A red and gold envelope

Brilliance struck!
I just had it, one of those sneaky idea's that comes out of nowhere...

What if you were at a cash register in Sears. Scratch that, make it the LCBO. So you're walking through, looking at bottles, "Pasta for dinner tonight, meat sauce. Should I go French? Chilean? oh screw it, I know nothing about wine, and yellowtail is good." You know, typical LCBO.

So you pick out a few bottles, this and that, and stand in line.
There's a few people in front of you. Cashier is taking that person, and she's bought a beautiful bottle of rum. It's got a crystal looking outside, not too fancy, but nice. You glance, price isn't bad. Meh, maybe you'll try it out.

Then the cashier reaches under his desk, and hands her a red envelope with a simple gold ribbon on it. "What's this?" she asks, and the cashier explains that everyone who buys that bottle of rum get's an envelope.

So wait a sec. She get's the red envelope for buying that rum? What's in it?

**This is the part where I get to my point(s)**

This idea came to me when I was crossing 2 needs. The first need is for a company to create a group around their brand. Not just loyalty, but a group. The idea is to use the envelope kinda like a direct mail piece, but since you can direct it completely to customers, the idea is to use the message inside to create a pathway of information. Seth Godin has a TED-Talk on the idea of 'tribes' here: (http://tinyurl.com/p2fzqa)

Maybe on the inside of the envelope it's an invitation to a concert hosted by the company, or depending on the demographic a free ticket to an event at a night club. The bar get's the patrons, the booze company get's the message across, and another invitation to join them on twitter or facebook so that they can hear about the next 'event' or deal in town.

Maybe on this bottle is a sleeve on the back with a card that says "Fill this out, tell us what you think, put it in the mail (postage already paid), and we'll send you a bottle spout to put on your next bottle." You now have all the information needed to start communication.



The second idea works when you look at the story of 'Grey Poupon'. Long version here: (http://tinyurl.com/475qzx)
Short version, there were 2 mustard companies, frenchs and Gold. Yellow mustard, paprika and some other stuff. That was it
Grey Poupon comes along, with a dijon. Better seeds, white wine, more delicate arromatics, and put it in a beautiful clear glass jar. They decide instead of 2$, it'll be 4$. And the roles royce with the ... you get the point.
They took a HUGE market share with that.

The whole point here is: The way to make people happy, is to give them something that is more expensive, something to aspire to. To turn their back and reach farther up the mustard ladder! (btw, thanks to Malcolm Gladwell for most of what I just wrote.

Both talks, led me on this little rant.

If you give out red envelopes with gold ribbon, to all your customers, you will create a pull. If you're like me, and like hitting '3 birds with one stone' so to speak, you realize the awesome power of this.