Memories of the 28th Century

There I was in Starbucks when I heard someone mention the matter of remaining properly hydrated. That reminded me about the most successful marketing campaign that I can think of, and that led me to think of get-rich-quick schemes, because that’s fundamentally what the hydration myth is about. If only I could think of something that could be so effective. What is it that people regularly use that they don’t appreciate as well as they might; the marketing of which would look like good medical advice?

I already wrote up the “Happiness Diet”, eat yourself to happiness. It’s essentially true, and it does relate to medical conditions. Like water the foods in the Happiness Diet are quite traditional, and they can be, and usually are, quite delicious (poor cooks can ruin anything). But writing the book wouldn’t be enough; I would want to control part of the distribution of some of the items involved. Weight Watchers uses that business model, and it does quite well. I'll keep that in mind, but there are other possibilities.

Could the consumption of marijuana take off, if someone pointed out that the receptors for the cannabinoid neurotransmitters were usually empty, but that joy and creativity were diminished when the receptors were empty. That's as creative as the idea that every man, woman, and child should drink 64 ounces of water every day, but marijuana is still illegal in most places.

Something more fundamental might be better. And we learned with water that it need not be true. Perhaps we should try to corner the market for a minor food item and claim that sexual satisfaction is impossible without that. Imagine ads with: "Aren't getting complete satisfaction? Have you been eating enough ___? This stuff is essential for sexual satisfaction, and most people consume only a tenth as much as the human body requires." It isn't fraud; it's puffery,

The hydration myth campaign was puffery, and it is legal, because "no "reasonable person" would take literally." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery. If "no reasonable person would take literally", then the implication is that a great number of people are not "reasonable." There are other possible conclusions, but that one is clear and obvious. It might also be that puffery should not be exempted from fraud laws, because most people are incapable of discerning the difference between fact and fiction (but that's material for another blog).

Another idea for a marketing campaign is for promoting the eating of meat by pointing out that people who do not eat meat have mental disorders at a rate that is ten times that rate among the general population. This can easily be backed up by the shortages in the diets of vegetarians; shortages of several proteins and enzymes and other things that are found in meat but not in vegetables. This one has a few grains of truth in it, so it might work, and we might be able to toss in information about how phytoestrogens cause behavioral changes. The question is what can we sell that will make billions of dollars by correcting the damage done by vegetarianism, other than meat? And there probably is a chemical that would breakdown phytoestrogens.

Lo and behold, there are chemicals that accelerate the breakdown of phytoestrogens making them less harmful, and it is a distinct product that can be marked up 5000%.
Dietary Seaweed Modifies Estrogen and Phytoestrogen Metabolism in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/5/939.long. I will confess that I am not the best person to interpret the results, but it appears that the seaweed had little or no effect that was likely to decrease incidence of breast cancer, but heredity has a strong relationship with the incidence ”Urinary equol excretion has been generally reported to be protective against breast cancer.” Even though there hasn’t been a really good study of the stuff, this could work. Creating some advertisements with a few selected phrases from the paper might have as strong an effect as the phony medical data regarding hydration had on bottled water industry.

The next step will be cornering the market in Alaria esculenta (L.) Greville. Correction: the next step will be finding a different product to push. A lot of entrepreneurs have already gotten into the Alaria market, and the prices are already sky high.

Maybe the idea above of finding something that we can claim is essential but generally ignored. Ragweed is fairly common, and most people try to get rid of it; it's probably good for something; it used to be used as food, and it may have other positive qualities. Other suggestions would be appreciated. People will pay us to take the stuff away, then they'll pay for the extract.
http://www.eattheweeds.com/ragweed/