"Green Eggs and Market Plans: Learning Marketing from Dr. Seuss" by Stephen Dann
A professor of marketing, Dann had orginialy proposed to read Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) as a hithertoo unknown marketing genius, but in this version of his paper argues that the Seuss theory reflects the ubiquity of marketing as a social force. Dann notes the increasing visibility of marketing in mainstream culture (marketing for Tiger Woods or the Blair Witch Project become a topic of news coverage, for example). He reads "The Cat in the Hat" as a story about service failure and service recovery. "Green Eggs and Ham," meanwhile, becomes a lesson that, "illustrates the need for an emphasis on trial
adoption ahead of brand recognition, and peer pressure, and illustrates the importance of consumer
empowerment." "The Sneetches" is a lesson in branding - the value of the star is based on scarcity, and the ready availability of access to both the star and no-star symbols results in, "the degradation of the message associated with the image symbol, which, incidentally broke down the Sneetch class system (for better or worse)" (233). Dann describes marketing as a discipline increasingly focused on industry relevance to the possible exclusion of understanding marketing as as social proces, and looks to post modern marketing as a possible haven for thoughts less driven by possible industry applications (234).