A Marketing Miracle from Christmas Past

Christmas, 1983.

I was 9 years old and the Cabbage Patch Kid craze was at its peak.

Television news anchors couldn’t stop talking about “Cabbage Patch Mania.” The Cabbage Patch Kids Corporation had mounted a relentless, month-long marketing and PR onslaught. Even by today’s standards, the campaign was a success. The Cabbage Patch experience was aspirational and instantly relatable. The messaging was brilliant – each doll came with its own name, adoption certificate, and story.

Like any other toy craze to sleep the nation, there was a supply and demand problem. Parents, grandparents, and of course, children – everyone just had to have a Cabbage Patch kid. Shoppers camped out in front of toy stores overnight, mobbed parking lots, and stormed displays.

As you can imagine, I had just one item on the Christmas list I sent to Santa.

I braced myself for disappointment when I heard my mother talking to her best friend Joan on the kitchen rotary phone, strategizing how to get her hands on a Cabbage Patch doll.   “I know her heart is set on getting this doll,” Mom lamented. “I just don’t know if Santa will be able to come through on this one.”

Christmas morning finally came.  I scanned the pile of presents from Santa but the famous slanted box was nowhere to be seen. I held on to a shred of hope as I tore through every gift under the tree.  I didn’t get the doll.

Before I could fully absorb this life lesson in disappointment, my mom asked me to go in the closet for her – just in case she had forgotten something. Sure enough, there was a gift in there, wrapped in Santa’s signature paper. “Oh!” mom exclaimed. “Santa left this for you.” I ripped the package open and there was my very own Cabbage Patch Kid, Emily Elizabeth, staring up at me. 

I was hooked. The memory is so vivid, I can still smell the manufactured baby powder. I slept with that doll for more than a year, played with her for hours, and referred to her by her birth name.

Looking back on the Cabbage Patch craze, I have to wonder how it would play out today. Despite the old cliché about turning crisis into opportunity, sometimes that works the other way around.  The Cabbage Patch Kids Corporation had a great opportunity that would easily turn into a crisis in today’s age of social media. Imagine all the I-phone videos of unhinged shoppers getting physical over Emily Elizabeth, Bartholomew Darrel, or Constance Rosalind. 

How would marketers engineer that kind of craze today? What type of marketing would a company have to do to get that kind of result?

A viral video or funny meme? A segment on mainstream media? What about a perfectly crafted video ad or influencer endorsement? And once you got the craze going, how would you keep it under control?

No matter what you might suggest – the best products (and sometimes childhood memories) start with an experience – and a story.