Marketing in Russian
Petrovich! The technologist asked him in fright, nervously swallowing saliva. – Are you sure about this? Candy with fish?
– Not with you! Leonid patted him on the shoulder.
The technologist had been working with Leonid for too long, he knew what "not with you" meant in the mouth of the boss, and therefore silently went to do it.
Two days later, the prototypes were ready. Carrying them to the conference room for a meeting and wincing at the stench emanating from them, the technologist heard Leonid's voice from afar.
– Dudes, you don't get it! You just don't get it! The consumer already knows where the usual sweets are! Yes, everyone just ate too much of them! We need something fresh! Unusual! Breakthrough! Who ever said that candy should be sweet?
– Laziness, and maybe it's… test sales of some kind? Maybe we'll try, ask consumers?.. – the first deputy asked carefully.
Listen, Vasilich, have you read Ford? The one who invented the car? Haven't you read it? But I read it! And do you know what Ford wrote? That if he had asked the consumer, he would have asked him not for a Model T, but, b#@, a faster horse! If Steve Jobs, b#@, had asked the consumer, he would now be teaching yoga courses somewhere with hourly pay! In business, only the one who takes risks wins!
It was more expensive to argue with the inspired muse Leonid, because no one objected.
– Here it turned out, – the technologist was relieved to get rid of the samples, dumping them on the table. The participants of the meeting tried to move away from the smelly innovative product as imperceptibly as possible.
–Let's try it! Leonid encouraged everyone, and he was the first to put a fish candy in his cheek. Everyone looked at him in horror. Leonid frowned, paused, moved his cheeks, then turned to the technologist.
– What did you do? Leonid asked in a terrible voice. – What the fuck did you do?
– Well, as you asked, Petrovich, – the technologist, half-dead with horror, muttered. – Fish and some seafood, for the taste of…
Oh! Leonid raised his finger in the air. – A LITTLE! Keyword – «A LITTLE!How much did you put in?
– Well…
No, don't you feel that your shrimps have scored the whole taste of fish? Haven't you tried it yourself? Didn't you feel it? We have candy with what? WITH FISH! With FISH, not shrimp! Guys, do I have to think for everyone here? Do I have to decide everything for everyone? Understand marketing? In technology? In sales? What are you, you can't release elementary candies with fish yourself so that I don't have to interfere? Will I have to sell them later, too? Well, damn, there are so many of you here, why am I paying you a salary?..
Four months and four hundred samples later, candies in beautiful packaging imitating scales were placed on the shelves of local stores. To be sure, Leonid launched a video on a local TV channel in which a cute guy effectively seduced unapproachable beauties with fish candies. It was announced to the stunned sales managers that the innovative novelty should take 30% of their sales by the end of the quarter.
This is another gift for you, Leonid encouraged them. – They won't even need to be sold, they will fly away like hot cakes!
Half of the managers have updated their resumes. The second half was inclined to the idea of bringing down sales of the main product, so that shipments of fish delicacies went out by 30%.
Looking at the figures of shipments (in kg), which did not want to become three-digit in any way, Leonid turned black day by day. Then he began to go shopping during rush hours and noisily, with jokes and jokes, bought his stinking products in kilograms in order to inspire fellow citizens by personal example. Shipments (in kilograms) crept over the three-digit mark, but for the most part these sales rustled wrappers in the trunk of Leonid's SUV.
A difficult conversation took place between Leonid and the head of the sales department. Leonid suggested that tom choose either sweets or hellip, the head of the sales department was a good negotiator, it was not for nothing that he managed to get Lenin's sweets with sodium glutamate into a Magnet a year ago, but he also had to relieve stress in the evening with a bottle of Dagestan.
Leonid's gloomy attention turned to production. The wise technologist visionarily took a sick leave, and Leonid personally supervised the laboratory assistants who were glazed with horror. Leonid's alchemical experiments on the addition and removal of ingredients of varying degrees of odour did not have a significant impact on shipments, refunds went from stores. Leonid called the local retail owners "morons" and personally went to Moscow to negotiate with X5 Retail Group. "There, in Moscow, they understand what's what!»– Leonid edifiingly raised his index finger. However, after returning, he did not talk to anyone for a whole week and walked around the office blacker than a cloud. "Bar-r-wounds!» he muttered, addressing unknown to whom.
The company's employees prepared for the worst, but then Leonid's ebullient nature was captured by a new idea - cookies similar to chips.
Everyone loves cookies, right? – the rosy and active Leonid asked again in the meeting room. And they like chips, right? So, Leonid was noisily hitting the back of one hand on the palm of the other, – cookies in the form of chips will love for sure!
Since it was still not a fish, but a familiar cookie, the employees were silent in horror, afraid of scaring off Lenin's capricious muse, and hoped that the fish would be forgotten.
– By the way, where does it smell so fishy? Leonid turned his nose, and the employees turned to stone. – However, it does not matter. So, cookies in the form of chips!
There was a smell of fish in the meeting room because the technologist at that moment was just passing by the window in a gazelle full of rotten fish candies. He was taking them to the dump.