We’re all dancing a little faster these days, often too busy to keep our head above the keyboard let alone remember what day it is.  So when April happened last week, I was on auto-pilot… randomly scanning online news videos, when I caught one from WestJet.

The headline grabbed me and so did handsome Richard Bartrem, WestJet’s VP Communications when he stated, “Effective today, we’re introducing child-free cabins.” [urrrch!…what?]  Listen, I love, love, love kids but who hasn’t had a nightmare flight with screaming children?  He goes on to introduce “Kargo Kids” complete with travel toboggans loaded with wee ones, heading down the luggage conveyor.  Then they show a runway-traffic type person stuffing those precious angels in the belly of the plane!

And just when I’m trying not to clap with bizarre glee I hear “From all of us at WestJet – you’re welcome”… and one of the adorable little travellers wishing everyone a happy April Fool’s Day.

They had me for a nano-second.  Check it out:

Laugh-out-loud brilliant right?  And sooo WestJet.

You only need one WestJet experience to get what I mean.  They take a highly regulated industry and make it real, not to mention fun.  The flight attendants have free license to be comedians!  Boring, pedantic, onboard announcements are laced with jokes so you actually WANT to listen and are excited to be in that exit aisle you paid extra for.  Yes, Southwest Airlines in the US broke the mold and did it first but Canada’s always been a little behind on unconventional… we eventually get there!  And do it even better.

Case in point, WestJet’s “Care-antee” which is all about them actually giving a crap about passenger’s well-being by showing real-life travel situations.  Or how about the campaign on WestJet employees being “owners that care” which (besides clearly being nice people) promotes their Employee Share Purchase Plan and basically WHY their employees have a vested interest in actually giving a crap.

As a proud capitalist, I buy THAT all-day-long compared to Air Canada’s whining employees and their ridiculous sense of entitlement.  Between recent strike threats and stupid media-sucking activity that only hurts passengers, Air Canada continues to hammer home just how bad their brand has not just eroded… it’s atrophied.

WestJet announced in January they were setting their sights on Air Canada’s “National Airline” title by expanding their fleet to smaller planes that service neglected domestic markets.  And you know what?  WestJet will do it.  And here’s why.

MY SOAPBOX:

Air Canada has lost all sense of what a passenger experience even means and as a result they’ve become a national joke of an airline.  In fact, Air Canada jokes actually roll off our tongues.  And they typically come with a “why do I fly this f’ing airline” eye-roll.

So big surprise, Air Canada’s market share continues to down-trend.  Yet our country continues to bail them out.  And Air Canada continues to under-perform and undermine the loyalty of generations of travellers with horrifically bad service… and oh… things like STEALING frequent flyer points.

This one’s been brewing for awhile.  Much more to come in my next blog post:  Why Air Canada Blows

I have a great sense of humour.  I also fully support hair removal including Brazilian waxing. I am aware of the disastrous deforestation happening in the rainforests of Brazil.  And I’m really good at connecting the dots, so what in the hell do all off the above have to do with each other?

Well, according to the daily-deal pimps at Groupon and their spokesperson Elizabeth Hurley, “Not all deforestation is bad when you can save 50% on a Brazilian wax.”

What?

Check out this enlightening commercial that debuted at Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Really??

But wait it gets better/worse… next up was Timothy Hutton taking on oppression and meal-planning in Tibet.

Groupon took one final stab at desecrating their brand with a 3rd commercial debut… the oh-so-cute Cuba Gooding Jr. walking the beach and chatting about “Save the dying whales!  Meantime it’s sure fun to watch them jump when you save money on a whale watching cruise.”  Save it Cuba…we’re all bored and desensitized now.  (You can find that one on YouTube too.)

We all love a great spoof but how did Groupon think trivializing world issues via this ridiculously un-PC campaign would go over well?

Wait!  Here comes their attempt at warm, fuzzy and philanthropic – this year Groupon is donating up to $100,000 to each of the following:  Rainforest Action Network, The Tibet Fund, and Greenpeace.

