
The paradox of the middle of the market - terpua
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/the-paradox-of-the-middle-of-the-market.html
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stcredzero
_I'm not talking about compromising or dumbing down your product. A very hot
hot sauce is remarkable. A sort of hot one is boring, and no one, not even the
geeks will talk about it._

Hot-hot-hot sauce _is_ dumbing down your product. What about flavor? Reaching
for yet higher levels of capsaicin content is simple, the result primitive. A
complex, well balanced flavor is much harder to achieve, and has a much higher
reward. (And less excess discomfort the day after.)

I'm a geek and not even particularly knowledgeable about hot sauces, but
still, let me _talk about_ Baron's hot sauce. Very plain label. Good treatment
of the aged peppers. Tasteful addition of a strong garlic note. IMO,
wonderfully flavorful. In contrast, there's "Heinie Hurtin Hot Sauce," which
has good comic traction for marketing. Colorful cartoon on the bottle. Nothing
remarkable in the bottle, IMO. (No, I'm not an expert, all of this comes from
eating at a neighborhood burrito place with a selection of 6 hot sauces at any
time.)

As always, appealing to the wannabe segment of the fringe is easier, because
they have a shaky grasp of the fundamentals and therefore are easier to
manipulate with shallow marketing. (The guys who reach for "Heinie Hurtin" for
the bragging rights.) The clueful part of the fringe is much harder to reach.

Semblance is easy. Substance is hard.

