This entry was originally posted on May 9, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog.

Over the past few years, Word of Mouth or buzz marketing has had it’s share of promoters and detractors. The rise of WOM marketing has prompted the creation of buzz agencies, a professional trade organization, conferences, books (here, here, and here too), and much more.

So if you’re looking for advice on how to get people talking about your brand story, there are plenty of resources.

Or you can do what Stacy’s Pita Chips (part of Frito Lay) did, and just send a product sample to everyone in the United States. At least, that’s what they wanted to do. But mailing chips to nearly 300 million people, well that’s a little much for even this spunky little division of the snack company to bite off.

So instead, they mailed a sample pack to everyone in the country named Stacy. 133,000 people, most of whom hadn’t heard of the product before. The package included the Stacy brand story and on the back of the enclosed card, said:

“We hope you enjoyed getting your free box of Stacy’s Pita Chips as much as we enjoyed sending them to you. If you did, why not share the joy by sending a FREE gift box to a friend? Since we’ve already sent them to every Stacy, you’re free to send them to Bill or Mary or Cheryl or John—or whoever you think would enjoy Stacy’s chips the most.”

So has it worked? It looks like it. Here are a few Stacys who are now spreading the word: here, here, here, here, and here. Think how many people have mentioned this to friends and coworkers. And how many Stacys have tried, liked, and now regularly buy Stacy’s chips.

That’s not all that Stacy’s does to promote great customer experiences/brand stories that are easy for customers to share with others. Check out what Art Steiber at The Diff has to say about Stacy’s when he wrote to complain about a half-empty bag of chips. Not content to leave him with a negative impression, they went well beyond and sent him a case of pita chips.

This is a brand I like, and I’ve yet to taste the chips.

This entry was originally posted on April 18, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog (link for a limited time).

James Dyson is a failer (not failure). While vacuming his home, he became frustrated with the lousy suction of his vacuum cleaner. The bag and filter clogged too quickly, reducing the suction to the point where it didn’t work. I know the feeling. But unlike me, Dyson decided to do something about it. Over 15 years, he built 5126 prototypes before he found the one that worked. 15 years and 5126 failures. How did he find the solution? “Wrong doing.” Here’s how Dyson describes it:

“When I was doing my vacuum cleaner, I started out trying a conventionally shaped cyclone, the kind you see in textbooks. But we couldn’t separate the carpet fluff and dog hairs and strands of cotton in those cyclones. It formed a ball inside the cleaner or shot out the exit and got into the motor. I tried all sorts of shapes. Nothing worked. So then I thought I’d try the wrong shape, the opposite of conical. And it worked. It was wrong-doing rather than wrong-thinking. That’s not easy, because we’re all taught to do things the right way.”

There’s are plenty of lessons in Dyson’s story. Never give up. Don’t settle for stuff that doesn’t work. But the lesson I like most is the idea of right thinking and wrong doing. Doing things in a different (new or unexpected) way is the crux of creativity.

To get his vacuum to work, Dyson had to do it all wrong. And when he offered his new design to Hoover, they did the opposite—right doing and wrong thinking. They sold bag vacuums. This new vacuum wouldn’t fit their product line. It was too different. They had the market sown up. So they passed on the idea. Dyson went on to sell more than 15 million of his vacuums (for as much as $2000 each). Today he is one of the richest men in Britain.

Inside the box, with every Dyson vacuum cleaner is a small brochure that tells the Dyson brand story. How James Dyson failed more than 5000 times. How his competitors first ignored him, then copied him. And how he succeeded despite the odds. This simple brochure is a great way to reinforce the Dyson brand story with every new customer. Of course, the fact that this is an amazingly good vacuum delivering a great product experience also helps.

This month’s Fast Company magazine features a very good interview by Chuck Salter with James Dyson, covering not just his vacuum story, but also his thinking about design and engineering and his latest invention. Read it here. Don’t miss the second page, which is even better than the portion of the interview in the print magazine. There’s also a podcast interview here.

One more clip from the interview:

“A lot of people give up when the world seems to be against them, but that’s the point when you should push a little harder. I use the analogy of running a race. It seems as though you can’t carry on, but if you just get through the pain barrier, you’ll see the end and be okay. Often, just around the corner is where the solution will happen.”

This entry was originally posted on January 11, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

On Tuesday Apple’s CEO and master storyteller, Steve Jobs, announced a “revolutionary” new mobile phone with a wide screen touch pad, Internet browser, built-in iPod, visual voice mail, Google maps feature, and much more. The reviews so far have been very good. Time writes: “Apple’s new iPhone could do to the cell phone market what the iPod did to the portable music player market: crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority. This is unfortunate for anybody else who makes cell phones, but it’s good news for those of us who use them.”

It’s even better news for Apple’s share holders. On the day of the announcement, Apple’s share price increased more than 8% or $7.10 a share. And shares of both Palm (maker of the Treo) and Research in Motion (maker of blackberry) fell, 5.69% and 7.85% respectively (a collective loss of more than 2 billion dollars).

But here’s the kicker. Apple doesn’t even have a completely functional model yet. Those lucky few who have seen it report that some features are not yet ready for prime time. The demos are cool. The pictures are cool. But Apple won’t have a phone ready to deliver for almost 5 months.

So all Apple really has is a well-designed model and a terrific story, worth more than 6 billion dollars. True, Apple is very good at delivering products that change categories. And that’s what investors are betting on. Given their track record, it’s a pretty safe bet.

But until the iPhone starts shipping, all Apple has is a very impressive, very well-told story.

What’s your story worth?

Hat tip: tuaw.com.

This entry was originally posted on August 28, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

I was catching up on some reading a few days ago and came across this excellent article in the Harvard Business Review: Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers by John Gourville. A very worthwhile read about the tendency of buyers to under estimate their need for new products and marketers to over estimate the public’s desire for the same products.

Marketers spend so much time with their innovations and become so familiar with the advantages over existing products, that the new product becomes their reality. They simply can’t see why people won’t immediately adopt their product. While consumers overvalue the products they are familiar with and see behavioral changes such as switching brands as a major negative. The authors cite specific examples like Segway, Tivo, and WebVan as terrific innovations that have experienced failure or slow adoption rates due to these opposing factors. Here’s the nut graph:

“…consumers overvalue the existing benefits of an entrenched product by a factor of three, while developers overvalue the new benefits of their innovation by a factor of three. The result is a mismatch of nine to one, or 9x, between what innovators think consumers desire and what consumers really want. Left unchecked, this mismatch is a recipe for disaster.”

If you’re involved in creating marketing, advertising, or disruptive technologies, this behavior has massive implications for what you do. Read the whole thing.