Fantastic!  But hmmm… are they trail-blazing humanitarians or convenient “contributors” when at $3M per 30-second Super Bowl commercial, Groupon spent $9M to reach 150 million viewers.

The optics of this crass commercialization is mind-boggling.   As even Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason realized this week when he attempted damage control from the palpable backlash across all media channels, especially social media.

So much for the “controversial marketing theory” hey Andy?  Good luck with that.  Not to mention your global expansion plans.

MY SOAPBOX: I’m not an environmentalist or a political activist.  That’s somebody else’s blog and I hope they have a field day.

What I represent to Groupon is actually far more damaging.  I’m a potential customer… with a sense of right, wrong, offside and down-right offensive.  And I’m just one of millions and millions.

This is a brand blunder of epic proportions Groupon.  Brace yourselves because the repercussions are gaining momentum.  And it’s going to hurt.

Kind of like hair removal, only really slow.

The philosophy behind corporate promotional items has always been that “they offer an opportunity to get a brand name out to a target market” – and keep it there.

Yawn… how many pens, coffee mugs and ball-caps can a person use?  OK let’s get semi-current and talk mouse-pads, jump-sticks and laptop bags?… stop it.

Having moved last year, I was baffled by just how much promotional payola I had actually collected.  My local charity clothing bin received a wardrobe of logoed golf and t-shirts… at least I felt better about that.

Which is why when I was recently at Contagious Marketing Conference in Vancouver BC, the sight and smell of beautiful red apples on meeting/break tables stopped me in my tracks.

Why?  Because (as you can see from the pic I snapped) the apples had “in-grown logos”.

People were chatting about them.  Eating them.  I’m talking bypassing the blasé cookies, muffins and other carbo-conference snacks to happily chomp on fruit, an often forgotten food group at corporate events.

The apples were a hit.  I had to find out more.

Let’s start with the company behind them – Ipsos, a global survey-based marketing research firm.  They test advertising, study audience responses to various media and generate really big reports.  Dry?  Yes, but if you’re a marketer wanting research metrics, it’s a necessary and important part of the mix.

Stay with me. Before your eyes glaze over, let’s talk about the correlation here.  Besides the fact that there’s a “tree” in Ipsos branding, apples are metaphors for:

• Knowledge – as in the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis; the Apple is the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
• Growth – as in “planting seeds” and growing business.
• Possibility – when you think about it, the core of an apple contains apple seeds which contain all the information needed to create an apple tree which means more seeds, more trees, and so on.  “The infinite power of possibility”… get it?  Now I’m excited!

How did they do that?  My question exactly.

There were way too many far-fetched theories going around the conference so I decided to get the facts.  I called Ipsos and they happily directed me to Raven Ridge Cidery, an award-winning fruit cider producer and grower of premium BC apples.  This cool company has created a refreshingly healthy alternative to corporate giveaways… here’s how:

1. In the spring, they select hearty individual apples growing on their trees and cover them with special bags.
2. In the fall, the bags are removed to reveal a pure white apple grown to full size.
3. Corporate logo stencil/decals are then placed on each apple and Mother Nature does her thing.  The fruit is left on the tree until fully ripened to a rich red colour.
4. The apples are picked and decals removed leaving the white imprint of the logo.  Ta-da!

Laborious?  Uhuh.  Brilliant?  Yes.

You could say that Ipsos only promotional faux pas was the limited shelf life of an edible product.  Yet I actually still have one of the apples on my desk… and my office is getting a little ripe.

But I’ve kept it because every time I look at it I think “be original”. It’s gotta go, but not before leaving a very lasting impression.

MY SOAPBOX: From branding synergy and conference buzz to the symbolism around apples, Ipsos delivered on their brand promise to “always challenge, provoke and stimulate thinking”.  Hmmm… a marketing research company using logoed apples as a brand strategy and promotional tool?… think about that.

Remember “instant coffee”? That crystallized, dirt-like substance reserved for camping and gramma’s cupboard?

