“The Man Behind the Bandz”
Posted by Joe Cannon
In our books, we define a fad as “an idea that is fashionable only to certain groups who are enthusiastic about it — but those groups are so fickle that fad is even more short-lived than a regular fashion.” Only time will tell if Silly Bandz is a fad — or has the legs to become a toy with a longer life. But this article, “The Man Behind the Bandz” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 10, 2010) describes some of the history and marketing behind this fast growing “toy.” I say some, because founder Robert Croak doesn’t want to reveal all his secrets. But they have relied on social media and viral promotion to fuel growth. A companion article, “Wham-O CEO to Silly Bandz: Boost Creativity” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 10, 2010) has a short Q&A with the CEO of the company that sells the Frisbee, SuperBall and Slip ‘n Slide among other products.
This article might be a nice example of a fad — or could be discussed with respect to the product life cycle. The article also discusses success with using Facebook and mostly consumer generated YouTube videos featuring Silly Bandz — so it could work as a social media example, too.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Product, Product life cycle, Social media, Viral campaign. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.