I just came across Stephen Dann's fun slideshow on the marketing lessons we can draw from Dr. Seuss. He says,

If Kotler is widely seen as the father of marketing, then Theodor Geisel (aka Dr Seuss) should be proud to be marketing's funny uncle. Between 1950 and 1965, Dr Seuss inadvertently published a sophisticated range of marketing texts. At the time, these break-through marketing texts were unrecognised by industry and academia, who discarded the theories concerning relationship marketing, promotion, service recovery and product over complication.

"Cat in the Hat" is a lesson in service recovery. "Green Eggs and Ham" teaches us that "integrating the promotional message of trial adoption with a free sample in a low pressure environment provides a greater return than the high pressure awareness campaign." And the Sneetches provide a case study of the social meaning derived from branding.

Let's not forget other Seussian social marketing lessons like the Lorax as spokesperson for the trees, the power of community organizing ("Make every Who holler! Make every Who shout!"), and how the Sleep Book establishes social norms by showing that "everybody's doing it."

And with this advice, will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)