Marketing power 1

I love Glad Press'n Seal - a kind of futuristic plastic wrap that actually keeps your food sealed in its bowl, even when you accidentally knock it off the fridge shelf. It's like someone finally invented Saran Wrap - Saran Wrap that works.

But as much as I appreciate keeping my food tightly sealed, plastic wrap is not something that fills my heart with poetry or the passionate desire to create a video tribute. Plastic wrap is something I want to use, not something I want to talk about.

And yet, like just about every consumer brand these days, Glad Press'n Seal has asked me to do exactly that. There's a Press 'n Seal site that invites me to set up yet another online community membership so that I can contribute content about, you guessed it, plastic wrap.

Glad is all-too-tightly sealed in an increasingly common dilemma: how do you tap the power of social media when your brand or product is less than exciting to consumers, or even (in the case of the B2B market) invisible to them?

Unless your customers care so passionately about your brand or product that they pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, they probably don't care enough to be part of an online conversation about your brand. If you're anybody other than Apple, Nike or Coke, you're probably going to need some other basis for convening a conversation that connects you to your customers.

That's where reflected glory marketing (RGM) comes in. Find something your customers do care passionately about - something that reflects thematically and positively on your brand - and invite customers into that conversation.

Your first exposure to RGM was probably through Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Rather than asking us to talk about soap (yippee!! soap!), Dove found common ground with its customers on an issue that just about every woman can relate to: body image. As part of a multi-channel campaign, Dove invited women to share their thoughts and experiences on the campaign web site - and more than a million women logged in during 2005 alone. Dove reported a 600% increase in sales within two months' of the campaign's launch.