How A Single Fortune Cookie Changed Abby McClain's Life

Welcome back to The Friday Fortune! If you’re running on conference coffee, airport snacks, or the quiet confidence of someone who definitely didn’t read all their emails this week, you’re in the right place. This is your pause button. The moment where inspiration sneaks in before the next calendar alert ruins the vibe.

Each week, we sit down with the leaders shaping modern marketing, not just the ones chasing the next shiny object, but the ones thinking deeply about impact, transformation, and what it actually takes to lead through change. This week is no exception.

This week’s issue takes us to Twin Falls, Idaho, where a high school junior found herself at a massive crossroads…

📈 Marketer of the Week

Abby McClain of Twin Falls, Idaho was just a regular high school junior, focused on one of the first (and wildly impactful) adult choices of her life: Where to go to college.

As a student athlete, she faced some extra considerations: Several Division 1 volleyball offers, program and campus life comparisons, and just finding a best-fit team. All coming her way in a short amount of time, recruitment email after recruitment email overwhelming her inbox. 

Choosing your college is a weighty decision for anyone, but even more so for McClain, who describes herself as someone who’s always believed in paying attention to small moments that feel meaningful, including those inside fortune cookies. 

“I’ve just always been like that. It’s so easy. Why not read it and take it as a sign, and go about your day?” Abby said.

Little did she expect a fortune cookie would enter her life, providing an all-too-clarifying nudge that would change everything. 

The Slip That Sealed the College Deal

The D1 recruiting process, Abby explains, came with unexpected pressure and a more fraught timeline than anticipated. Coaches were calling. Scholarship comparisons loomed. Almost overnight, her decision felt urgent. But her brain was caught in a cartwheel. 

McClain began short-listing select campuses to visit to make her final decision. Eventually, she whittled down to two finalists: Idaho State and Old Dominion in Virgina, both places she readily saw herself…and saw her dilemma exasperated. 

“I enjoyed both visits so much. I was talking with my parents, and I was like, I don’t know what to do. I like both of these schools. I’m not sure. I was just kind of teetering between the two.” 

One Meal Can Change Everything 

“Then one day, I decided to go to get chinese food and I got my fortune cookie.” Yet what otherwise would have been a routine bite to eat, ending in that signature cookie, turned into a catalyzing inflection point, altering the course of McClain’s life

Her fortune read:  

You don’t need to travel far to find the satisfaction you’re looking for.

The moment was like a jolt of lightning. McClain immediately went home to share the uncanny slip with her parents, and its implication: She had decided on Idaho State. 

“I always read my fortune cookies. I always think they’re true. That’s just how my family is too. We always all read our fortune cookies, keep them, everything like that.”

McClain was never the type to close off from life’s (often surprising) signals. Less than a week later, she signed her National Letter of Intent with the Bengals, and was their most sought-after recruit for its 2024 cohort, according to ISU girl’s volleyball head coach, Sean Carter.   

“I’m so grateful I got that fortune cookie,” McClain says. “Because I could have gone somewhere else and my life could have been completely different.” 

When asked why people give so much weight to fortune cookies, McClain doesn’t hesitate. 

“I think it's so easy to take this piece of paper as a sign or something from the universe… because they're all unique. No one else is getting this, so clearly I need to see it at this time.”

McClain admits to another, equally powerful force behind the fortune slip: They get kept and saved. 

“I have some in my car, I have some on my bedside table. I always keep them.”

She’s not alone. Nearly 21% of people say they keep their slips after their meals, a clear sign to how influential, encouraging, affirming, and even inspiring these little slips are to the individuals cracking them open. 

She laughs, also describing how serious her family takes it. “We go out and we get a fortune cookie and then we're like, ‘oh my gosh, what's your fortune?’”

The Big Power of the “Little” Nudge

McClain strongly believes in what she calls the “nudge” of fortune cookies. In fact, it was the small but resonating nudge held in her cookie’s single line that clarified her decision more powerfully than dozens of college recruitment emails, brochures, campus visits, and direct coach calls.  

“It got to the point I was just deleting my emails,” she admits. “I couldn’t read any more…I mean, every school is saying the same stuff basically.”

“I feel like I see fortune cookies as a little influence…it’s just this little influence of oh, actually, that could be really cool. Or I was thinking about this already, but had never thought about it like that.” 

McClain’s experience echoes how consumers today are all-but inundated with ads yet starved for connection and meaning within them. Americans are exposed to as many as 5,000 marketing messages per day according to leading research from the University of Southern California. And that number isn’t shrinking. 

Fortune cookies work so effectively because, in her words, they don’t push like other ads do. “No one’s telling us to do anything… It’s very minimal pressure and stress.” 

She continues, “Honestly, in my case, having a little fortune cookie slip that says you’ll find this near you. It’s just so simple. It’s just little words, so simple, but it really can change someone’s life for the better.”

McCain also notes many other industries outside higher education could benefit from a style of marketing that’s less pushy, more personal. Brands in retail, health and wellness, HR and recruitment — even popular streaming services and social media platforms like LinkedIn — feel especially well positioned. And as trends in physical media and IRL experiences make a resurgence, many more orgs will find themselves reinvesting in audience connection outside usual mediums and urgency-based messaging plays.  

As for McClain, now a graduating ISU senior, her relationship to fortune cookies hasn’t diminished. If anything, “It carries a little bit stronger now.” 

She explains further, “I think it's so fun how a little fortune cookie can do that, and how it can impact everyone's lives, and how fun it can be…I look forward to it after every meal I have with Chinese.” 

How many marketing playbooks get to say that?  

Fortune Favors the Bold

The marketer's dream is to be remembered at the point of decision. To break through the constant noise and competition from other marketers.

This is exactly what OpenFortune 🥠 does for universities and so many other types of businesses.

We cut through the noise in a way that stands out, makes you remember, and makes you feel emotion strong enough to take action.

If you want to learn about how we can do the same for your brand, book a call below.

🥠 The Cookie Jar

Crack open a handful of the week’s best marketing links—because good fortune favors the curious.

• Ro’s Super Bowl Debut With Serena Williams Tackles GLP-1 Stigma. When the conversation needs a serve as powerful as Serena's backhand.

• Why VaynerX is creating a ‘fraternal twin’ to VaynerMedia. Because sometimes you need to compete with yourself to stay sharp.

• Brands are using generative AI to make fun of generative AI. When you can't beat the robots, roast them.

• How Purple Got Into People's Heads (and Beds) with OpenFortune. They took 'in bed' from inside joke to multi-million dollar campaign.

That’s a wrap for this week’s Friday fortune.

If you enjoyed the read, pass it along to your favorite marketer who could use a little extra inspo in their inbox.

Until next time, may your marketing be memorable and your cookies always be fortunate!

— The OpenFortune team