Why it’s Thanksgiving! Turkey time. In our culture, the turkey seems to represent important values like thanksgiving, happiness, and at times…cuteness. Rightly so. Americans have fallen in love with turkeys—maybe even as much as Adam Smith & Milton Friedman (capitalism allusion that 95% of my audience missed…oh well, let me grab your attention again…ummm, Justin Bieber! Good. Welcome back).
The Pilgrims marketed well. Gasp! I know. And you thought marketing wasn’t discovered till the 1980s (history lesson—marketing was actually introduced in the 8th Century by Pope Gregory II when he popularized the Chia Pet).
Those Puritans faced a serious problem when they came to the New World. Turkey overpopulation. Don’t believe me? Look at the history reports. Thanks to the faithful Wampanoag tribe statisticians who logged annual turkey counts, we can analyze the evidence ourselves. Look at the graph added below from one of their history journals. Wow…
Ok. So, the Pilgrims showed up around 1619. Well, notice the big jump between 1600-1620. The Pilgrims had to do something, or else they would be overrun. So, top Pilgrim marketers sat down for a long-hard brainstorming session. Ideas flew left and right: 1) provoke a war between the Indians and turkeys. 2) Ally with the turkeys and hope for lifelong peace. 3) Abandon the New World and try out Costa Rica. 4) Create a holiday and…EAT THE TURKEYS. And thus Thanksgiving was born. A little cannibalistic but what else would work?
And so the Pilgrim marketers formulated the new turkey image. Their first slogan was a hit with the other settlers: “Cute, cuddly, and great with gravy.”
With the help of Sitting Bull and Tiny Turtle, a new marketing strategy was aimed toward the Indians. Simply stated, “Eat Turkey.” And many Indians gladly did.
Now, look at the results! By 1640, the turkey population had diminished by almost 30%. Looks like those Puritans were capitalists in the making. Good for you boys. Good for you.
And so thus set the tradition of Thanksgiving: dress up like a pilgrim and eat tons of turkey. As expected, when November rolls around, we always see pretty pictures of gobbling turkeys pleading to be bought and devoured. So we do. And as we say thanks around the table, one of the kids is bound to say, “I’m thankful for the turkey.” As he should…because he’s American.
So, for this Thanksgiving. I say thank you to those ingenious Puritan marketers who saved us from an ever-threatening turkey uprising. Without their strategy for creating Thanksgiving, we might very well be speaking gobble-gobble today.
Closing Suggestion: if you have any free time, go digging around in the basement of the Library of Congress. You’ll find some interesting stuff.
