What does a beekeeper do?

Ibrahim Sedef lives in Trabzon, Turkey. And as a beekeeper it's his job to help bees stay healthy. And provide them with hives for shelter and medications.

But one day, bears started trashing Ibrahim's hives. And stealing Ibrahim's honey. This wasn't a one time thing. The bears kept coming back. And Ibrahim was losing thousands of dollars.

Ibrahim had to protect the hives. So he tried protecting them by putting metal cages around them. Well...unfortunately that didn't work.

So Ibrahim tried something else. He tried to trick these cheeky furry thieves by luring them away from the hives. How? He left them trails of treats. With fruit, breadcrumbs and honey.

But... that also didn't work. The bears kept trashing his hives and stealing all the honey they could find.

These bears were clever. So Ibrahim decided to follow the 'if you can't beat them, join them' mantra.

He decided to treat these clever bears as a consumer behavior experiment.

Ibrahim thought, 'These bears clearly have a good taste for honey. Why don't I turn them into honey tasters?'

So here's what Ibrahim did:

First, he installed photo trap cameras to track the bears roaming his bee farm. Then he set up a table with 4 different types of honey for the bears to try. And Ibrahim watched to see which honey the bears liked best.

The bears loved the smell of Anzer honey, and ignored all the other options. It turns out, bears have quite an expensive taste. Because two pounds of Ibrahim's Anzer honey sells for around $300.

As George Lois once said, "creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything." A great reminder for us all in the marketing industry.

Your pal,

Miguel Ferreira
Founder & Chief Copywriter, Teardwn + Nishi

This newsletter is brought to you by Teardwn: A Copywriting Agency For Bootstrapped Startups, Marketing Agencies & Small Businesses who want to GROW & COMPETE With the Big Guys.

Lateral thinking and unexpected honey tasters

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