The Power of The Snuggie

In a recent product naming project, we challenged our creative team to come up with a product name that could be as awesome as...the Snuggie. Some people laughed, some started scratching heads and others sat waiting for the inevitable (and inevitably lame) punch line.

But the Snuggie is no joke – it is a fantastic, ridiculous and powerful name for a fantastically, ridiculously stupid product. What is essentially a cheap airplane blanket with arm holes cut in it made the cover of Ad Age in January after selling out after 4 million sold (but you can get on the waiting list!). Face it - it’s a blanket with arms and a terrible as-seen-on-TV commercial, but the Snuggie kills it…because of the name.

Snuggie sounds personable, warm (both emotionally and presumable temperature wise), and it’s completely non-function related (the "Arm Blankie 2000XT" it is not). The word Snuggie is somehow both childlike, childish and ambiguously naughty. Maybe even a little fun – and when is the last time you thought of a blanket as fun? It even works in daily language: no one wants to ask you to go to the closet for the sleevy-blanket, but “Hey honey, can you grab the Snuggie” somehow sounds (reasonably) sane.

The Snuggie is a perfect example of things that make you pull your hair out one day that become the measuring stick to judge your creative work product the very next day. Rumor has it the Snuggie folks are cutting a deal with the NCAA for officially licensed Snuggies, coming soon. God help us all.

Oldie but goody - Animator vs. Animation!

Internet recycling: the process of discovering something you've seen online before all over again. The other day, someone recycled this funny little animation into my inbox and aside from being pretty witty/cool/fun, it’s probably a good reminder for all of us in the creative biz to look for inspiration (or at least direction) in everyday things. Next time I'm struggling for that light bulb idea, I'll probably recycle this one little animation again and come up with my own murderously creative stick figure plot.

From my inbox to yours - check out Animator vs. Animation!

New Biz All-nighter

Unless you are in the communications business (and on the agency side) odds are the last time you pulled an all-nighter was in college. Thanks to technology, even all-nighters in the agency biz are becoming less common but they do rear their ugly head from time to time. We recently pulled a pretty good old-school all-nighter here at Tailfin for a new business piece, the kind of project that almost always gets pushed to the back of the line. A few days after this, a few things came to mind that are good lessons for those of us in the agency business (and those of us in regular-type business as well).

Sometimes these things are unavoidable. Duke Ellington once said (allegedly) “I don’t need time, what I need is a deadline.” Deadlines are the drivers of everything we do, and when you weigh the deadlines for clients versus the potential clients, it’s easy to guess who wins. So the only time you can put yourself first – as your own client – is when the phones go quiet, the emails subside and the sun goes down (this is sometimes equally true of real breakthroughs on client work).

You can see a week of work played out in one night. If you want a good snapshot of how your organization is really running, keep scoreduring an all-nighter. You can see working tendencies and interpersonal skills played out in a mere twelve hours; camaraderie and cut-throat rage, under-the-gun smarts and deer-in-headlights dead-ends. But unlike the 9-to-5 workday, you can also see how much individuals really care – about their work, about each other and about the success of the agency. It can be illuminating…or scary.

In the end, an all-nighter can be a kick in the pants. Yes, on the “day after” everyone is pretty much worthless and walking around in a tingly caffeine haze. But more often than not, real, smart creative ideas filter out of the wee hours , as can a new found respect and empathy for co-workers. In the days and weeks that have followed out last 36 hour slog, oiur team has felt a creative re-invigoration and even instituted some otherwise boring organizational processes to make us all work – and live – a little smoother together.

When it’s all said and done, the all-nighter is both beauty and beast – lot’s to love and hate. But it is also a badge most old-schoolers still wear with pride – something that says “No, I don't wear a tie to work, thank you very much,” as you turn and walk away in your all-black agency-issue threads.