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How Would You Sell Ice To Eskimos?
Posted By: mac504 on 11/22/2004 11:30 PM (CST) 75 Points
'How would you sell packaged ice to native alaskans?"

This is one of the questions microsoft asks its marketing applicants in job interviews.

My proffesor always told me that a GOOD marketer can sell a hamburger to a hungry man but a GREAT marketer can sell ice to eskimos.

So how would you sell ice to eskimos?????

Posted by: smacphed* Accepted Answer
11/23/2004 12:25 AM (CST)
Weeell.

One way to do it is to make it better than the ice they have. Or make it different.

Maybe convince them that their ice is full of polar bear urine, or otherwise contaminated. We pay loads for wated when we have ready access to it. It's like asking, how do you sell water to people who have free, ubiquitous water. You fancy it up, add some stuff to it, package it well. Make teh ice in special shapes to impress their friends, like star shaped ice cuubes for parties. How are people using the ice? Maybe you can come up with ice pre-shaped, like for igloos - so they don't have to expend their own labor.

Ice has so many uses and you can make it easier to use in a million different ways.

You could also sell special, spiritual ice. Ice blessed by someone, or from a sacred place. Sell ice from Hawaii! So people feel like they're escaping to someplace warm, even though it's still ice.

Alternately, you could develop a stranglehold over the ice market. Cut off the supply by pumping greenhouse gasses into the environment over years and years, melting their ice and driving prices higher and higher. Ultimately forcing them to import ice from your own ice factories in Michigan.

Probably easier to fancy the ice up though.
 
Posted by: night_butterflz Member Response
11/23/2004 8:56 AM (CST)
Add food coloring :)

jen
 
Posted by: adamgwoolley* Accepted Answer
11/23/2004 10:51 AM (CST)
Spring ice. Quite simply spring water in solid form. Take it back to your Igloo, melt it and enjoy a nice chilled glass of pure spring water. You could even freeze a slice of Lemon into it. Voila!
 
Posted by: Peter (henna gaijin) Accepted Answer
11/23/2004 12:20 PM (CST)
Think of bottled water suppliers and how they market their products. Tests have shown that bottled water is no better (and sometimes worse) than tap water, yet lots of it is sold.
 
Posted by: mac504 Author Response
11/23/2004 4:58 PM (CST)
Good answers guys!

The best I could come up with was selling the ice as a convenience product.Save the eskimos a lot of hard work by selling them pre formed ice blocks for their igloos.
 
Posted by: W.M.M.A. Member Response
11/24/2004 9:00 AM (CST)
I am convinced that Eskimos know exactly which ice to use. If anyone has sold ice to "true, live off the land" Eskimos, I want to know about him/her.

Randall
WMMA
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Member Response
11/24/2004 1:54 PM (CST)
Put vodka in the center of ice cubes.
 
Posted by: mac504 Author Response
11/24/2004 7:50 PM (CST)
Yes randall it was a hypothetical question.You make it seem like it seem its a far fetched idea that someone could sell ice to eskimos.Yet as some people have pointed out people BUY bottled water every day.The same water that flows from their faucets.People pay even more for 'spring' water.
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Accepted Answer
12/10/2004 6:24 PM (CST)
Funny that Microsoft uses this question. For what! creative thinking skills? How creative is it when you have a monopoly on the ice? :-)

As a hypothetical what’s it really saying --

- That an unknowledgeable buyer will buy something that’s not really in their interests? Can a great salesperson sell a candy bar to a kid for $20?

Or

- That some salespeople are so great they can have a hypnotic effect even on a knowledgeable buyer – and sell them a bad deal?

Either way, the customer looses and ultimately so will the seller.
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Member Response
12/10/2004 6:35 PM (CST)
p.s. -- re: "the same water that flows from their faucets".

It may not be any healthier, but how do you support it's the same? Certainly many folks believe this, and some of them buy the bottle water anyway.

fun question, thanks for posting it mac504,

- Steve
 
Posted by: Forecast* Member Response
12/25/2004 5:17 PM (CST)
Send them a brochure with perfect photos of an island, for example Bahamas:) First sell them a vacation. Take them out of their country... Then it's really easy to sell them ice.

You wanna sell more? Change the brochure and send them to a desert:)
 
Posted by: et3dotcom* Accepted Answer
12/30/2004 7:23 PM (CST)
Step 1:
Agree on favorable price and terms for ice delivery to an Eskimo asking me to buy ice from me.

Step 2:
Collect money from Eskimo.

Step 3:
Deliver ice to Eskimo.

Anything else you want to know how i would do?
 
Posted by: Head Coach Accepted Answer
12/30/2004 11:13 PM (CST)
I think the query begs to answer the eternal question of how marketing can somehow make someone buy something truly superflurous, something they have absolutely no need to buy. As a MSFT alumni I would have put the questions answer into a frame that pertains to them.

The old joke of: " If you want to increase software sales in Asia by a factor of ten than just have them pay for half the software they have in use!", was coined on MSFT campus. So how would you get someone to pay for software they feel free to copy ad infinum? That would have got you the job!

Also as others have stated to sell someone under false pretenses is bad marketing that will eventually be your downfall.
 
Posted by: gzenker* Accepted Answer
1/3/2005 10:29 AM (CST)
A number of interesting responses, but the most significant merit was from smacphed. He answered the question in so many ways.

Find the need behind the ice and the qualities that can differentiate better grade from worse grade (or create that difference). Using it to keep drinks cold is only one use of ice. In the case of dropping t into drinks, ice made from filtered water does avoid moose urine and other contaminants. We buy many things in life because of their "clean" factor and so this could well be one solution.

Adding convenience is, I think, where et3dotcom went with his/her answer. Delivery instead of you going out for it. The business model for thousands of businesses.

Party shapes is a great idea. It changes ice from a commodity to something visibly differentiatable. But if your need isn;t to keep drinks cold, you have to rethink the entire premise of how people will use ice. Ice does have other uses, right?

Of course, an ice sculpture adds a special labor to ice that you can charge for and that is not easily replicatable(even if it isn't exactly where you were going with the question). That makes it a decorative item.

 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
1/3/2005 4:54 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than two weeks old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions. Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


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