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape. Timotheé Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes.
Get a hashtag campaign. Something isn’t “cool” or “tight” or “awesome,” no, it’s “lemon.” “Did you see that movie? Did you see that concert? It was effing lemon.” Billie Eilish, “OMG, hashtag… lemon.” You get Dr. Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement to get rid of toxins ‘cause there’s nothing scarier than toxins.
Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes the lemons look just a little more like tits… and you get a gene patent for the tit-lemon DNA sequence, you cross-pollinate… you get those seeds circulating in the wild, and then you sue the farmer for copyright infringement when that genetic code shows up on their land.
Sit back, rake in the millions, and then, when you’re done, and you’ve sold your lem-pire for a few billion dollars, then, and only then, you make some fucking lemonade.
This excerpt resonates with almost everyone on an existential level as it manages to explain the dystopian but true side of how ‘successful’ corporations and at large, markets have operated around the world.
Before influencer marketing, corporations figured out a way to influence markets on a global scale. They created a need that wasn’t there. Simultaneously, they also introduced a supply of their solution in the form of a brand that infiltrated not just the lives, but even managed to become a part of the target market’s language and culture.
For reference, just look at how diamonds became a thing or the research on disease mongering that shows how pharmaceutical companies create diseases, sell the idea to the people and then offer cures for them with a placebo if not some other medication.
Although some corporations take it too far, the idea behind every successful product launch and consequent marketing has been simple.
Make It a Need
Control the Supply and Monopolize
Become a Brand
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
Make It a Need
Although simple, milking everything for what it’s worth by making it the most essential part of everyone’s lives can be tricky. But it does make one thing clear; whatever your product is, if you’re not highlighting the problems it can solve, you’re not marketing it right.
From conceptualizing to marketing your product, like a lemon, you have to think about the bigger picture in order to understand your audience and let people know what your product is about. Rather than highlighting benefits separately, successful brands go about highlighting problems that their consumers are facing.
In fact, some top-tier brands have even had success in directing people to think that their current problems are not how they think them to be, but instead, they’re related closely with the product that the brand offers.
The more problems you can highlight, the better chances you have of reaching bigger audiences. Even though there are some advantages to restricting yourself to a specific audience in the beginning, you are limiting the scope of your business. Everyone can be your target audience.
Big brands like Amazon or Apple don’t target a particular audience. And even if your brand’s still experiencing success in niche specific markets, expansion is always on the table. Look at how Porsche is offering subscriptions to cater to far more audiences in other economic classes than before.
Control the Supply and Monopolize
If you can’t stockpile lemons, at least make sure nobody is offering what you offer. Making yourself unique is one sure way to eliminate competition. This puts you in control of the supply. Assuming you’ve made it past step one, controlling the supply affords you the opportunity to create a monopoly.
Roderick Usher’s dialogue points to being in full control of the supply and obviously, if you can, you’d go for the patent infringement route. The recent suit filed by Nintendo against emulator provider Yuzu is a good example of how companies protect their monopolies.
The AAA game developing studio found Tropic Haze’s Switch emulator, Yuzu, to be ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’ and therefore sued them, settling for a $2.4 Million fine, forcing the company to close out of bankruptcy.
For other companies, such as those in the tech industry, a good direction to look at is the ride-hailing niche. Uber monopolized the market and let its competitors’ drawbacks drive more customers towards their quality.
Although you only worry about doing something about your competition once you have established your monopoly, it’s something that you need to plan ahead for.
Becoming a Brand
Rather than just going to market, think about the best ways to infiltrate it. Establishing your brand name as part of your audience’s lingo is one sure way to do it.
“Google it!” (instead of saying, let’s browse the web or use a web search engine)
“Get a Band-Aid! Quick!” (instead of saying bandage, plaster or gauze)
“I’ll leave a Post-it” (instead of saying memo or a note)
“I need a Chapstick” (instead of saying lip balm)
These are known as generic trademarks or proprietary eponyms and are the envisioned goal of any brand as it starts out. Becoming a part of everyday language, getting people to adjust the brand name as a verb or replacing generic words for the product category is what every brand aspires to.
(Fun fact: You’d be surprised at how many people used to refer to operating systems in general as Windows.)
Of course, becoming this huge isn’t an everyday story and you can’t just get there that soon, especially in today’s market. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying.
