FEBRUARY 20, 2009

The Blanket With Sleeves

The Snuggie - also known as “the blanket with sleeves” - has gotten major exposure in mainstream media over the last few months and has developed its own cult-like following. And so, like it or not, talk of the Snuggie has been circulating through our office. We’ve been wondering, why has this seemingly unnecessary invention made such a connection with consumers?  Is it the actual practicality of the blanket? Or was the advertising - the cheesy infomercial which made way for a hilarious parody version  - responsible for its success? Check out the infomercial:

I recently heard about the Snuggie Pub Crawl in Chicago, and I admit that at that moment I was so tempted to get one of my own (don’t tell anyone)! Also, I’m secretly hoping that they introduce Snuggies with pockets so that you can store snacks or your remote control in it, or better yet - double Snuggies, with room for two people! But all kidding aside, over 4 million Snuggies have been sold to date, there have been over 250 pro and con Facebook group pages created, and nearly 300 parody videos posted on YouTube.  With all the advertising - the messages, the products - that consumers are bombarded with, the Snuggie was somehow able to break through the saturation and actually hit a chord with Americans all across the nation. It’s baffling!

The popularity of the product has even surprised the president and CEO, Scott Boilen, of Allstar Products Group (creators of the Snuggie), but he attributes its success to “finally marketing the product,” even though blankets with sleeves have been on the market for 40 years.  Candidly, I disagree. While using the direct-response marketing technique may have been the right approach, I think the actual advertising was extremely out of touch, and that it was the sheer ridiculousness of the infomercial that grabbed consumers’ attention.  In my opinion, this is an example of the power of word-of-mouth, consumer-controlled marketing.  Consumers are responsible for this success, not Snuggie’s marketing efforts. In short, Snuggie’s got lucky by making a horrible television spot that consumers enjoyed making fun of.

What Mr. Boilen and I do agree on is that the Snuggie provides “a simple solution to a basic problem” and that is always something that resonates with consumers.  So “kudos” to Allstar Products Group for that, if nothing else.  Most likely, the Snuggie will be a short-lived fad fueled by humor and novelty, but this blanket will, no doubt, be remembered as that quirky blanket everyone was talking about in 2009.