“Value is in the eye of the beholder.”
What comes to your mind when you think of lobsters? Is it expensive, tasty, premium, or is it fine dining?
Well, anything that comes to your mind is different than what was mentioned to the minds of people back in 17th century. Back then, people of the respectable members of society did not want to eat lobsters, or more accurately, they got sick of lobsters. Why is that?
Back in the 1700s, only the poor, prisoners, servants and soldiers ate lobsters. Lobsters were so easy to find. People used just to pick up the lobsters that were washed up on shore, allowing them to pick whenever they want. Also, there were tons of them, which makes people got bored eating lobsters all the time. Because of that, people began feeding livestock, prisoners, servants and soldiers lobsters, and there is where the “poor man’s chicken” image was created.
Then how did the ‘cockroach of the sea’ become so expensive? It all started when people began making canned lobsters. The canned lobsters were brought to landlocked states in America. People were so intrigued because they have never seen lobsters before. Lobsters were served in dining cars on trains, far away from the coast. At this point, lobsters were re-branded as an exotic dish. The prices rose up because the demand of the lobsters stayed high, but the supply went down.
Let’s take a look at the info-graphic shown below:
Image source: vouchercloud
Pretty amazing how the ‘cockroach of the sea’ that was only served to the poor became so highly priced today just because somebody brought the lobsters away from the coast and re-branding the lobster as an exotic dish, without having people in the landlocked state know that they are considered trash at states with the shore. The person who re-branded lobsters as an unusual dish was truly a marketing legend.
People were tricked into thinking the sea bugs were fancy, and what we all can learn from that, it’s all about perception and value given to a product. No matter how good your products are if the value you give to your products isn’t as good as the quality of your product, people won’t even bother giving a glance. But if you create an exciting perception towards your product by providing value, people will love your product.
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