One man’s pickles is another man’s destiny

DO YOU LOVE PICKLES? TRY PICKLED PAPER—THE NEW STANDARD FOR DIGESTIVE HEALTH

Tobias completed placing the words onto his digital advertisement design and nodded to himself. He thought this was an extremely clever marketing tactic. He was alone in his parents’ home, sitting by the window looking out on the gray overcast sky and gray pavement wet with rain typical of May, trying to avoid stepping outside if he could due to the not-so-typical pickled smell in the air. 

It hadn’t been anyone’s fault that the entire Pickle Solutions © factory exploded, subsequently flooding the community library next door from floor to ceiling with their signature pickling brew. However, it was the singular mission of the public relations crisis communications team at Pickle Solutions (aka just Tobias) to restore the Pickle Solutions image and somehow turn it into a benefit to the community. After the explosion just days ago, the pickling fluid had leached into the surrounding ground, run off into sewage grates, and even seeped into the cracks in the deteriorating concrete of the small town’s roads. You could not leave your home without smelling the vinegary tang of pickles. 

“Our esteemed pickling formula is made of completely natural ingredients. If any smell remains, it is completely safe and all-natural. Our research at Pickle Solutions © indicates there will be no long-term hazards to the people or environment here in X Town,” said Founder and CEO of Pickle Solutions ©, Mark Ruban. “We look forward to rebuilding alongside the community and finding solutions to make X Town even better than we left it.” - Press Release cited in ABC News affiliate story, “The Pickling.” (Mark Ruban had never actually said this. It was the clever words spun by Tobias, signed off by the CEO’s secretary from his residence in the hillsides of Santorini, Greece.)

Instead of letting the pickle formula and library books go to waste, the public relations team at Pickled Solutions (aka Tobias) had come up with a second ingenious marketing ploy, the first being the “research” photoshoot that proved Pickled Solutions would not leave any lasting environmental impact on X Town. The second was:

PICKLED PAPER: THE ALL-NATURAL, ORGANICALLY-SOURCED, LOW-CALORIE ALTERNATIVE TO VEGETABLES

That’s what pickles were anyways—a more delicious, higher in sodium snack that tasted better on a sandwich. And now, the people served by Pickled Solutions, from Maine to Mississippi, would eat up (literally) the new edible pickle product.

ALL-NEW PICKLED PAPER! GET IN A SUPERMARKET NEAR YOU! WHILE SUPPLIES LASTS!

Pickled paper was in fact approved by the FDA. It was edible, which was an incredible discovery for Tobias in crisis communications. The acidic environment of the pickling solution stripped all the ink off the pages of the library books. It was  pure pulp-based paper that survived and made its way into the appealing, brightly colored jars of the all-new packaging for Pickled Paper. 

Tobias had begun his career in PR seven years ago at the mayor’s office right here in X Town. He had tried to get out of town and find a big job in a big city. Unfortunately for Tobias, the communications teams in larger corporations seemed to hire strictly young people that had relatives who already worked at said larger corporations. Nepotism, Tobias had learned early on, could get you anywhere. The extent of nepotism for him was that his father worked in the mayor’s office, which had eventually gotten him name recognition among the people at Pickle Solutions. His mother had chosen to be a kindergarten teacher. Not a lot of hiring partiality existed in the teaching world. 

And so he had never escaped. Pickled Solutions had been his home for the past four years. It was generally easy work. His job consisted mainly of coming up with pickle puns to incorporate into the brand’s website and advertising. 

“Rise and brine! We’ve got a new dill for you!”- BOGO promotional flyer, 2018

“In a pickle? Pickle Solutions © 24-hour customer service is here for you!” - bottom of Pickle Solutions homepage

“Pickle Solutions brings you a tropickle twist!” - Pineapple Pickle packaging, 2017

“Relish the moment, try Pickle Solutions © brand new wedding pickles for the big day!” - unreleased new branding promotional, 2020

These skills at punny promotionals and knowledge of the pickling world had all culminated to this moment, when Tobias was facing the biggest crisis in his career (outperforming even his years with the mayor’s PR team). His job wasn’t on the line necessarily, Pickle Solutions would continue to be sold in supermarkets across the eastern half of the United States, but, if things went well restoring the Pickle Solutions image to the community, maybe just maybe he could leave X Town for good and explore the world of public relations where it mattered. 

Being a one-man show, Tobias had conducted stakeholder surveys himself to his neighbors in X Town. 

“Pickled Solutions? I genuinely thought they just had office space in there,” Tobias’s neighbor Gary had told him. “Had no idea there was enough room for an entire pickle factory.” Gary wasn’t far from the truth. It had been Pickled Solutions’ absent CEO who had demanded that pickle production increase at their X Town facility. It was this impractical expansion that had likely caused the explosion. 

“Would you be amenable to a pickle pun in new updates informing you about clean-up and rebuilding pertaining to the explosion?” Tobias had asked a few times. What could he say, pickle puns were what he was good at. The public did not suggest this method of delivering information, unfortunately. 

