The Easter Ham Story

A young woman, just learning how to cook, told her family that she wanted to make the ham for the family’s Easter celebration. She asked her mother for the family recipe, but was confused by one of the instructions. 

“It says to cut off and throw away two inches from the narrow end of the ham,” the young woman said. “Why?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” said her mother. “That’s just the way that my mother did it. Let’s call her and ask her why.”

The grandmother’s explanation was the same as the mother’s, and thus, not helpful. “It was the way my mom did it. I never asked why. She’s too deaf to use the phone, but we can go see her and ask.”

The following Sunday, the daughter, mother, and grandmother drove out to the country to the great-grandmother’s retirement home. They were having lunch together when they asked the very elderly lady about the recipe. “Great-grandmother,” the young woman asked, “Why did you cut off two inches of the narrow end of the ham before you baked it?”

The great-grandmother looked up from her soup and stared at the three younger generations of her family in confusion. 

“She didn’t hear the question,” said the young woman’s mother. “GRANDMA,” she shouted. “WHY DID YOU ALWAYS CUT OFF TWO INCHES OFF THE EASTER HAM BEFORE COOKING IT?”

“I heard you, Dear,” said the great-grandmother. “I just don’t know why you all drove all this way to ask such a dumb question.” 

“Why is it a dumb question, Mom?” asked the grandmother. “Why did you cut two inches off the Easter ham before baking it?”

The great-grandmother looked at her family as though they had all lost their minds. “Because it wouldn’t fit in the pan, of course,” she said. 

This story illustrates a problem so common that on the C3 Advertising blog (Marketing for the 21^st Century: Stuff You Need To Know, Because Neither Of Us Has Time To Waste On Nonsense), it has its own category, called “Marketing Myths & Folklore.”

It begins when someone chooses a tactic, executes a strategy, writes a plan, or follows a calendar that made perfect sense at the time it was developed. The decision fits the plan creator’s particular combination of need, market, and available resources. Maybe it worked. Maybe it didn’t. But it’s now become common wisdom; the default selection of strategies and tactics for a given company, organization, or even product category. Sometimes it’s repeated for so long that the marketing plan’s origin story could begin, “Once Upon a Time.” 

But these conventions, followed blindly, don’t take into account changes in channels, markets, consumer attitudes, alterations to the competitive environment, and emerging technologies. Origins of these conventions are rarely revealed, so maybe the recommendations came about through careful and well-reasoned processes—or maybe they were copied and handed down blindly, like the Easter ham recipe. More important, they violate a critical rule of marketing: They aren’t tested. 

Testing is neither as difficult nor as expensive as it’s believed to be, so book marketers often skip it in favor of following precedent that they believe has been tested. This isn’t a mistake limited to solo authors and small businesses, either; very large organizations do it, too. It feels easier, faster, and cheaper, though the opposite is usually true. 

While it’s not particularly difficult, and can be extremely rewarding, testing is a big topic that we’ll discuss at greater detail at a future time. For now, though, all you really have to know about it is that it’s doable, it’s valuable, and we’re going to be doing it in the Assume A Spherical Cow… project.

Image credit: Envato Elements