What potato chips taught me about marketing.

My Great Aunt Pauline taught me a saying as a child that has served me well as a marketing counselor.

Enough is as good as a feast.

It simply means that as long as you have “enough” of whatever it is…you don’t need more than that. 

Now, while I believe she imparted these words of wisdom in response to my plea for the ENTIRE bag of potato chips instead of the – to my mind – miniscule bowl she was offering…it’s handy as a guideline when designing marketing programs.

There comes a point when fleshing out an idea or concept that there are “enough” elements to make it successful…and anything added after that just becomes:

1. More logistics to manage without adding to the ROI
2. A distraction of resources from the core focus and objectives
3. An added cost burden
4. Too confusing for your audience to effectively “get it”

So, whenever you are tempted to just add that one more thing to whatever program or concept you are developing…think of my Aunt Pauline and ask yourself “yes, this idea might be COOL…but will it be helpful or harmful to the overall objectives?”  Use that checklist above to evaluate each new idea, and if it puts the desired results at risk, either table it, swap it out to replace a less effective element, or toss it.

As to the potato chip debate, however, I still stand by my original retort:  You just can NEVER have enough…so bring on the feast!