Frederick the Great, potatoes and the art of rebranding
How do we change the way people think about your brand?
Back in the 18th century, Frederick II of Prussia (also known as Frederick the Great) was looking for ways to feed his nation and lower the price of bread. He proposed the potato as a suitable new addition to the nation’s diet.
But peasants resisted growing it. They said that potatoes looked dirty and had no taste.
So King Frederick decided to rebrand it as a royal vegetable, planted a royal field with potato plants and ordered his guards to protect them.
Now here’s the real kicker — the guards were instructed to pretend not to notice in case local peasants tried to steal from the King’s garden.
Before long, peasants started stealing these “royal potatoes” and growing them in secret. And boom, suddenly everyone was eating potatoes.
Frederick understood this: if something is worth guarding, it is worth stealing.
🚀 Founder & Chief Copywriter: teardwn.com
💌 Newsletter: creativesamba.substack.com
🏂 Side projects: 💡 heynishi.com + ✍️ copyipsum.com + 🎧 chillmusic.club + 📻 Chill Music Club FM
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed reading this story, you’ll also enjoy reading my newsletter. It’s called Creative Samba and every week I share stories like this. Always packed with actionable insights about copywriting, marketing and how the human mind works.
Who is this guy anyway?
Miguel Ferreira and his out of the ordinary Web Copywriting Agency, Teardwn, are obsessed with one thing only. To help Indie Startups & Small Businesses find their voice and use copywriting as their legal unfair competitive advantage to GROW & COMPETE with the BIG Brands out there.
Nice things his clients have said…
“Miguel was the key for us to level-up our marketing. Previously we had only been iterating on our same tired messaging. I was impressed with how little work it took on our part to get a comprehensive review from Miguel. Then, making the changes was as simple as copy-and-pasting, and we saw a categorical improvement we would have never got to with our A/B testing. I’ve since then recommended Miguel to many of my similarly-minded friends who tend to focus on the mechanics of a feature rather than the emotionally resonant messaging that actually sells it!”
— Maia Bittner, Co-Founder of Pinch
“Miguel (Teardwn) provided copywriting for our marketing landing page. This was instrumental in setting the tone and path forward for all marketing materials, communication, and branding. Prior to this, we had struggled and never came up with something consistent. Miguel provided clarity within a couple of weeks. He was easy to work with, fast, and collaborative. I am looking forward to working with Teardwn again and again!”
— Mimi Chan, Founder & CEO of Littlefund
“Creating a brand from scratch was incredibly overwhelming for us. We knew we needed help with copywriting, but we were afraid that someone from the outside might not ‘get us’. However, Miguel was incredibly quick in understanding our tone of voice, our jokes and what we wanted to communicate. Resulting in a webpage that is simple but still funky!”
— Leticia Horvath, Co-Founder of The Green Conspiracy
Working with me = copy that stands out = (more time to run your business + back to making more cha-ching). Say hi: miguel@teardwn.com
