How Country Time Lemonade Used Limits to Create a Breakthrough

Using our limits, not avoiding them, is the best path to a breakthrough. Limits can create an environment for new thinking, new innovation and new results. Country Time Lemonade is a masterclass in doing that effectively with their latest PR campaign. They were able to achieve the impact they were looking for, even with smaller budgets. 

Countless companies have made donations to COVID relief, so many it’s hard to remember who was doing what. It’s a PR game where only massive amounts of cash stand out. “How do you make an impact on COVID-19 as a lemonade company?!” you might be wondering. Every company, every person comes up against limits that can stall them out. That cause them to go back to the status quo, especially these days as we are facing more limits and uncertainty than ever in modern times. 

I’m not on the inside team of Country Time Lemonade, but I'm assuming they didn’t have a budget from parent company Kraft Heinz to donate hundreds of millions to economic relief. But internally, they were presented with a dichotomy: wanting to help and contribute while at the same time being limited by budget. 

Limits are a restriction: could be money limits, legal limits, personnel limits. As people and businesses we have to use limits to create breakthrough results. The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca said: the obstacle is the way. Taking it further, the limit is the way. 

Using limits to create a breakthrough means: 

1- Acknowledging the limit

2- Understanding why it’s a limit

3- Considering what impact you’re actually trying to achieve

4- Asking how else can you achieve that impact

And the Country Time team (and / or their agency) had a culture that thought that way. What they actually wanted to achieve was to make a difference for their customers. And they could do that by creating the Littlest Bailout Relief Fund (www.countrytimebailout.com), a fund to send $100 stimulus checks to kids who had to close their lemonade stands due to COVID-19.

At a fraction of the budget, Country Time was able to get far more PR than larger donors, really make an impact and have kids talking for years to come. It’s easy to just stop and do something else if you hit the limit: “don’t have enough money”.

Instead of getting stalled out, instead of being stopped by legal, financial or any other limits, use your limits to create breakthrough results.