Why is it that Fun Mindless Stuff is so Viral?

I had a terrific lunch with one of my favorite clients, John Milgram from Aexcel Corporation (maker of "gourmet" traffic paint and contract provider of pure color genious for some of your favorite spray paints).  Also on hand were my co-horts Don Philabaum and Damian Petrini, gurus of online marketing strategy and on line communties respectively.

We got together at a Cleveland hot spot for some of the best burgers in the city, Buckeye Beer Engine. The guys had this burger with a pierogi in it.  It doesn’t get any more Clevleand than that!

Over brilliant burgers and some micro-brews, we talked about food, drink, cycling and what makes the marketing world go round these days. Don talked about his tire changing troubles and John recommended the "cycling" link you see here.

John gave me his latest book find, "Made to Stick", by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. and that started the discussion on what it is about some marketing gimmiks that’s so viral and timeless and others that just flop.

I’m going to be writing about this in future posts.  But for now, I want you to enjoy some of the links John shared (John is a blogger hiding in a mild-mannered CEO body) after our meeting and some of my brainstorming thoughts – then you pitch in with yours.

De- Blendex:  We talked about this funny video that’s been making the viral grounds as a way to demonstrate your product using a bit of wit amd whimsy.  I once did this at what I consider to be the worlds most boring trade show.  We had a robotic machine that measured the physical properties of rubber.  So whem I noticed that passers-by had bags of gummy frogs, I had the idea to test out the machine’s robotic prowess and measure the physical properties of the gummy frogs.  The scientists were smitten and that started a round of testing of a variety of rubbber-like products.  We had a blast and showed off the machines capabilities.  We even made up a line dance to mimic the robotic motion and movement of the machine.  FUN!

Tongue in Cheek Commercials – This inflatable gorilla company opens their web site with the "Real Men of Genious" beer commercial.  BWAAAA – I was in absolute stitches!  This made me think of the hysterical spin so many of us can put on our products, services and even web pages. The question to ask is "In what ways can I put some of my personality in my product and have fun at the same time?"  Remember customers are people too whether they’re buying paint or beer.

Single Young Female: "Scary" New Demographic? – Are men obsolete?  What a fun question to ask  around a table where I’m the only woman.  Of course, for most of my career in industrial marketing, I’ve often been the only woman.  But it’s really fun to sit around and watch guys who know me enough to feel comfortable start to wonder about "What Woman Want – NOW.  This is a great meditation on the power of culture and demographics on products, services and every other facet of our lives.  In what ways can your organization take advantage of this trend?  If you could do anything, sell anything, say anything – what would it be?

What’s the Lesson in all This Brain Candy?

1. People are people – not products.  We don’t make logical decisions, we make decisions and are drawn to people, ideas and offerings that relate to us as people./
2. We buy on recommendation.  If someone has some current statistics, then I’d love to get my hands on them.  But we intuitively know that people CHOOSE and are not sold to.  We choose based on the relationships we have with our "peeps."
3. Communities aren’t going away.  Getting together for lunch to share was great fun.  But – wow – really inefficient.  The nice thing about meeting people physically, is then you get the motivation to continue the relationship and conversation virtually.
4. Strange Connections Happen.  There is something powerful that happens when a group gets together to chat, share knowledge, information and experience and then make these deliriously delicious brain connections that may never have happened otherwise.