COPULATION & MAXWELL HOUSE COFFEE

Copulation and Maxwell House Coffee, what could they possibly have in common? I may be stretching the point to make a connection, but let me try...

By the early 20th C in America, copulation was hardly new, but still not public. As for Maxwell House, it had only been around for a generation, but very much wanted to remain public. Each faced a different future. Whereas coffee was already a national habit, watching copulating humans was not. As a result, Maxwell House came up with a million-dollar marketing campaign: "Good to the last drop." Porn, on the other hand, could depend only on, shall we say, word-of-mouth marketing.

But by the late Twenties, America's dedicated porn makers could now add music tracks to their grunting bodies. And so, my friends, behold a peculiar new art form that was soon selling better than coffee.

By the Eighties porn was big business and growing, while coffee was still big business but not growing. The boys at Maxwell were getting a little desperate. About then they hired me. No -- I wasn't the act of desperation; their new marketing strategy was. I just happened to be the writer they found to help them reach their national sales force with their very first satellite-feed sales meeting.

They gathered their good-to-the-last-drop sales gang in various cities, sat them in front of large hotel screens, and tried to generate a new passion for selling and drinking coffee. From what I could tell, their sales did tick up, but they had completely missed the historic coffee moment.

What American drinkers were looking for -- even without themselves knowing it -- was a whole new coffee. experience. Enter Starbucks...! As we say, when we don't have time for statistics, the rest is history.

Extrapolating from our cozy coffee story, we may find an instructive back-story here. Whenever the market has too much of a good thing, give them the illusion of an exciting new thing. Something different. Something special. Something eventually known as a "trend." American enterprise has generated hundreds of these throughout the years. From Barnum traveling circuses to vaudeville shows to hoola hoops to pet rocks to cabbage-patch dolls to hookah and tequila bars to today's must-have hand-widgets.

Get it? Keep it new. Keep it fun. Even if you have to keep it stupid.

Looking back on our last century, we can now study the history of trends. [Well, copulating doesn't quite fit under the rubric of trend as much as perhaps relentless]. But while we may be able to study past trends, few of us are gifted with the foresight to recognize the next new one. Although several among our ranks are right now trying hard to become just that.

You will find them scattered around the nation in comedy clubs...concert halls...campus groups...Silicon Valley...oh, and in every coffee and porn stop in Washington...!