Gold Bond Launches Viral Campaign For X-One Mug

Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Gold Bond announced it is launching a viral marketing campaign for its X-One Mug. The campaign, already underway, is based on the creation of an X-One Mug Facebook page and encourages fans of the mug to post pictures of the mug in use or in unique places. Karen Sherrill, marketing director for Gold Bond, said the goal of the campaign is to engage customers. The campaigns creation was based on the 1964 children's book, Flat Stanley, by Jeff Brown and the subsequent children's letter writing campaign it inspired.

From Gold Bond:

Gold Bond Launches Viral Campaign For X-One Mug

Word of mouth, or viral, marketing, counts on a great idea developing a life of its own and spreading quickly. The concept is simple–let your fans carry your message. But WOMM campaigns are tricky and unpredictable. It helps when you’ve got a product that is unique, and an idea that is both easy and fun. In walks the X-One mug, the “go” mug that, according to its Facebook profile, loves beverages and travel; after all, it’s a travel mug.

Friends and fans for the X-One mug are growing exponentially through “flairs,” a Twitter blog, and an ever growing photo album entitled “Places I have been.” The photos are submitted by fans (made up of distributors and their customers) who have taken their X-One mug with them on vacation, to the gym, or to the local park, grabbed a photo on their cell phone, uploaded it to their Facebook page, and tagged it to X-One’s page. Sound complicated? Not to avid Facebook users who do this all day, every day.

“The concept is engagement,” according to Karen Sherrill, director of marketing. “Traditional advertising mediums offer a message while holding customers at arm’s length. Only promotional products have the ability to engage customers." She added that promotional products offer the unique ability to combine this engagement and social networking to create a message that spreads. The result is community where your product is the center, the glue.

The model for the campaign is Flat Stanley, the 1964 children’s book that developed into one of the first viral campaigns. The character in the book is hit by a bulletin board and rendered flat, making him capable of sliding under doors and visiting friends by fitting into an envelope. The book began a letter writing campaign by schoolchildren which continues today.

“Like the character in the book, X-One has a personality and loves to travel which makes him uniquely viable for a campaign like this one,” according to Mark Godsey, President, Gold Bond. Godsey admits to being a bit skeptical when the campaign was first presented. “As it turns out, the campaign is a great fit for this particular mug because of its unique styling that makes it especially appealing to young adults.” Godsey points to the campaign’s spread among college students and young professionals who have helped shape his persona by selecting his destinations and captions.

“Distributors have taken to this more quickly than we imagined,” said Godsey. He pointed to the photo taken at a Shriner Convention in which Shriners were all holding a mug. Or, photos of the mug with a passport making his way through the airport, do doubt. “We can’t wait to see the photos that come from that trip,” chuckled Godsey.

What’s on the horizon for X-One? New locations, new photos and new adventures. Sherrill alluded to a sinister plot against X-One Mug by “plant manager John”. Could trouble be brewing for X-One? Fans will have to stay tuned to find out. Why, they may find distributors participating in X-One sightings or his escape from danger. “The best part of this campaign is that distributors and their customers will develop what happens through their participation,” said Sherrill.

“The end result will be a top-of-mind awareness that benefits our distributors,” according to Sherrill. She pointed out that when people talk about the mug’s great shape, how fun it is, and how much they like it, they are giving the new product a credibility that cannot be bought. “This fun campaign just makes our distributors’ job easier,” Sherrill concluded.

For more information on Gold Bond, visit www.goldbondinc.com.