Czaro Strategic Communications

My grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday last month. Katie Taylor Simpson has lived her entire life in the Southeast. She is a sweet, Georgia peach and a great cook. When I watch Paula Deen on the Food Network, I smile wide because she’s the spitting image of my grandmother. 

Just like Paula, Katie has a gift for gab. She never runs out of -isms, one-liners or advice. My all-time favorite, is a phrase she coined when a family member did something stupid.

“What’d you do? Take your brain out and put it in a cup on the shelf?”

I had one of those brain/cup/shelf moments yesterday. First, I stepped on a toy Barbie table. Then two hours later I did the same thing, because I never moved the table from the middle of the floor. When I limped to the couch I thought of another important lesson Katie taught me:

“It’s good if you can laugh at your mistakes,
but it’s better if you learn from them.”

Mistakes happen – especially in business. That’s how businesses grow. Companies come up with ideas. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.

Take PepsiCo’s Tropicana, which spent $35 million on a packaging redesign and ad campaign for their Pure Premium Orange Juice. They pulled the plug after seven weeks of slumping sales and rabid public outcry for the old packaging.

What went wrong? Tropicana infuriated their fans. They underestimated the emotional connection consumers had for the old packaging. Tropicana listened to their customers, but it was $35 million too late. PepsiCo could have pulled the plug before the launch if they only had asked their customers in advance.

I’m not saying they didn’t do their research, but did they listen to what the research was telling them?

PepsiCo has learned the same lesson their rival Coca-Cola learned 24 years ago, when they launched New Coke. To quote my Grandmother Katie:

“If something’s not broken, why you want to go fixin’ it?”

Coke’s done it, Pepsi’s done it, and I do it almost every day. Everyone screws up. The silver lining is that mistakes produce experience, which is one of the most valuable commodities you have.

Tropicana could have saved a lot of money if they ran their ideas past my grandmother. They would have left with confused looks and empty heads. But there’d be several new cups on Katie’s mantel.

Happy 90th Grandmother – I love you!