The Easiest Way to Shuck Corn (and How It Relates to Your Brand's Message)

This is one of the most useful pieces of content you'll read all year. That is, if you don't already know the trick to shucking corn.

Prepping corn is tough because it comes in layers. On the outside, you have the husk. On the inside, you have the kernels. In between, you have a layer of threads called the silk that always seem to stick to the kernels when you shuck the corn. Until now.

Are you ready? Here it is.

The easiest way to shuck corn without getting any silk stuck on the cob is to microwave the corn at a ratio of four minutes per ear. If you're cooking one ear, set the microwave for four minutes. If you're cooking three, set it for 12.

After the timer goes off, take the corn out with some good gloves. It gets hot. Now, cut the husk at the end of the ear that attaches to the stalk, not the end with the tassels sticking out. It's important to cut through the entire cob so the first half inch or so is trimmed off.

Finally, take the ear by the tassel end, and gently shake it. The cob should fall right out with a few easy twists. And it should be silk free.

Want to see a two-minute video of what this looks like?

The guy in the video is named Ken Craig. When he made this, he was 86 years old. It's the only video on his YouTube channel, and it's set up by a family member because Ken doesn't have an email address. Yet this man, an 86-year-old without an email address, created a single piece of content that went viral.

Why? 

This is how a video on shucking corn relates to marketing and your brand's message. 

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger details six important factors to viral content, to getting your brand's messages shared. The six areas of focus are: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories (STEPPS).

Corn doesn't provide much social currency, though you could argue that people shared Craig's video because they wanted to help make lives easier for their friends and families, much as I did above.

Corn doesn't create triggers or emotions. There's no real connection with the public, as in "everyone else is cooking corn like this, so I should as well." And good luck finding a story in how to cook corn. But there's one important factor to Craig's video. It provides practical value, and that's why people want to share it.

What does this mean for your foodservice business?

Many foodservice companies we encounter are only interested in promoting the features and benefits of their products. Certainly, this is part of the overall message cycle, but this approach omits other important phases in the Awareness, Consideration, Decision model we use as inbound marketers. It also eliminates the chance for virality.

As we saw above, it doesn't take a million dollar ad budget or a 10,000 dollar camera. It doesn't take a well-written script or a famous voice over. It doesn't even take marketers. All you need is an idea you can connect to one of the six factors of contagious content -- in this case, practical value -- and a desire to bring that idea to life.

Before you even take the first step, though, you have to commit to providing your customers and potential customers with valuable content. Start now.

There's no denying the power of video, and it's really not that hard to do. Download Getting Started with Video: The Step-by-Step Introductory Guide, and we'll email you a copy of what you need to get started.