This was the challenge facing Ricoh director of marketing Chas Moloney at last week’s BAPC conference, and he came up with the purrr-fect solution.

He talked about the myriad threats facing the industry and how to adapt to them by adding true value. He vividly illustrated the point by comparing two brands of cat food, identical save the fact that one cost four times as much – the upshot being that value is created in the mind of the buyer.

However, to ram home the point that there really was no difference between the two products, he proceeded to use up one of his nine lives and taste both the Tesco and Sheba cat foods – to the dubious delight of eight out of 10 delegates.

Moloney claimed to be feline fine after the stunt, but Post Script couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to have something stuck in his throat afterwards – a furball perhaps?

Let us know how far you are prepared to go to make a point. Email tim.sheahan@haymarket.com