Throughout his door-to-door surveys and research into similar handling of crises (although a pickle factory explosion that pickled an entire library was a fairly unique one), Tobias was determined to be conscientious of the blowout. The town had lost a community meeting place. No more library. No more free books. Plus the stench was actually getting unbearable as the town inched closer to the stifling heat of summer. When the sun hit the pavement at noon, there was a rotten egg smell worse than an overflowing sewage grate. And, unlike sewage, the water facility was not equipped to remove a tinge of pickles from the drinking water. 

A lot was riding on Tobias’ ability to improve the image of Pickle Solutions after the explosion. And if things went his way? Pickle Solutions would be looking at its newest product, a combination of paper and pickling formula that could be sold at a prime rate and would pay for itself, a raise for Tobias, and a new and improved library for X Town. 

PICKLED PAPER FORMULA INCLUDES ORGANIC PULP MIX, A BLEND OF OUR SIGNATURE HERBS AND SPICES, AND THE PICKLE SOLUTIONS © FORMULA YOU ALL KNOW AND LOVE! AND SPECIALLY FOR ITS RELEASE, PICKLE SOLUTIONS © IS DONATING ALL PROCEEDS TO DIRECTLY BENEFIT COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT WERE YOUR FAVORITE PICKLES ARE PRODUCED.

This moment took a lot of thought, empathy, manipulation of the public, and a diabolical amount of consumer research. Red words caught the attention of a roaming eye. End stacks that had “NEW” somewhere in the display were more likely to earn shoppers’ interest. A brand that had been trusted for years and was seen as historically significant would appeal to the public. So would the visualization of a product already being consumed by the buyer. 

PICKLED SOLUTIONS © HAS LED THE WAY IN PICKLING INNOVATION FOR 85 YEARS. FROM THE SAME BRAND THAT BROUGHT YOU HABANERO PICKLED RADISHES AND HONEY PICKLED WHOLE GARLIC, PICKLED SOLUTIONS © OFFERS UP ANOTHER CREATIVE SOLUTION: MELT-IN-YOUR-MOUTH PICKLED PAPER!

And, of course, the craze of smart foods, green foods, and organic foods with labels of non-GMO, gluten free, dairy-free, and all-natural even when all of these things technically were common sense (e.g. a pickle does not include gluten) could easily be taken advantage of to sell a product. 

PICKLED PAPER—A NEW SUPERFOOD! FERMENTATION IS PROVEN TO IMPROVE DIGESTIVE HEALTH. THE FIRST INGREDIENT, ORGANIC PULP, IS AN IMMUNITY BOOSTER, CONTAINS SEVERAL OF OUR DAILY NECESSARY VITAMINS, AND STABILIZES BLOOD SUGAR. PLUS, PICKLED PAPER, WHEN APPLIED TOPICALLY, PROVIDES THE USER WITH A GLOWY, DEWY SHINE! *Application to skin has not been tested. Use at your own risk. 

After hours of crafting the rebranding of X Town library books into Pickled Paper, Tobias was pleased with the instant popularity surrounding his product. Everyone wanted a taste of this new superfood. It was sold out in X Town’s trial testing in hours.

Banking on its lasting success, Pickled Solutions installed Pickled Paper in permanent production at their new plant, built just a few miles from the old one. The plant was rebuilt bigger to accommodate the production of Pickled Paper using the profit from the initial Pickled Paper drop. The revenue paid for a new library for the town. It also paid for a scholarship fund, allocated yearly, to an X Town high school graduate who exemplified the public service values of Pickled Solutions. 

Tobias’ success led him to start his own PR consulting company. He dubbed himself the Pickle Solution. It was catchy and got him a lot of publicity with the right people. He established himself in California. It was lonely. He moved back to X Town. He set up an office in his parents’ attic and held in-person meetings at the state-of-the-art library meeting space. He started a podcast. Tobias Talks began with the story of how he brought Pickled Solutions back from the brink. It turned into an audio vlog of his world travels. He met the president. He met the prime minister of England. There were political crises he had the skills to solve. They were too serious for him, though, and he moved on to more exciting crises: 

ALL THE WRONG STUFF: TOY FACTORY OWNER FOUND GUILTY OF SMUGGLING CRACK IN THE STUFFING OF TEDDY BEARS

“It wasn’t the toys that were corrupt, it was the man,” said Tobias Cerc, representative of TED D BEAR INC. “We will carry on, overcoming these shortcomings of our leadership, and continue bringing the public cozy stuffed companions with a staff committed to quality care.”

FRAUD ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA: A STRING OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES USES GOVERNMENT FUNDS TO BUILD “SATELLITE CAMPUSES” USED BY UNIVERSITY ADMIN AS VACATION HOMES

“We have every intention of producing the educational outcomes our students have come to expect from us,” said President of Dalkan University, Virginia. “By scouting out the most culturally diverse and welcoming spaces for our students, we are pleased to provide an encompassing experience for students interning in the office of the President in Monaco.”

By primarily working out of the library’s free services and his parents’ home, after only a few short years Tobias had saved up enough to build his own facilities in X Town near the site of the old factory. The smell of pickles has dissipated by now. But every now and then, when the sun beat down on the pavement, Tobias thought he caught just a whiff of his first success as a master of crisis communications.