The Secret Secret of Crypto-Marketing

But first... a history lesson.

It’s time for a little history for the young party crowd.  Not to worry.  It’s about a part of the history of booze.  Once upon a time, the U.S. federal government decided that the manufacture, transportation, possession or consumption of alcohol would be illegal. 

Naturally, the citizenry obeyed this prohibition with the same enthusiasm they upheld the 55mph speed limit. 

 

 

        Q:  “What the hell was the 55mph speed limit?

        A:  “Different lesson.  Before you were born.  Nevermind.”

Meanwhile, back in the 1920’s, alcohol prohibition created an enormous black market and people moved their drinking from public bars to parks, woods, homes and to secret, private clubs called “speak easys”.  (The term ‘speak easy’ is similar to the contemporary ‘on the down-low’.)

When prohibition ended in monumental failure in 1933, the speak easy lost its’ reason to exist.  Imagine my surprise when I innocently Ubering my way around the east valley of Phoenix, Arizona when a passenger asks me to take him to “that speakeasy on Indian School Road”. 

If you have lived in the valley your whole life and have never heard of “The Little Woody”, there’s no shame in that.  Unlike most popular drinking establishments, Woody’s attracts clientele by doing absolutely nothing to attract them.  There isn’t even as much as a sign on the building—just a sketchy, neon owlish thing inside a dark display window.  The entrance is around the back.  There’s no sign there, either.  There might be a small one, but if it’s there it is constantly being blocked by all the bodies trying to get in or out of the place.

 

 

Marketers are allowed to make up words, so let’s go with “Crypto-Marketing”.   How can such a concept—an approach that violates all traditional marketing rules—possibly work? 

Marketing your business by not marketing it is not a course they teach at school.  However, if done properly it can be counter-intuitive genius.  Crypto-marketing ignites one of the most powerful elements of human nature:  Curiosity. 

 

“Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.”
--Linus Pauling


When we know something is a secret, especially if it is also forbidden, our desire for it becomes overwhelming.  Tom Sawyer used it to get his buddies to whitewash the fence.  Secret societies use it to increase the desire of others to become members.  The Little Woody does it by doing absolutely nothing, in the tradition of prohibition speak easys.