Turn Lemons into Lemonade

Hitting the pause button on life as usual is an opportunity to rethink everything - who to target, what to say, which media to employ. It’s also a chance to go to the liabilities column and be creative. With a little work, pretty much anything negative can be turned into a positive. For hundreds of years, lemons were used only, like vinegar, to add an acidic, bitter taste to foods. Then someone thought to add sugar to the juice and now we have a universal favourite, lemonade.

Let’s start with food marketing. Who, after weeks at home, isn’t tired of pizza, pasta and traditional family meals of meat, veg and starch? If you mix things up a bit and add a little cheese, bacon, or wine, you can turn a ho-hum meal into a party. Same ingredients, but on sizzling platters (plus tortillas), and you have a fajitas buffet! Potstickers, gyoza plus any Asian condiments you can find at the supermarket, and you have stay-at-home dim sum! A platter of burgers (beef, turkey or vegan) and buns (sesame seeded, pretzel, challah), with bowls of onions, bacon, mushroom, cheese, lettuce and sauces, and you have a build-your-own burger bar—think virtual cookout brought to you by Kraft, La Choy and Pepperidge Farms.

Or take financial services. Things may not look good from an investment standpoint, but it’s a great time to refinance a mortgage or home equity loan. And banks, which have been offering pitifully low returns on CDs for years, may be a safe place to park money while waiting for the stock market to stabilsze. Insurance? This could be a renaissance for that old workhorse, the whole life policy. Why? People are suddenly aware of their mortality, and the go-go days of the stock market, are, at least for the foreseeable future, over. A nice, solid return, with some insurance thrown in, could look very attractive right now.

It may take a while to fully reopen the economy, and air travel may be one of the last to be deemed safe, so for much of the US, this may be the summer of the road trip. Any destination outside a big city will be appealing for those who want to maintain some social distancing. Hotel chains can promote their diligence in cleaning and sanitising rooms and tout the spaciousness of their restaurants and dining rooms. RV brands should have a field day—bring the safety of your home with you on vacation.

Toy and game marketers? With kids doing virtual school, watching TV and playing video games all day, most parents are looking for some way to occupy the kids (by themselves) that doesn’t involve a screen. Traditional board games, jigsaw puzzles, action figures, dolls, science and art projects-in-a-box are the perfect solution—creative, physical, and relatively cheap. No need for new kid clothes if they’re not going out? How about a virtual fashion show with all the girls from your daughter’s class? And aunties and Grandma patched in through Zoom.

Reopening baseball with no one in the stands? Bring the stadium experience home: hot dogs (Kayem or Nathan’s), pretzels (Snyder’s or Utz), peanuts-in-the-shell (Whitley’s or Hampton Farms), and beer (Bud, Coors or Miller), of course, but how about polo shirts in your team colours courtesy of Macy’s and Target? Or team jerseys and caps from Dick’s Sporting Goods?

So here’s a thought: Make a list of your brand’s liabilities and send it to us. We’ll get some of our best creative thinkers onto a video call with you, where we guarantee you’ll leave with at least a dozen innovative ideas you can implement, quickly and inexpensively.

Here in New York, we’re asking Governor Cuomo to make lemonade stands essential businesses for the summer.