Conversations in Management
The
Rose in question was Rose Mattus, wife, and along with
her husband Reuben, co-founder of Häagen-Dazs—America’s first
national brand of premium ice cream! The Mattus family had been
selling ice cream for 34 years before the introduction of
Haagen-Dazs in 1959. Though the company was successful, Reuben
was a restless entrepreneur with a creative eye for new
opportunities. One day, while pondering ways to grow the
business, he was inspired with what Rose called, one of his
crazy ideas (apparently he had many). Up to that time, most
commercial ice cream was made with low-fat powdered milk and
artificial flavoring. Reuben dreamed of a nationally distributed
premium ice cream. It would be incredibly rich with up to
17% butterfat, fresh egg yolks and ingredients like Belgian
chocolate, Madagascar vanilla and Columbian coffee. (Not
coincidently, the brand launched with three flavors—chocolate,
vanilla and coffee.) Reuben figured that a product of artisan
quality required a distinctive name. As he associated Denmark
with purity, craftsmanship and Old World charm, he decided to
brand his new ice cream with a Danish motif. Unfortunately he
didn’t know any Danish and so relying on another crazy idea
he simply made up a name that sounded Danish—Häagen-Dazs.
He even added an umlaut for authenticity; unaware that it’s a
German symbol not used in Danish. But it didn’t matter. The
named sounded right, looked good and if anyone had any doubts,
the map of Denmark on the package sealed the impression.
Meanwhile Rose, who was tasked with marketing this tasty
confection, was coming up with some crazy ideas of her
own. She started by dressing in her best clothes and handing out
free samples in upscale supermarkets. It was an easy sell. Her
next strategy was to embrace the 60’s counterculture. She began
by placing Häagen-Dazs in stores around NYU’s Greenwich Village
campus. It was an instant hit. Gradually she expanded
distribution (by Greyhound Bus) to college campuses across the
country. Momentum built slowly, but by the 1980’s Häagen-Dazs
was a $115 million business. That’s a lot of ice cream.
So it
turns out that Häagen-Dazs ice cream was the result of a
crazy idea and became a huge hit through successive layers
of craziness. Now, a lot of us have crazy ideas but never
do anything about them because of the obstacles that stand in
our way. But obstacles didn’t seem to be a problem for the
Mattus’. Both Rose and Reuben were immigrant children and lived
an early life of almost unimaginable poverty. They had no
connections to ease their way into society or to launch
careers. What would become the family business began with Reuben
and his widowed mother selling lemon ices from a horse drawn
cart in the South Bronx. A lack of education didn’t stop
them. While Rose managed to graduate, High School wasn’t even a
possibility for Rueben who had to earn a living as a child.
Age didn’t get in their way either. Both were in their
mid-forties when they launched the Häagen-Dazs brand and pitched
it to counterculture college students. While that may not seem
old today, those with long enough memories will recall that in
the 60’s the youthful mantra was, “never trust anyone over
30.”
Of course, some ideas are legitimately crazy. And you probably
should abandon the one about cashing in your retirement
savings to buy lottery tickets. But most of the time your crazy
ideas are actually inspirations. They’re creative moments
when by some intuitive magic you see things a bit more clearly
than you had before and you see things that others may have
missed. So the next time you have a crazy idea, consider it a
revelation and do something about it. You might have
stumbled on the next big thing. And indulge yourself.
Have a bowl of ice cream while you’re working out the details!
—Ebert
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