Simplicity is something that is sadly missing in our lives today

Many express a need for it and spend time searching for it

Many have it and don't realise it.

Here’s the idea. Häagen-Dazs Five has five ingredients.

Milk, Cream, Sugar, Eggs, and whatever ingredient it takes to make the flavor. Vanilla or mint.

Häagen-Dazs doesn't feel the need to make a big deal about this, and there lies a preemptive marketing opportunity.

The Schlitz beer story is famous for illustrating preemptive marketing.

When Claude Hopkins was called in to help Schlitz beer increase its market-share, each beer manufacturer was claiming that customers should drink their beer because it was "pure beer." The problem was, nobody knew what exactly "pure beer" was. Sure they knew what "pure" meant, but what exactly was "pure beer"?

The rest as they say is history.

And preemptive marketing is ...?

Preemptive marketing occurs when you take some unquantified feature or benefit of your product or business ... something that your industry universally uses or does as a standard practice ... and then you make it a central feature of your advertising campaign or marketing message.

A preemptive marketing campaign contains information that's common knowledge to everyone in the industry, but if you educate your customers by telling them that you do such-and-such, the public will focus on you rather than on your competitors.

I have a client who owns a bus company that uses the industry's Quality Assured Maintenance System (QAMS). He pushes the safety aspects that this System provides in all his proposals and has increased his strike rate by 40% since doing so.

What about your business?

What preemptive marketing could you adopt?

What simple ingredients list could you promote to differentiate yourself from your competition?

Back to Häagen-Dazs's Five range.

If you have some Ice Cream in the freezer at home, check out the contents list on the tub. I bet there are way more than 5 ingredients.

What a great opportunity for a niche manufacturer to step in a run a Schlitz beer story about their "icecream with just 5 ingredients".