How about Folgers commercials with Juan Valdez and his bean-totin’ donkey?

Hardly memories that bring on coffee cravings, but Starbucks new VIA brand is changing all that with portable packets of jolt-worthy joe.

Named VIA – the Italian word for “road” suggesting you can take it with you wherever you go – VIA hit the tarmac with a marketing wave only Starbucks could drive.  From inbox to mailbox, VIA was everywhere but like other coffee-lovers, I raised a skeptical eyebrow at Starbucks and “instant coffee” being in the same sentence let alone coffee counter.

And then I tried it.

I took some with me on a trip thinking it had to at least be an improvement on those nasty filter bags at the hotel.  Within 10 seconds of rip, pour and stir, I was surprised.  It was good!  Thin like an Americano but big on flavor… robust even.

Marketing wise, Starbucks is breathing texture and dimension into instant coffee with tactile almost sexy advertising campaigns.

Check out this video on their new line of flavoured VIA.  Makes you want to scratch n’sniff the screen…

Let’s back up…I was an early adopter of Starbucks when they opened their first store outside Seattle in Vancouver, BC.  It was (yikes) 1987, I had recently moved to the city, was doing the daily transit commute downtown and was suddenly struck by the intoxicating aroma of a different kind of coffee that was wafting through the sea bus station.  It was coming from the new little coffee shop with the crazy mermaid logo.

It lured me in, and from product to in-store experience, they had me at “tall, dark and barista”.

I’ve been a super-fan ever since but what fascinates me is Starbucks has spent almost 40 years building a brand culture around previously-pedestrian coffee with products that evoke emotion and a community of comfort around sipping from their signature cup.  In the process, Starbucks has cultivated a habit around “small indulgence” that has an entire generation adding coffee as a line-item on monthly household budgets.

Folgers may have thought they had the instant coffee market locked-down, but from seductive sell to satisfying taste, Starbucks VIA hasn’t just raised the bar, it’s reinvented the entire market segment.

(I suspect Juan’s donkey even has his tail between his legs.)

MY SOAPBOX: You could argue that Starbucks move to instant coffee dilutes the brand’s original mission to recreate the authentic, Italian coffee bar experience.

Or… 6000+ locations in 30 countries later… you could surmise that it’s a brand strategy around convenience just like Starbucks grocery store distribution and Starbucks drive-thrus.

And is it “dilution” when Starbucks brand promise around quality, sustainability and community remains consistent – just the delivery is different?

Last post, I lamented about my grease-monkey debacle with Murad’s skincare products…the ones Joan Lunden talked me into on a late-night infomercial (duh).  Anyway, I was kicking myself for not consulting Paula Begoun’s Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me which basically pans the entire Murad Resurgence skincare line.

I know better.  Paula Begoun is a one-woman “cosmetics cop” that publishes reviews on virtually every beauty product on the market and I’ve been following her gospel for years.  I have the 8^th edition of her latest bible in my go-to book pile and her website bookmarked… for a reason.

The Robert Parker of beauty products, she accepts no kick-backs and takes no prisoners with cosmetic product reviews based on science and performance. 

Paula cuts through the marketing fluff of the hottest brands, debunking beauty myths that have tricked me and everyone else into spending stupid money on products that do not deliver.

She demystifies and unabashedly trashes any and all products that pretend to be something they’re not.  At the same time, she supports numerous cheap n’cheerful under-dog products/brands that make up for what they’re lacking in marketing clout with results and value.

More on Paula:

Books – Author of 18 best-selling books including Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, Blue Eyeshadow Should Be Illegal, The Original Beauty Bible, and Don’t Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me – over 2.5 million books sold.

Beautypedia.com – profiling 45,000+ skincare/makeup products; reviews are updated weekly.  The $24.95 annual subscription also includes access to cool tools like customized, printable shopping lists, a mobile app for your PDA and more.

Beauty Bunch Blog – topical, funny and helpful rants by her and her team.

