Marketing comes in more than one flavor!
There’s a new revolution going on in a small Russian town. Pskov, a city of 200,000 in northwest Russia, has declared itself the home of the Czar Pancake. The townspeople are on a quest to show the world that theirs is the place to be for Lenten festivities known as Maslenitsa or Butter Week. And their strategy appears to be working: hotels are filled and they managed to garner a large story in the Washington Post’s National section.
The Czar Pancake is a bold display of chutzpah. Pskov had no special claim on the Maslenitsa festival, but neither had anyone else. According to the deputy director of the Folk Arts Center of the Pskov Region, Moscow had its Czar Cannon and Czar Bell (treasured bronze monuments in the Kremlin); why couldn’t Pskov come up with something similarly compelling? And so they staked a claim to the Czar Pancake.
It’s a good lesson. Sometimes if you do or say something enough and believe in it enough – and you are first out there – the ambition becomes a reality. So, fire up your own marketing griddle. Figure out what claim you can stake about your enterprise. Then plant your flag.
