Are you smarter than a CMO? Are you even smarter than a 5th grader? Let’s find out.
Go back to grade 5 and imagine that on a hot summer day, you come up with the brilliant business plan of selling Gatorade. The day for the launch is Saturday and the temperature is expected to soar into the low 90’s (about 37 degrees C for us Canadians). The unfortunate thing is that you only have 2 hours available to do the actual selling. Being a prepared entrepreneur, you’ve scouted out your neighborhood and settled on two possible locations:
It just so happens that this Saturday, a marathon is being run and the finish line is at the end of your street ( which is a cul de sac) in a large park. You’ve approached the organizers of the run and, impressed with your business sense, they’ve made you an offer. You can make your Gatorade stand part of the official refreshment center at the finish line. But there’s a catch – the location depends on the amount of time you’re willing to commit to manning your stand. The more time you commit to, the closer you’ll be to the finish line.
The other location is at the other end of your street, where it feeds onto a busy boulevard. Here, traffic zooms by at 50 mph, as it’s one of the main feeder routes to the downtown core. Again, your intrepidness pays off. After approaching the city, they’ve agreed that you could place your stand on the side of the busy road.
So, let’s size up each opportunity. If you devote enough time (at least 45 minutes out of your two hours) to the marathon, the organizers are willing to give you the prime location right at the finish line. Approximately 400 runners will cross the finish line and will immediately look for something to drink. Yours would be the first booth they see and organizers tell you can reasonably expect about 30% of the runners to stop by.
On the busy roadside, about 40,000 drivers will go by in the 2 hours. Because they’re whizzing by, you know you have to build a large and impossible-to-miss sign which will take some time to put up and take down. Because of this, it doesn’t really make sense to go to the trouble unless you’re willing to stay at least an hour in this location. You really don’t know if anyone will stop for a Gatorade because you have no idea if any of them will be thirsty or running low on electrolytes.
So, on Saturday, where will you put your stand and how will you divide up the available 2 hours? If you wish, you can let me know by submitting a comment below. If not, just click on the following link and we’ll see if you passed the
5 minute 5th grader Gatorade CMO Test.