I was combing the grocery store aisles last week because I needed salt for a recipe. I didn’t need just ANY salt, though. I wanted the very best salt. I saw a plethora of different brands, some name brands and others generic. The one that stood out, of course, was Morton’s Salt. It was packaged better, and featured a nifty little pour spout that the others lacked. Besides that, I’ve known since childhood that the round blue box contained the best salt in the world. How did I know that? Marketing, my friends.
The branding of Morton’s salt began in 1911 with a significant image that has evolved over the years, but essentially stayed the same. We are all familiar with the little girl and umbrella holding a box of salt pouring out behind her, amidst the rain. Her tagline is “When it rains, it pours.” Why? Because in 1914, Morton’s salt publicized their claim to fame: their salt contained magnesium carbonate, an anti-caking agent that allowed the salt to pour freely even in great humidity or rain. Today Morton’s salt doesn’t contain magnesium carbonate anymore; rather, it contains calcium silicate, an equally anti-caking alternative.
So that must mean that Morton’s is indeed the better salt, thus the higher price tag and much higher annual sales. Not too fast: upon reading the ingredients for other leading and generic salt brands I found that they, too, contain anti-caking agents which allow them to also pour freely in the rain. What is the Morton’s secret, then? Brand. Brand. Brand.
The Morton’s icon of the little girl in the rain has changed ever so slightly over the years, but is legendary. What Morton’s did is find their own special claim to fame and capitalize on it for nearly 100 years. They created a catchy tagline and made it famous. They stuck to basics, found out what worked and didn’t fix something that wasn’t broken. Today, Morton’s Salt is featured as one of the most influential ad campaigns of the last 100 years.
So goes successful marketing and what we do here at Zoom Creates—we work with our clients to help them discover what makes them unique and valuable, how best to tell the world and how to spread the word in the most consistent effective way. This includes Brand creation and management, campaigns across all mediums and development of strategy for long term success.
Tags: advertising, Brand, marketing
