Apr

22

U.S. Marketing Genius Behind Toothpick – Charles Forster

Filed Under Education and Love for Learning, Entrepreneurship

I’ve always loved Dick Eastman‘s newsletter and I invited him to dinner last Thursday when I was in Boston. He took me to the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the U.S.

Besides great food and a great evening, I learned from Dick and from a document at the restaurant that Charles Forster from Maine was the first U.S. citizen to manufacture toothpicks. To jumpstart business, he hired Harvard Law Students to eat at the Union Oyster House (the “in” place to eat in Boston) and ask for a toothpick. When the restaurant admitted they didn’t have toothpicks, the Harvard boys were instructed to make a scene about it. After 5 or 6 Harvard boys complaining about the lack of toothpicks, the Union Oyster House placed an order. Apparently, when the oldest restaurant in town carried toothpicks, the rest of the restaurants in Boston followed suite. From Boston, toothpicks spread throughout the country. Nice marketing idea.


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2 Comments so far

  1. Jonathan of Speechmastery.com on March 15, 2011 12:02 am

    Dwayne Dyer did the same thing with his first book only he called all the book stores where ever he was speaking or doing the radio interview.

    Then after calling he would show up and get his books into the store.

  2. neal on June 23, 2011 12:41 pm

    Very guerrilla way to market your product, Jonathan. At Orabrush, we’ve had the same thing happen, it’s just that so many people learned about us on YouTube, that they went into stores and asked about it, without us asking them to do so :)