Max, Snot, WoM

By Ian, on June 23rd, 2010

So I met this guy called Max in the pub – he’s a pal of some long-time cronies from the now-somewhat-dormant UK laptop business ACi.

Max suffers from hayfever – he’s known as ‘snotty Max’ in some circles. He’s tried all the drugs and cures you’ve ever heard of – as you would if your nickname was ‘snotty Max’.

Anyway, he came across the recommendation of rubbing Vaseline around your nostrils. It sort-of worked. But it smelled nasty and was all greasy, as you’d expect. Max, being the sort of person he is, wasn’t prepared to settle for ‘sort-of’.

The next bit is kind-of surprising. He started messing about in his kitchen to see what he could add to or change in the ingredients or process to improve the effectiveness and experience. And he came up with something that he reckons works. “I could sell that,” he decided and turned it into a product called HayMax (geddit?). He started visiting retailers – and he’s a pretty compelling guy – so he brought home orders regularly for 10–20 pots. They had to work double-time in the kitchen at nights to keep up the supply. Word-of-mouth was filling up as much demand as he could supply.

Then, after a lot of hard work, he got enquiries from a couple of large chains. Waitrose were interested; they’d do a trial. And then the first big order came through for 20,000 units. So Max had to get a dedicated factory/lab going pdq, which he did.

All this time, Max has been buying media in relevant press – at cut-price, last-minute rates. Having met him, I can believe that Max gets the best rates in the industry. But there’s a little bit of a brick wall. They got this video ad shot:

…but they couldn’t afford to put it on TV, anywhere that mattered.

So he’s sending the link out to everyone he meets, hoping social media can trump TV when it comes to results. Can it? And what should he do next to achieve his goal of world hayfever domination?

image credit: Smelter Mountain

Updated: with added factual accuracy.