Well, it's been a while since I've written to this community, but I came across a great blog the other day that I just had to share here.  Having a strong marketing background, I always appreciate a great article or blog on great ideas to market and great stories on how certain companies are achieving great marketing success. 

In a recent blog post from the blog, "Damn I wish I Thought of That",Andy Sernovitz's discusses the success of the nut company "Everybody's Nuts!" and their successfully marketing that has been build around great reasons to talk.

Now, this story particularly captured my interest as I have been a fan of these nuts for sometime, being the pistachio nut junkie that I am.  Also, I recognized the brand right away when I saw the image of their box, and I had an immediate connection and positive feeling associated to this image of their box and logo.  (Which is exactly what every marketer hopes and prays they can generate in their customers minds after seeing their logo).

My memory that I flashed back to was in my years prior to retail actually, when I was working in the cubicle graveyard.  Now, you might think this means this brand generated a negative memory, but just the contrary.  I remember I got everybody in the office eating these wonderful little pistachios because they had funny cartoons in the box.   

I would post the cartoon from inside the box on my cube and everyone thought it was cute and then I would open my drawer and offer up a pistachio and pretty soon I saw these cartoons around the office and noticed that I was able to snack on my favorite 3pm snack while chatting at others cubes in the afternoon, as they now had a secret stash of their own!  So as you can see this idea of creating one great reason to talk, (in this case, their cartoons), the company built their brand and increased their customer base. 

And if you think about it, this is true in every situation, if you see a funny video on the internet, you're going to forward it on to your friends.  If you can create one great idea that will stimulate conversations, you can build your entire brand around that.  For me in our wine shop, it has definitely been our PMS Tuesdays.  The buzz around such a simple idea has brought us the majority of our business, everything from extra PR in local papers to friends referring friends.  Remember at the end of the day, with marketing, it's really all about that word of mouth!