Pick a market. If you can’t offer a unique solution, offer something better than what’s already there. Combine products to make a bigger deal or try to offer a much better customer support.
A dog food company, The Farmer’s Dog outsmarted its competitors just by offering a personalized packaging option, giving customers the ability to have their pet’s name on the package. Others took the idea and offered a way to add a picture as well.
Similarly, internet companies and even famous SaaS providers have had churning clients that moved to their competition simply because they were lacking in providing quality support.
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
To put it in business terms, you need to maximize your customer lifetime value (CLV) before you can be completely satisfied with your business model. Cross selling and upselling are easy. Think bigger. Go for affiliate marketing. Better yet, you can use your existing traffic for almost anything. Literally.
All the biggest companies like Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nestle, Huawei and others started out as something specific but then evolved into conglomerates that now dominate several different industries with a variety of offerings.
Even now, they invest in R&D and launch a large variety of products and services, trying out several approaches and ideas. Many of these fail, and are discontinued accordingly but even if one sticks out as a minor success, it’s doubled down upon until it becomes the next biggest thing.
And even when they’re not the best in each space they exist in, they certainly end up picking a significant market share in each domain. They’re using their existing brand image and consumer base to reap profits in any category they can.
And Only Then
Should you make lemonade. To sell or not to sell out later on to rake in the billions is a different decision in each case. And in a world close to having trillionaires, many are starting their journey to the first million.
And an agency like FOR is ready to help everyone reach the ceiling because we’d like to be there to see you break it! Call us, and let’s make some lemonade!
Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
When Life Gives You Lemons, Squeeze Them For All Their Worth.
Business Design
Brand Strategy
Lemons
eCommerce
Leadership
WRITTEN BY
Updated on: April 4th, 2024
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
10 minute read
The Fall of the House of Usher’s iconic dialogue about how you make lemonade in the 21st century is a prime example of how the biggest businesses approach an idea. You see something that has potential, you immediately want to make the most of it. Although they take a few steps further…
"Roderick Usher: When life hands you lemons-
Auguste Dupin: make lemonade?
Usher: No. First, you roll out a multi-media campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply, then a media blitz. Lemon is the only way to say “I love you,” the must-have accessory for engagements or anniversaries.
Roses are out, lemons are in. Billboards that say she won’t have sex with you unless you got lemons. You cut De Beers in on it. Limited edition lemon bracelets, yellow diamonds called lemon drops. You get Apple to call their new operating system OS-Lemón.
A little accent over the “o.” You charge 40% more for organic lemons, 50% more for conflict-free lemons. You pack the Capitol with lemon lobbyists, you get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape. Timotheé Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes.
Get a hashtag campaign. Something isn’t “cool” or “tight” or “awesome,” no, it’s “lemon.” “Did you see that movie? Did you see that concert? It was effing lemon.” Billie Eilish, “OMG, hashtag… lemon.” You get Dr. Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement to get rid of toxins ‘cause there’s nothing scarier than toxins.
Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes the lemons look just a little more like tits… and you get a gene patent for the tit-lemon DNA sequence, you cross-pollinate… you get those seeds circulating in the wild, and then you sue the farmer for copyright infringement when that genetic code shows up on their land.
Sit back, rake in the millions, and then, when you’re done, and you’ve sold your lem-pire for a few billion dollars, then, and only then, you make some fucking lemonade.
This excerpt resonates with almost everyone on an existential level as it manages to explain the dystopian but true side of how ‘successful’ corporations and at large, markets have operated around the world.
Before influencer marketing, corporations figured out a way to influence markets on a global scale. They created a need that wasn’t there. Simultaneously, they also introduced a supply of their solution in the form of a brand that infiltrated not just the lives, but even managed to become a part of the target market’s language and culture.
For reference, just look at how diamonds became a thing or the research on disease mongering that shows how pharmaceutical companies create diseases, sell the idea to the people and then offer cures for them with a placebo if not some other medication.
Although some corporations take it too far, the idea behind every successful product launch and consequent marketing has been simple.
Make It a Need
Control the Supply and Monopolize
Become a Brand
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
Make It a Need
Although simple, milking everything for what it’s worth by making it the most essential part of everyone’s lives can be tricky. But it does make one thing clear; whatever your product is, if you’re not highlighting the problems it can solve, you’re not marketing it right.