Media maven – repeat appearances on CNN, Oprah, The Today Show, 20/20, Dateline NBC, The View, and Dr. Oz and more.

Private label – creator of Paula’s Choice skin care and cosmetics which is essentially the “greatest hits” of products/ingredients from her research under a private label that’s sold on www.cosmeticscop.com.  I have not tried any Paula’s Choice products but I respect that it’s a very separate spin-off from her impartial reviews of the industry.

I recently saw Paula speak at a book-signing.  She took questions from the crowd… it was light, fun and informative but have to say I cringed at the lady who “assertively” challenged Paula on “why you should bother wearing sunscreen when it’s cloudy”.  Hmmm…. (a) Pardon?; and (b) who takes on the merits of sunscreen in this day and age… let alone with Paula Begoun? 

After a pregnant pause, Paula took on the uptight neophyte and the question.

Meantime, we were all there to listen to this cosmetics expert and buy her books because we’d already bought into “Paula Begoun” – a brand created around that expertise.

MY SOAPBOX:   Paula Begoun is a case-study in personal branding. 

Since 1985, she’s carved out a niche AND following in a beauty-driven world that wants answers and unbiased advice.  She’s opened eyes, earned consumer trust and positioned herself as a reliable resource, educating information hungry shoppers at every Begoun touch-point.

Add the economic realities of an aging population spending billions on “beauty solutions”, and I’d say her timing is as bang-on as her reviews.

STAGE LEFT:       For a quick hit of some tried, tested and true wisdom, check-out Paula’s 10 Beauty Commandments Everyone Should Know on how not to let the allure of cosmetic marketing suck you and your wallet down a rabbit hole. 

Pssst… love #9:  THOU SHALT NOT buy cellulite cream – and how “If these products worked, who would have cellulite?”  Amen sister.

My skin – where some of my body parts were “over looked” the skin gods delivered and I thank them by looking after it. Although a couple of decades ago, between sun-beds and basting in baby-oil and iodine in the hot summer sun, a entire generation of us never really “got” it.

Suntan?  Ha…that’s an understatement.  We were orange people… year-round.  As a result, I’m now religious about sunscreen, regular facials and investing in good products.

Better late than never right? And with a boatload of lotions, potions and miracle-in-a-jar solutions driven by a marketing machine called an “aging population” I’m hardly alone in the quest to turn back time.

The economic reality is all of the above is driving anti-aging product demand and prices through the medicine cabinet… which is why when I saw an infomercial for Murad’s Resurgence Program, it spoke to me.  It said:  good value in a quality line of products from a renowned skincare company and the convenience of auto-shipping every 3 months so I don’t have to think about it.

I confess. I was also totally drawn in by their luminous spokeswoman Joan Lunden who looks 40 vs. 60+… and faster than you can say “sign-me-up”, I was in.

Two weeks later my first Murad Resurgence delivery arrived complete with:

• Brilliant packaging that oozed feelings of health and younger skin… and I hadn’t even opened the box yet;
• Inside?  Perfectly, symmetrically situated tubes of hope; and
• Persuasive printed materials including a catalogue of even more product options to add to my auto-shipments (gotta love good up-sell).

Basically it was skincare fairy-dust at every touch-point.

Results?  Not so Joan Lunden.

Maybe it’s just my skin-type (normal?)… but the “glow” they promoted was more like “grease-monkey” which translated to clogged pores… and we all know where that leads.  High school Clearasil flash-backs, that’s where.

So one more auto-ship and a fair test-drive later, I called Murad’s customer service line and cancelled.  They took it well.

MY SOAPBOX: It’s not complicated.  This was a classic case of a well branded/packaged marketing vortex that over-promised, under-delivered.

Quality skincare via infomercials?  Step away from the 1-800 number.  All those smiling, happy, shiny people are actors.  Period.

It’s an experiment I won’t be repeating because right now, I feel like a lab rat with zits… so how’s that for a testimonial Murad?

