It’s Halloween in the United States on October 31. Kids (and their parents) dress up in costumes head-to-toe and go from house-to-house in search of candy and chocolate. It’s great fun, and nothing is cuter than kids in their outfits.
Costumes are hot and uncomfortable
Not sure if you remember, but it gets hot in those face masks, and costumes. It’s is forecast to be 73 degrees on Halloween night. Can you imagine being in a Darth Vader outfit and helmet when its almost 24 degrees Celsius? Think about those kids eating lots of chocolate, and running around in their Minions outfits.
Give water, not candy
A few years ago, I decided to hand out bottles of water, instead of candy. My sisters thought it would be a flop, but it was a HUGE hit. Give it a try this year, your neighborhood kids will love you for it. In fact, I usually have kids that circle back around for another bottle of water.
What is strategy?
I teach strategy to business school students, and this is a question that I badger them with all semester long.
What is strategy?
It is a set of self-reinforcing activities which creates a sustainable competitive advantage. An economic moat. It often requires trade-offs, and decisions on what you are NOT going to do. Adding more value by being different.
For me, winning is handing out cold bottles of water to sweaty kids trapped under Iron-man, and Daredevil costumes. You should try eating 3-4 snickers, while wearing a costume, while running from yard to yard. Dude, you’d be thirsty too.
No need to compete in the red ocean of candy and chocolate. No way I am going to out-impress the neighbors. But by competing differently (yes, water not chocolate), the neighborhood kids are getting exactly what they (don’t realize they) want. Water.
I love the idea at play here. Just one extension, perhaps you could also set a deeper example too, by offering water in glasses, on a tray that the neighbourhood kids drink, standing still, at your place, talking to you, then move on. Gives them a rest, builds more relationship. They may still circle back for another one – but the key point is that they/you don’t add another pile of single-use plastic to (the huge pile of trash accumulated on Halloween and into) our polluted oceans and ultimately into our food chain. Could be a fun experiment.
Always looking to improve. Depends on your neighborhood, but parents are a cautious bunch – not sure they’d let their kinds drink from stranger’s glasses. Not Norman Rockwell America anymore, in that sense.
Couple years back, we switched from chocolate to lunch-size bags of Sun Chips and pretzels. Figured that whatever we didn’t distribute we could use in regular lunch. Didn’t figure on the squeals of delight when kids saw what was on offer.
(I also have Manhattans on hand for the parents, who enjoy those in their own way.)
Super winning.
Nice example John… wholly truth, be different or die by indifference!
Enjoy Halloween.
Cheers,
Juan.-
PS: You have an excellent blog… truly valuable for strategizers and alike!
Thanks for reading.