The first written
references to salt go back to 2,250 BCE. Thousands of years ago
animals made paths to salt licks and humans followed them there.
Soon the paths become roads and salt played a central role. Roman soldiers were paid in “salt money,” salarium argentum, from
which we take our English word “salary.”
Salt by
definition is a commodity; it is a fungible good and relatively
unprocessed raw material. Intuitively you might think that salt,
or any commodity's strategy would be entirely about price competition
since commodities are by nature undifferentiated goods with
product quality easily evaluated prior to sales.
Back in 1948 when
Morton Salt was founded in Chicago salt was already a commodity. It
was sold loose in bags and would often become lumpy, especially in
humid climates.
By 1914 Morton
introduced in its now recognizable blue round container with its
pouring spout. They built the image of finely granular free flowing
salt by showing an image of a little girl with a large umbrella with
a can of salt under her arm contextualized by the slogan:
“When it rains it
pours”
Throughout the years the image has
changed with the times being updated in 1921, 1931, 1941, 1956, and
1968. This image and slogan have been put to use for over 90 years
now. In 1924 Morton became the first company to produce iodized salt
for consumers, to help prevent goiter a health problem at the time.
It now has 26 varieties of consumer salts in its portfolio and sells
specialized products to industrial markets. Consequently, Morton
Salt is the number one brand of salt in the US. Morton sells 50% of
the canned salt on the market, and it does this at a $0.20 premium
over other brands and private labels.
In the words of the
former Vice President of Marketing:
"The answer turned out to be
simple. We found that the successful process of marketing
commodities requires value added benefits... and if you are the
first to add these benefits, and support them, your chances of
success are far greater than if you follow someone else."
So, as we see even with a basic commodity as salt there is the
potential to build an enduring brand which drives a premium value
exchange for the business.
