The Chocolate Covered Cherry Effect

At age seven, I loved chocolate covered cherries. My parents, ever the attentive and caring providers, made sure I had opportunities to enjoy my favorite chocolate treat every Christmas. To this day, I still get chocolate covered cherries for Christmas.

So what's the problem? I stopped liking chocolate covered cherries at age 12.

The Chocolate Covered Cherry Effect can happen with our audiences, friends, family and clients. We found what they like. We give them what they like, when they like it. But somewhere along the way, they don't like it anymore ... but we never notice.

The effect underscores the critical need for generational approaches to messaging, with "doors" for each of us to define our generation. We need to allow our audience to tell us which generation they fit into.

A colleague is age 50, but are they an early adopter with an iPhone? Are we still sending them faxes? There's a chance they might be grumbling, wishing we'd just email their information. The candy (your message, product, service) we once provided was great, they just like different candy now.

Giving respect for growth can be as simple as asking or as complex as polling, but it's worth it. Otherwise, we're just sending chocolate.