STAGE LEFT: First error… I didn’t consult Paula Begoun’s book Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me which basically pans the entire Murad Resurgence line.  Paula is a one-woman cosmetics cop that puts out a detailed bible on virtually every beauty line on the market and I’ve been following her gospel for years.  Begoun blog post coming soon… this chick has built a brand around the science of cosmetics.  She knows her stuff and I can’t wait to write about it.

As my favourite digital marketing demi-god Mitch Joel said in a recent blog post, ”Product Is The New Marketing“.

“The individual is empowered is code for Social Media,” writes Mitch.  “This isn’t really about word of mouth marketing in as much as it is about the fact that customers don’t just tell one another about brands they love (and hate)… they tell everybody.”

Which is exactly what happened here.

I was first introduced to 1800Headsets through my friends at LeapZone Strategies when they raved/blogged about the service. Nothing like a glowing endorsement to get me motivated.  Plus I was looking for a replacement office phone and me (and my chiropractor) love headsets.

Having hung myself copious times with headset cords, I was particularly interested in finding out about cordless options.  Well voila!  I landed on 1800headsets.com and a world of options unfolded.  From selection through product delivery and support, I’ve enjoyed a fantastic, multi-functional office phone/headset solution ever since.

This week, I needed a replacement battery and was reminded of all the reasons why this service rocks.  I landed back on their easy-to-navigate site where help is encouraged through a “Customer Love” mantra, where LiveChat operators are standing by for assistance, where picking up the phone is welcomed with messages like “Call us!  A real person would be happy to help you”.

In a rush, I decided to go traditional.  Inside two minutes, the delightful customer service dude pulled up my profile, told me what I needed and made it happen.  Yeah.

I was promised delivery by Friday, got it Thursday.  The box came complete with custom, idiot-proof installation tips/instructions and…get this… TOOTSIE ROLLS.

Yes, Tootsie Rolls.

Nothing like taking an already great brand experience and making it fun and yummy too.

MY SOAPBOX: To be clear, all I needed was to get my phone battery replaced… boring right?  Wrong.  1-800-Headsets took a pedestrian purchase and made it personal, easy and enjoyable.

And the best part is, with the power and influence vested in me as a consumer, I get to share it with you.

When is the last time you were surprised and delighted by a brand?  Tell us about it…

How many blondes does it take to light a barbecue?   That’s what I was asking myself this weekend as a friend and I were trying to spark up a piece-of-crap grill at a girls’ soiree – right before the click-click-click of the dead starter turned to the WOOF of a propane-fuelled cloud of fire.  We both still had our eyebrows but as the unmistakable whiff of singed forearms hung in the evening air… followed by some painfully slow, uneven cooking… all I could think was I LOVE MY WEBER.

A humble Barbecue Bon Vivant, I grew up grilling in backyards, campgrounds, on beaches and boats.  Since then I’ve grilled up great meals, made charcoal of others, enjoyed authentic southern barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee and right here in my home-town at Memphis Blues Barbeque House, a fantastic restaurant chain founded by some talented friends. 

Barbecuing is like a slice of life… know what I mean?  There’s something about the sauce-slathering sound of searing, the smell of the sizzle when heat and meat meet, a gathering of friends and family, a liquid libation in one hand, flipper in the other (sigh…you get the gist).

A burgeoning cooking trend fuelled by Boomers wanting better, faster and healthier, the age-old tradition of grilling has evolved into a full-on sport.  One that’s clearly gender-neutral with more and more women happily wielding the tongs (and no gentlemen, we don’t really care about the BTU measurements… please pass the wine).  

From cook-offs and cook-outs to grilling cookbooks, cooking shows and restaurants, barbecuing is a trend with serious traction. 

Grills range from knock-off, cheap and cheerful (stand back!) models to Cadillacs complete with wood chip shelves, warming drawers, even on-board computers (whoa)… but the best known brand of outdoor barbecues in the world is Weber.  “Everyman’s barbecue” so to speak, Weber is positioned as a mid to high-end, quality gas and charcoal grills with stylish, functional grilling accessories. 

