Are You Going To Be A Victim Of Banana Marketing?

How focused is your marketing.  Like a laser?  Only running with what has worked in the past?

Has your creative started to look more like a banana than a bouquet? Sure everyone knows it’s you – but is that good?

Have you defined your product category so well that you’re about to be swamped by a game changing event?

A lack of diversity in marketing or product development can create an ecosystem that leaves you at serious risk.

Consider the poor banana…. The Cavenagh is by every business measure the most successful banana in the world. Where bananas are shipped and not grown, it has held a monopoly since replacing it’s ill fated predecessor the Gros Micheal. And every Cavenagh you eat today is genetically identical to the one you ate yesterday.  There is no bio-diversity.

There are many types of bananas in the world, but the Cavenagh was elected the chosen one due to its unique ripening and taste characteristics.  (In other words it worked better than any banana other than the Gros Micheal, which got wiped out a generation ago.)

Bananas are among the most popular purchases at the grocery.  They seem to be everywhere.

And now a blight is in the process of wiping the cavanagh out.  Scientists and growers have started working on a replacement, but they are behind. Time is running out.

Could a more bio-diverse methodology saved the Cavenagh or the banana industry? Not sure, but the odds would have been better.

Have you put consistency ahead of ingenuity when it comes to your marketing tactics and creative execution?  Time to think of diversity as a tactic that will help prevent you from being competitively flanked.

(Want to go Banana Crazy – Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World is a fun read)

UPDATE: Link corrected.