From conceptualizing to marketing your product, like a lemon, you have to think about the bigger picture in order to understand your audience and let people know what your product is about. Rather than highlighting benefits separately, successful brands go about highlighting problems that their consumers are facing.
In fact, some top-tier brands have even had success in directing people to think that their current problems are not how they think them to be, but instead, they’re related closely with the product that the brand offers.
The more problems you can highlight, the better chances you have of reaching bigger audiences. Even though there are some advantages to restricting yourself to a specific audience in the beginning, you are limiting the scope of your business. Everyone can be your target audience.
Big brands like Amazon or Apple don’t target a particular audience. And even if your brand’s still experiencing success in niche specific markets, expansion is always on the table. Look at how Porsche is offering subscriptions to cater to far more audiences in other economic classes than before.
Control the Supply and Monopolize
If you can’t stockpile lemons, at least make sure nobody is offering what you offer. Making yourself unique is one sure way to eliminate competition. This puts you in control of the supply. Assuming you’ve made it past step one, controlling the supply affords you the opportunity to create a monopoly.
Roderick Usher’s dialogue points to being in full control of the supply and obviously, if you can, you’d go for the patent infringement route. The recent suit filed by Nintendo against emulator provider Yuzu is a good example of how companies protect their monopolies.
The AAA game developing studio found Tropic Haze’s Switch emulator, Yuzu, to be ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’ and therefore sued them, settling for a $2.4 Million fine, forcing the company to close out of bankruptcy.
For other companies, such as those in the tech industry, a good direction to look at is the ride-hailing niche. Uber monopolized the market and let its competitors’ drawbacks drive more customers towards their quality.
Although you only worry about doing something about your competition once you have established your monopoly, it’s something that you need to plan ahead for.
Becoming a Brand
Rather than just going to market, think about the best ways to infiltrate it. Establishing your brand name as part of your audience’s lingo is one sure way to do it.
“Google it!” (instead of saying, let’s browse the web or use a web search engine)
“Get a Band-Aid! Quick!” (instead of saying bandage, plaster or gauze)
“I’ll leave a Post-it” (instead of saying memo or a note)
“I need a Chapstick” (instead of saying lip balm)
These are known as generic trademarks or proprietary eponyms and are the envisioned goal of any brand as it starts out. Becoming a part of everyday language, getting people to adjust the brand name as a verb or replacing generic words for the product category is what every brand aspires to.
(Fun fact: You’d be surprised at how many people used to refer to operating systems in general as Windows.)
Of course, becoming this huge isn’t an everyday story and you can’t just get there that soon, especially in today’s market. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying.
Pick a market. If you can’t offer a unique solution, offer something better than what’s already there. Combine products to make a bigger deal or try to offer a much better customer support.
A dog food company, The Farmer’s Dog outsmarted its competitors just by offering a personalized packaging option, giving customers the ability to have their pet’s name on the package. Others took the idea and offered a way to add a picture as well.
Similarly, internet companies and even famous SaaS providers have had churning clients that moved to their competition simply because they were lacking in providing quality support.
Squeeze Them for Their Worth
To put it in business terms, you need to maximize your customer lifetime value (CLV) before you can be completely satisfied with your business model. Cross selling and upselling are easy. Think bigger. Go for affiliate marketing. Better yet, you can use your existing traffic for almost anything. Literally.
All the biggest companies like Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nestle, Huawei and others started out as something specific but then evolved into conglomerates that now dominate several different industries with a variety of offerings.
Even now, they invest in R&D and launch a large variety of products and services, trying out several approaches and ideas. Many of these fail, and are discontinued accordingly but even if one sticks out as a minor success, it’s doubled down upon until it becomes the next biggest thing.
And even when they’re not the best in each space they exist in, they certainly end up picking a significant market share in each domain. They’re using their existing brand image and consumer base to reap profits in any category they can.
And Only Then
Should you make lemonade. To sell or not to sell out later on to rake in the billions is a different decision in each case. And in a world close to having trillionaires, many are starting their journey to the first million.
And an agency like FOR is ready to help everyone reach the ceiling because we’d like to be there to see you break it! Call us, and let’s make some lemonade!
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Copyright © 2024 FOR®
FOR® Growth
FOR® Digital
FOR® Brand
FOR® Studio
Work with us
Click to copy
work@for.co
Copyright © 2024 FOR®