Strategic Addiction

Hooking your customer on a product, whether literally or figuratively, is a purposeful business strategy.

Rather than write a post this week, I created my first-ever video: strategic addiction, the business strategy involving addicting customers. While we tend to think of addiction as a natural by-product, addiction as a business strategy was actually a thought-out and carefully executed scheme by the British East India Company. Tired of paying China for tea, they addicted millions to opium — which they smuggled from India where they obtained it for almost nothing — then traded the opium for tea. When the Chinese resisted, the British waged war, the Opium Wars.

Enjoy: