Thoughts on popcorn

I don't like popcorn.

But today, walking by a bowl of it, I took some.

Most people do. The thing about popcorn is that it is a low investment, low risk snack. You can eat it if you're not hungry. You can successfully have a tiny portion. You are virtually certain that it will taste very much like your last popcorn snack.

There are products that are as easy to sample as popcorn. And making your product more popcorn-like is a great idea.

At the same time, it's interesting to note that very few people make a lot of money from popcorn. For a product this ubiquitous, it's surprisingly unsuccessful. Coke and Nike and Marlboro are a lot more powerful than Jiffy Pop.

So, the second lesson is that you want to make the sampling popcorn-like, but the commitment to be far bigger than it is for popcorn. Easy trial and consistent quality can lead to low commitment, not a great combination.

How do we make this more like popcorn? How do we make it less like popcorn?