The Power of Cheese (in Marketing)

One of the first times I went to Europe, my then father-in-law gave me a piece of "fusskase" (translation: foot cheese).

Aside from a particularly spicy plate of lamb vindaloo in Louisville, KY of all places, it was the most powerful flavor I'd ever experienced. The only way I can describe it is that it completely filled my head with flavor somehow. I tasted this cheese in the back of my brain, in my ears. My nose was filled. I'm not going to say I liked it, but it certainly stuck with me.

Do you remember Billy Mays? He was the absolute KING of cheese. This guy ALWAYS had it cranked to 11. You had no choice but to be enthralled by this infomercial-hawking cheeseball screaming at you from your TV screen.

But it must have worked. At the time of his death, Billy Mays was worth $10 million and had become an American icon representing some huge brands.

And we can all recognize the click-bait listicles on Facebook, or the personal injury lawyer-on-a-bus bench with slogans like (and these are all real):

• "Turn Your Pain Into Rain"

• "Lawyers you'll swear by. Not at."

• And the classic - "One call... that's all."

But these guys make money. Hand over fist. Because cheese is powerful. But why?

It fills your head. It grabs you. People like energy. They like excitement. Emotions of all stripes are contagious. If you hang around with sad people, you'll get sad. If you hang around with pumped up and excited people, you get pumped up and excited.

And we all know that the primary driver of human behavior is emotion. Politicians figured that out a long time ago. Plato said more than 2,000 years ago: "Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge." Cheesy marketing tags all three.

What do you desire? Cheesy marketing will tell you, whether it's to lose weight, buy a cleaning product or "be a part of something bigger."

How do you feel about it? Well cheesy marketing is REALLY excited about it, so you are too.

What do you need to know? How to send us money and get this thing you so excitedly want.

When's the last time you bought something from a guy who rationally explained it and all its features? Imagine Ben Stein trying to sell you Oxi-Clean. Not a great sell.

Check out this old car ad. It basically just says: Here's a six-cylinder car. Here's how much it costs. You should buy it. Guess what? I've never heard of Matheson Car Company. They either went out of business or were bought out by GM or some other giant that had ads like this (this is an old MG Motors ad - they're a boutique British sportscar brand):

Oh boy! I want that... car. Right?

Cheesy marketing works because it fills your head. You feel it in your lizard brain. You get a tickle in your limbic system. It embeds itself in your memory banks.

Yes, when you're doing it, you feel a bit silly sometimes. I get that. But it's certainly not the only way to go about marketing a brand.

Think of it like The Beatles. Or Radiohead. It was the cheesy hits like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Creep" that got them attention. Once they were established, it was artistic revolutions with every new album. But everybody's gotta pay their dues.

Now I know you're very attached to your project or business, and being cheesy is not how you envision marketing it. But let's be serious, you're probably early Beatles right now. You're not at Abbey Road yet. So let me help you turn that skim mozzarella into some Limburger. Request a consultation today.