In our marketing class our professor defined marketing as being able to sell snow to Eskimos.
Others have defined, "Marketing is helping your customers understand how much they need something they never knew they needed."
Doreen Moran - Digital Strategist
The professor told us after our third lesson we would have to demonstrate our marketing skills for a final. He said demonstrate, not take a test. He picked groups of students to make a marketing team and they had to work together and develop a marketing plan and execute it to demonstrate knowledge of the subject.
Myself and two other hapless students were put together in a team. Jay a jock and Suzie a cute ditzy blonde girl and myself, Jack.
While we barely knew each other, all three of us lurked in the back of the class keeping a low profile.
Jay was on the football team and was taking marketing because his coach said it was an easy class. Suzie a short fuzzyheaded blonde who always looked spaced out. Myself, I am almost a Greek god, at least in my head. We are the most unlikely team to be able to convince anyone to buy anything.
I'll save you the marketing class material, it is a lot of yada, yada, yada, etc. However, it was information we should have committed to memory so we could pass this class.
Our team mission was to sell something that was almost like selling snow, it had to be something that was free or very low cost for at least five dollars. The team that sold the most won and for sure got a "A" in the class, the teams were graded on a curve from there. If your team sold nothing, you failed.
I didn't want to be the team leader, but the other two were clueless and I would have to take the initiative and herd them along or I would fail. I could take a "C" but an "F" would kill my grade average.
When we first meet, Suzie just sat there like a deer in the headlights. Jay didn't seem to understand anything that wasn't football related.
We struggled to find anything remotely like selling snow. Jay, "We could sell used football jerseys; the team just discards the worn-out ones."
"It has to be makeup, women will buy anything that will make them more attractive" Suzie Chimed in.
"You know like selling mud as a beauty product."
"What, women buy mud?"
"Yes, that's big business; all the big makeup companies sell it for big bucks."
"Anything else that's in that category might be a good idea."
"Jay what else do you football players throw away?"
After thinking for a while laughs and said "Cum soaked Kleenex."
Suzie, looking puzzled, "What did you say?"
"Cum soaked Kleenex, you know after a guy jacks off into a Kleenex."
"Sick, you're sick, sick Jay. Why would you say such a thing?"
"Well, it's true, what else are you going to do with them?"
"Wait a minute; Jay may be on to something. It seems to me I remember reading that women were using semen as a facial."
"Where would you read such a thing, Jack?"
"I don't know it was somewhere on the internet."
"The Internet... then it has to be true." Chucked Suzie.
Chapter 2
My task was to find out more about semen facials before our next meeting.
Son of a gun, it was true; I found the original article in a women's magazine online. I printed it out for Suzie so she would believe me.
Male ejaculate is mostly made up of fluid. Like the rest of the human body, it contains a high percentage of water. The majority of fluid present in male ejaculate is contributed by the seminal vesicles and contains fructose, glucose, various amino acids (the "building blocks of protein"!), citric acid, chloride, phosphorus, potassium, and hormones. Altogether, that assemblage of material represents 60% of the total semen volume. Another 30% of the total volume is fluid from the prostate gland. This fluid has some more citric acid and potassium, but also houses other components, such as prostate-specific antigen, magnesium, calcium, sodium, zinc, prostatic acid phosphatase, and two other kinds of enzymes.
That sure sounded like a formula for a high-grade skin care product.
I showed it to the team; Jay commented that his teammates would like to know they are wasting all those chemicals.
"Suzie, do you think we could sell semen as facials to women? You said they would buy anything."
"If we market it as a complexion enhancer, say maybe it helps with acne or something."
"Would girls buy it... say for at least five dollars?"
"Sure, they would pay that and more if it could calm a pimple flareup or make their complexion better."
"How would we package it, that's a lot of extra work to create packaging?"
"No packaging, we go direct from source to client, eliminating all the extra steps." Chimed in Jay as he remembered something from the lectures.
"What do you mean, Jay... Direct to clients?"
"Ever hear of a glory hole?"
Suzie and I just looked puzzled at Jay, "What's a glory hole?"
"It's a place where men or women go to have sex with an unknown partner."
We still looked puzzled, "How is anonymous sex going to help us?"
"Well, in a glory hole a guy has his cock exposed through a hole for someone to suck or jack him off."
"So, you're telling us that a guy can put his dick in a hole and someone will suck it or manipulate it until he ejaculates." Asks Suzie.
"Yes, I heard some football team players talk about going to one."
"Where on earth would they find such a place?"