Whether you’re a grill greenhorn or an iron-chef Weber.com is an eye-opener:

Fun basics – tons of recipes online and emailed weekly, free downloads, shop for cookbooks, accessories/apparel, tools and replacement parts, easy registration and online manuals.

1.800.GRILLOUT – available 7 days a week/364 days a year, barbecue experts are ready to assist with grill troubleshooting, cooking tips, food prep, etc.  (I test-drove it and had a great chat with Jean who told me all about the art of grilling fruit!?)

iPhone app – On the Grill is a “mobile grilling companion” with 250+ recipes, grocery lists, grilling tips and a cooking timer.

Dealer locator – an easy “where to buy” worldwide directory.

More?  You won’t believe Webernation.com – “The site for real people that love their Weber grills” you can join the Weber Nation and get free, exclusive access to online grilling classes, audio/visual podcasts and forums and an interactive recipe box with other grilling fanatics (aka “Weberheads”).  

All this and you haven’t even cooked on your grill yet!

MY SOAPBOX:  A full-scale Web 2.0 brand experience, Weber has created a community of close to 33,000 Facebook followers and umpteen thousand Weber Nation members sharing stories, recipes and photos.

They have made it fun to own a Weber by building a brand strategy around an interactive platform for raving fans to pitch the brand for them using positioning statements like:   “Weber grill owners always say they’re the ones who truly sell our grills, and we totally agree”. 

And with Weber owners posting comments like “Friends don’t let friends buy cheap barbecues”… I’d say it’s working.

What do you get when you combine 6,000 women, Oprah Winfrey and a 3-day celebration in New York City?  Some surreal, jaw-dropping, crack-up moments along with a whole lot of chaos and estrogen-fuelled drama.  Oh… and a city-wide jump in shoe sales.

A one woman show, media maven and brand, Oprah Winfrey is quite possibly the most influential woman on the planet.  And like so many, seeing her live was on my bucket-list.  So when O Magazine’s Live Your Best Life Weekend in New York came across my radar, I jumped at it and so did some of my friends. 

So there we were in the city that never sleeps and neither did we really, squeezing sight-seeing, shopping and signature cocktails in with a very full event schedule. From a champagne welcome reception and an inspiring line of “Lifeshop” headliners (Dr. Oz, Suze Orman, etc.) to a gala at Radio City Music Hall and a Sunday charity walk, it was non-stop fun.

Highlights

• Oprah live.  Mind-blowingly brilliant.  And after following her for years, it was like watching a girlfriend on stage.
• Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert’s opener.  So real, so cool… that woman oozes how to live in the present.
• A great welcome kit, spectacular collateral materials and sponsors like L’Oreal that rocked the gift bags.

Lowlights

• There was one glaring gap in this Oprah brand experience – the logistics at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center were beyond bad.  From mismanaged line-ups and event coordination to banana battles in the food lines and near-riots over a lack of bathrooms forcing urinal usage by some angry sisters (yes you read that right), that facility was ill-prepared for 6,000 women (and 10 men).  My friend’s and I laugh about it now, but it was truly like an all-day episode of Survivor.

The weekend also marked the 10-year anniversary of O Magazine which continues to set the bar on  page-turning layouts and visual platforms along with compelling content, life stories and a just-right balance of tasteful advertising. 

But that’s just one piece of Oprah’s media empire. 

There’s Oprah & Friends satellite radio, Oprah’s Book Club, the multi-layered Oprah.com, a new reality show and with September 2011 marking 25 years and the last for the Oprah Winfrey Show, she’s launching OWN Network.

Whether relaxing in my living room or as a proud, live participant in magical NYC it’s been a wild ride to be part of the Oprah brand experience.  And it’s not over yet.

MY SOAPBOX:   When you’re #1, you’re an easy target. 

News this week talked about how the Oprah Winfrey Show has had a 7% decline in viewership – which on 9 million is hardly a crisis. 

