Marketing sauerkraut

The story goes that James Cook brought fermented german cabbage with him on a long voyage, an innovative way to combat scurvy.

He knew that getting his sailors to eat this strange and stinky food was going to be difficult, particularly since scurvy is a long-term problem, not something you want to try to solve after you get it.

His answer was based on recognizing the power of status roles and is widely applicable:

For the first two weeks of the journey, only the captain and the officers were allowed to eat sauerkraut.

Demand creation through status roles has a long history, apparently.