From changemaker to tastemaker

Born 1730 in Staffordshire, England, Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter and entrepreneur, credited with the industrialization of pottery manufacturing. Wedgwood has been described as both a magnetic and engaging individual, but also as an obsessive perfectionist. A Steve Jobs of the 17th century. He would walk his manufacturing floor with a wooden stick and smash the ware that didn’t reach his rigorous quality threshold, to make sure that his workers were working to his level of perfection. By marrying art, design, and technology, Wedgwood would transition a previously rude and uncultivated craft into a global industry—and create a company that, 260 years later, employs more than 3,000 people.

But this isn’t a book about ceramics manufacturing or the Industrial Revolution.¹ This is a book about modern marketing. So what could a 17th-century ceramics manufacturer possibly have to do with present-day digital marketing?

Turns out that he was, to say the least, a little bit ahead of his time.

And as such, I’d like to share the marketing strategies that Wedgwood deployed to create the world’s first “affordable luxury brand” and how he wrote the very first page in the playbook of influencer marketing, more than 250 years before Instagram saw the light of day. Not unlike Steve Jobs, Josiah Wedgwood’s brilliance was not only technical but equally impressive in terms of marketing—and feeling the sense of where British consumer culture was going at the time. In ways, Wedgwood is actually credited as the inventor of modern marketing. He was an entrepreneur and marketer, ahead of his time, with a deep understanding of consumerism, culture, and how to leverage the right platforms and influential individuals to both build a brand and sell his products. Josiah Wedgwood was early to spot (and ride) the wave of the 17th-century Consumer Revolution, in ways similar to how you and other readers are likely to ride the present-tense wave of social media and influencer marketing.

Throughout this book, we’ll focus on the present (and future), but first, we’ll travel 300 years back in time to the very roots of influencer marketing, to understand what got us to where we are today.

Contextual relevance and aspirational lifestyle

The Royal Family, Queen, and…Tea. These are things that the Brits hold in high regard. But in the 1700s, tea drinking from expensive ceramics was an act reserved for nobility, royalty, and the upper class. Josiah Wedgwood had a deep understanding of manufacturing and industrialization—but if there was something he understood better than anything else, it would be consumer marketing. His expensive ceramic goods and teacups were in much demand from the nobility, and Queen Charlotte was so impressed by his quality threshold and perfectionism that she commissioned Wedgwood to create a range of cream-colored tableware.

We can’t tell for sure, but the special privilege was very likely a suggestion by Mr. Josiah Wedgwood himself. To honor Her Majesty, Josiah offered to rename his creamware “Queen’s Ware,” linking its uniqueness and brilliance to the image of the Queen—in return for using her assent to gain credibility in the marketplace for fashionable goods. With the endorsement of Her Majesty, Queen Charlotte, the most influential individual during their time, Josiah had set a plan in motion that would lay the foundation of the world’s very first affordable luxury brand. In a stroke of marketing genius, Josiah immediately began advertising in local newspapers announcing that “Mr. Josiah Wedgwood has had the honor of being appointed Potter to Her Majesty.” promoting his new product line of Queen’s Ware.

Chaos ensues in London

Shortly thereafter, Josiah opened an exclusive showroom in London where his work could be seen on display—to build additional hype by capitalizing on consumers’ newfound aspiration to live like royalty.

Picture that.

It’s 1774, and Wedgwood engineered the biggest product launch of his time, through the use of newspaper advertising, fame, and word of mouth. Let’s fast-forward to November 5, 2015, 240 years later.

Olivier Rousteing, Creative Director of the French fashion house Balmain, sets out to collaborate with H&M to launch their Balmain x H&M Collection He teams up with Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, and Gigi Hadid to name a few, to build anticipation and hype on social media to their millions of followers. These are the Queen Charlotte’s of our time.

His goal? To bring exclusivity to the masses.

Roadblocks are established to keep crowds in order, and thousands of consumers are lined up for the anticipated launch. When H&M finally opens up the doors to their flagship store on Regent Street in London, just a short 10-minute walk from the Wedgwood showroom on Greek Street that opened up 240 years earlier, full chaos ensues as 3,000 desperate and excited fashion fans fight to get through the doors of the flagship store.

It would seem like history does, indeed, repeat itself.

I had the privilege of speaking with the Global Chief Marketing Officer of H&M around that time, and she couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed. They’d never seen anything like it. The campaign and product launch and the power of influencer marketing were, to use her own words, “almost too effective.” Little did she know that an event with striking resemblance took place just a few blocks west of their London flagship store, some 240 years earlier.

The Consumer Revolution

The showroom was just the starting point.

Josiah was early to notice how the taste and preference among aristocracy had begun to trickle down through the rest of society (what would later be referred to as the Consumer Revolution) and that it was only a matter of time before the masses would eventually aspire to own the line of products that initially were reserved for the upper class.

Tea was mainly consumed by royalty and upper classes, but the middle class had begun to embrace new ideas about luxury consumption driven by aspiration and not a pure necessity. As such, the tea industry was growing exponentially in England, and Josiah understood better than anyone else that no other individual than the Queen would have more influence in the market. The masses wanted to live like aristocrats, and Wedgwood quickly gained the upper hand by associating his Queen’s Ware with luxury while mass-producing affordable products to the masses. He would proceed to expand his marketing efforts and pioneer direct mail, money-back guarantees, free delivery, buy one get one free, and illustrated catalogs. When he passed away in 1795, he was one of the wealthiest people in England.

Steve Jobs married art, design, and technology to revolutionize the way we think about both consumer electronics and brand marketing. Olivier Rousteing of Balmain brought luxury to the masses with his 1.6 million followers and a merry band of social media celebrities. And savvy modern social media-driven brands understand that influencer marketing can persuade consumers to shop out of aspiration and not just necessity.

But Josiah Wedgwood accomplished all of those things, ahead of his time, a good 250 years before Kevin Systrom and Mike Kriger set out to launch their photo-app, Instagram. To say that Josiah left an important legacy and played an important role in history would be somewhat of an understatement.

His daughter, Susannah Wedgwood, later gave birth to none other than Charles Darwin. Who would have guessed that the origin of influencer marketing is quite literally related to the author of The Origin of Species?