“Vanilla Marketing”

Just finished ordering some more of my usual protein powder BUT this time from another store…

(The one I order from usually was out of stock.)

And just out of curiosity…

I decided to explore most of their marketing channels – just to see how they do it, if for nothing else than for my own edification.

And what I found…

Made me cringe.

Everything. From IG posts to YT reels to emails to tweets – everything was just…

Safe.

That’s honestly the best way I could describe it without coming off really harsh.

Now…

This isn’t anything new – I have been into bodybuilding for almost a decade now and have definitely seen my fair share of marketing from a wide assortment of supplement brands…

So I feel confident in my assertion when I say that most of this industry is plagued with what I call…

„Vanilla Marketing“

In other words:

Being as safe – as „vanilla “ – as possible out of fear of injecting even a shred of polarization in your marketing.

Vanilla is the safe compromising option – if your kid is having a birthday party and you’re having his friends come over…

…you’re probably picking vanillia right? Because there may be just a few people in the entire world who are unwilling to eat vanilla cream.

(I wager you’d be hard pressed to find 5 people who don’t like vanilla if you went out on the streets and asked 100 of them.)

Now take a really unusual ice cream flavour instead – habanero pecan.

There are LEGIONS of people who are allergic to nuts… who are sensitive to spicy food… or who are just plain damn uninterested in eating a semi-challenging scoop of ice cream.

So no wonder you’re picking vanilla for your kid’s birthday party!

But the problem with vanilla is…

Vanilla is boring.

In almost every market in existence – not just the supplement space but ESPECIALLY the supplement space – the boring slot has already been filled by someone else.

And displacing it is awfully difficult.

(How would you even do it? Can you be more bland than the leading bland brand? Do you really even want that?)

Now I don’t know about anyone else but…

When I was getting into marketing? I thought its goal was to make you STAND OUT…

And not just make you blend in with the others – to not be just another vanilla…

This is why I’m proud of how I’ve made my „Email Storyselling“ method with polarization at the forefront of it.

(i.e. the habanero pecan.)

I run this quick polarity test before EVERY single email I send out – whether it’s for me or my clients…

„The Nervous Test“

Very simply:

If the email you’re about to send doesn’t make you at least A LITTLE nervous to send out there in the wilderness of the interweb…

…then you’re being too vanilla – too passive.

And that hardly inspires any action from anyone – not opening your email… not reading your email… not clicking on your email… let alone buying from it.

Will you get more people disliking you if you offer them habanero pecan instead of vanilla?

Will more people criticise you – perhaps even downright…

HATE you?

Yes.

But there isn’t a single person – or company – in the world…

…which is able to be something to everyone. Nobody gets universal praise. No one.

Great marketing is as much attraction and appeal…

…as it is repulsion.

(I have a whole email on this titled: „Why repulsion marketing > attraction marketing“ on my Email Echoes page.)

Just know that if you edit yourself for the approval of others…

…you will inevitably become a minority shareholder in your own life. The cost of being easy to live with is destroying the person who has to do the living.