But rather than focus on how her O-Factor has changed lives, saved lives, got millions reading, and raised over $80 million to fund 200+ charity grants in the US and 30 other countries, let’s focus on a dip/blip in ratings on a show that’s winding down (??).   

And for the record, it’s winding down to make way for a ground-breaking, new network that’s poised to make what the Oprah Winfrey Show did to daytime television look like training-wheels.

Maybe the real story is how we’ve only scratched the surface on Oprah’s enduring influence.

Stop the madness.  How did I go from not having time to read a fiction book in years to being sucked down a vampire vortex so deep and suffocatingly sexy, I spend the non-existent free time I have Twilighting my life away?  

Well… it started with a girlfriend of mine telling me how she was “enjoying” reading the Twilight Saga book series.  She suggested I might enjoy it too.  I laughed.  (a) I can’t stand the sight let alone reading about blood; (b) I left my teenage angst behind years ago; and (c) seriously, who has time?  I could be reading Gladwell’s latest or my Google Reader blog back-up I SOOO need to get through… right?

But with a knowing smile, that friend loaned me the first book – I cracked it on Easter weekend. 

(Crack being the operative word.)

Pouring through the first book in record time, I was away on a business trip and found myself in an unfamiliar, neighbourhood book store… large sunglasses… head down… looking for Eclipse (book #3) BECAUSE I’d finished New Moon (book #2) at 2:30 in the morning.  Not seeing Twilight books anywhere, I adjust my sunglasses and quietly ask the shop-keeper for help.  He basically yells, “Twilight…sure!  Kids’ section.”  All heads in the quiet, serene book store turn.  I quickly follow him to the back of the store with the same flood of emotions I recalled from grade 9 when the guy at the drug-store bellowed, “Tampons?  Ya… aisle 4!”

Humbled, I ask myself… um… how did I get here? 

First published in 2005, I was a late adopter on this brand.  Was it the resulting teenage frenzied line-ups at the box office that suddenly intrigued me?  The cult-like, breathless anticipation I’d witnessed around each book release?  Or am I now just a cougar looking for a fantasy escape.  (And I don’t use the ‘c-word’ lightly.)

Turns out the books were just the beginning… the cross-over media since then boggles the mind. 

Movies – not as good as the books but who cares.  They’ve given us a face for Edward and a body for Jacob. 

DVD’s – almost 10 million original Twilight movies have been sold to date; the 2^nd New Moon movie sold 4 million copies in its launch weekend alone.

Soundtracks – hardly toe-tappers, but from vampire lullabies to Clair de Lune, soundtracks for both movies have broken download records.

Merchandise – clothing, jewelery, random gear… don’t get me started.

Make-up – I’m at the drug-store the other day, low on health and beauty essentials (because I’ve been reading!!) and there’s a Twilight make-up display.  I’m there for toothpaste and next thing you know I’m trying on Twilight branded lipstick, suddenly desperate because they’re out of the shade of blood red I HAD to have.  It wasn’t pretty.  And my (inside) voice was screaming, “Take down the [blank’ing] display if you don’t have the [blank’ing] product to back it up!!”  

Realizing how pathetic I was, it started to really sink in… just how powerful is this brand (?)

As a woman, I and every soccer-mom I talk to is in (secret) love with Edward (help).  As a marketer, I’m beyond spellbound by this phenomenon.

I’ll probably finish Breaking Dawn… the last book in the series… tonight.  I understand there are more spin-off books coming and the 3rd movie Eclipse is being released in June. 

(Sigh.)

MY SOAPBOX:  While J.K. Rowling’s enchanting Harry Potter series spoke to tweens/teens and took the literary world and Hollywood by storm, its ride was pre-social marketing.  Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga – also targeting tweens/teens - has truly captured the hearts, minds and texting thumbs of this most influential demographic voice of our web 2.0 times.  

Beyond that, this gothic vampire love tale has transcended age and bridged every demographic, shattering records and hearts… surprising even its author.  But who could have predicted this epic literary/2.0 combination that’s fuelled an entirely new category of (hungry) consumers?