It's Your "Thing": Make Your Message Stick.

“I immediately thought of you when I saw this!”

Have you ever noticed how people will latch onto whatever your “thing” is, and then you'll get a lot of gifts related to that thing? 

A friend posted about her affinity for Mermaids, and soon received nothing but mermaid-themed-gifts:

T-shirts, pillows, mugs, drawings… every holiday and birthday brought a surge of mermaids, sequin-scales, and flippers until she cried “uncle” and asked for anything but the aquatic-sirens.

Speaking of “uncle”… mine got a fun frog-figurine for his porch, which apparently screamed “more frogs!” to all who saw it. 

His home was filling up with gifted frog mugs, frog mirrors, frog napkins, frog salt & pepper shakers, until he remarried and his new wife tossed out all but the most tasteful frogs (hmm… is “tasteful-frog” an oxymoron?). 

My gift-"thing" started in the early 2000s:

Being 6'1, with long brown hair and a yen for justice, it made sense for me to dress as Wonder Woman for Halloween. 

It was a fun costume to create, since I hadn't donned this alter-ego since I was a little girl in my pigtails and favorite star-spangled Underroos.

Well, you can imagine what happened next:

Wonder Woman took over my gift-life. 

The box of Wonder Woman-swag I've been given over the years includes: 

WW wine glasses, beer koozies, T-shirts, playing cards, quote books, post-it notes, bottle-openers, adult-sized-Underroos (!), and book on the fascinating (and surprisingly scandalous) history of Wonder Woman. 

Sadly, this gift-list does not include a Lasso of Truth or an Invisible Jet.

The real gift from this phenomenon, though?

Learning the marketing-power of sharing your “thing."

Part of creating a memorable “brand-voice” includes identifying a few ideas/objects (your “things”) that become symbols of who you are.

Copywriter Laura Belgray calls this your “Coat of Arms”: if you had to identify a handful of items to put on your metaphorical-heraldry, what would they be? 

If you've been reading me for a while, you'd probably know that my Coat of Arms includes: 

-A penchant for 80s/90s cultural references,

-A love of food (and being unapologetically pro-carb),

-Being a History/Trivia-nerd, and

-The occasional (bad) pun.

Marketing is all about the know, like and trust factor, and people feel like they get you and are connected to you when they know your “things." 

Repeating ideas & references from your Coat of Arms frequently makes your messaging more “sticky", like each symbol is a little piece of velcro that adheres to your prospect's brain.

What are 2-3 of your “things”? 

Don't make me, ahem, Wonder…