Bees are essential to our survival, they are fascinating insects. There is much we can learn from their habits, the outcome of millions of years of evolution. They do not just fly around at random, pollinating as they go, they are highly organised, focused, collaborative, and each plays a specific role in the hive.
As a kid, I used to watch my grandfather catch bees in his fantastic rose garden, cultivated to attract bees. He captured them in a bag, and made them sting him on his knees, believing it eased his arthritis, born of a life of physical labour. Modern medicine has isolated a molecule in bee venom that is associated with arthritic pain relief, demonstrating again, that old wives tales are sometimes true.
Back to the question, what do bees know about marketing strategy?
It turns out, a lot.
Advertising and mutual benefit.
Flowers, which attract the bees, need to tell the bees that there is something they like, nectar, on offer. However, there is a mutual benefit, as the bees pollinate the flowers as they take the nectar. A mutually beneficial arrangement, with many variations across the varying ecosystems.
Value proposition.
To attract bees, plants that need to be pollinated, have flowers, the bigger and more decorative, in general the better. They want the bees to be attracted, be rewarded for the visit, and return, so they offer lots of nectar. The flower is an attractive façade that makes a promise, fulfilled by the nectar. This encourages the bees to return, which is much better than a once only visit. Bit like building a brand. Invest, attract, and work towards repeat business.
Communication and referral.
Bees communicate, they signal to each other when they have found a good source of nectar by doing elaborate ‘dances’ in the air. ‘Word of wing’ advertising perhaps?
Selective Resource allocation
Plants use a lot of their limited resources producing flowers. Being a world where nothing happens on a whim, it follows that there is more value in the allocation of resources to creating flowers than to alternative uses. Perhaps flowers are just plants with an advertising budget?
Collaboration and innovation.
Bees have roles in the hive. One role is of the explorer. These bees ignore the ‘word of wing’ of their colleagues, and range more widely looking for new sources of nectar. This is a necessary function, as if there was not exploration, the nearby sources of nectar would be consumed, and with no alternatives found, the hive would die out. In commercial terms, these are the R&D or Innovation bees. They are making the investment now, so the longer term survival of the hive is assured.
Not always as it seems
Not everything that appears attractive is valuable. Orchids are rare, beautiful, and highly evolved, and are traps for the unwary bee. Usually orchids are a one stop shop for a bee, the scent of the orchid lures the bees in, they pollinate the orchid, but then cannot get out. Once word gets around the bee community these plants are dangerous, the bees avoid them, which is why orchids are an early flowering group of plants, and are widely scattered, so the bees have less opportunity to spread the word of the danger. They are like that really nice looking restaurant in a tourist area, the locals avoid it like the plague, but the tourists go in, and get fleeced, but the owners know the tourists are a once only visitor, so it does not matter, as there is no tomorrow, it is a once only transaction.
Metaphors from the natural world abound in management literature, for a very good reason: we can learn a lot from them.
