Credit union marketing plans, courtesy of Romeo and Juliet

by Your Marketing Co

by: Bo McDonald

Most of us are familiar with the names in Romeo and Juliet. But did you know that the tragic love story was actually written some 35-years before William Shakespeare made it famous as a play? In 1562, two years before Shakespeare was born, Arthur Brooke penned a 3,020 word poem called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.

But wait, Romeo and Juliet didn’t originate with Brooke, either. He borrowed the storyline from a number of Italian Renaissance sources, the earliest believed to date back to 1474. As you know, the legend of Romeo and Juliet didn’t end with Shakespeare either. IMDB (International Movie Database) lists more than 34 movies based on the legend, the most popular ones being made in 1938, 1968 and 1996.

Some of the most successful business practices and marketing ideas aren’t unique either. Was Sam Walton the original practitioner of selling based on low prices and high volume? Of course not. Henry Ford was one of the first to successfully ask the miracle question of: “At what price could I sell a HUGE number of these?” That’s when Ford created the Detroit Model T assembly line. Walton only took a successful business model and made it work for retail.

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