Everybody is looking to innovation survive the current downturn, although for some it’s just talk. And when I say everybody I do mean everybody—including the bad guys. According to Chris Harrison, chief illicit laboratory chemist at the Arkansas lab, “The drug cartels operate just like any other corporation would — if they want to increase their market share, then they’re going to have to change something about it. This is just an evolution. They’ve saturated the heavy users, now they are moving onto some other people.”

Meth may be extraordinarily profitable, but it tastes horrible—bitter, not particularly enticing and illegal—which makes expanding your customer base difficult.

So the innovative crowd has turned to common marketing approaches, including adding color to emulate rock candy and fine-tuning the taste to increase the market.

These are classic approaches used by consumer products companies for decades to attract new customers—prunes became dried plums and the market exploded.

Dried plums are far more consumer friendly—as is meth that is sweet and tastes like strawberries or chocolate.

The innovations are only in a small test market, Idaho, Nevada, Missouri, Texas, Wisconsin, California, New Mexico, Minnesota and Washington state (where I live—oh joy), but thanks to a stupid hoax email are likely to spread.

The hoax email says that bags of “Strawberry Quick,” a type of meth that looks like rock candy, are being tossed into school playgrounds to hook the kids.

No, that’s not being done—yet.

But I have to wonder if the people who created the hoax cared that today’s hoax could become tomorrow’s drug marketing phenomenon.

After all,

• consumer marketing has been using give-a-ways to introduce people to their products for decades; and
• drug dealers have email, too.

CandidProf will return next week.

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