Margot first made waves back in the late 60′s inventing Warm Fuzzies, the very first sheepskin bedroom slipper with the wool inside.  Yes, all the fuzzy  footwear since then, including fuzzy versions of Crocs, owe their heritage to Margot’s original idea.

She and her sister Leslie then opened the Chapman Sisters Calorie Counter on Michigan avenue in the Wrigley building, the first restaurant to ever price their food by calorie and let you know what you were really eating.  It was 1977.  It was a Monday-Friday lunch-only concept that did over $1 million a year in revenue.  Today, restaurants like Seasons owe their heritage to Margot.

In between Margot helped hundreds of CPG companies come up with innovative new products.

Most recently, Margot and her partner Pam Rose created Swirls near the zoo in Chicago, and literally started the trend toward cup-cake bakeries.

Goodbye Margot.  No matter how desperate things must have seemed to you, the business will remember you through your many innovations.

First of all, this is the most functional dust pan I have ever used, and nothing else is close.  You set it on the floor and sweep into it.  You do not have to bend over.  It grips the floor.

Secondly, the industrial design is so differentiating and sleek that it could be award winning architecture were it a monument.  It stands up for storage and to make it easy to use as a waste pan.  It definitely should make the MOMA.   Today after the photos, I am just leaving it out because I enjoy looking at it.  Similar to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, it is pleasing from every angle and perspective.

Where did they miss out?  Well, if it has a name, I cannot find it.  I think it may have been part of the Oxo line which has many great industrial designs, but nothing is stamped into the plastic so I cannot tell you.  No name, no patent filing number.  Easy enough to have molded in, but nothing.  What a wasted opportunity.

And wow, would this respond to advertising.  I think that every home in America should have this dust pan.  It is awesome in every way.  I may try using it as a piece of functional sculpture.

Well consider what Muzak did years ago when they created the idea of using music in the background in the workplace.  Muzak is known as elevator music.  It even created the term “elevator music.”  Now it’s in office buildings, lobbies, restaurants, schools, etc.   And the category that resulted, Business Music, has competitors.

I assumed this category began in the 1960′s, but research showed me that it is much older than that.  The company Muzak Inc was incorporated in 1934.  This brand gained credence after a British study in 1937 showed that music increased work efficiency.  Then another study in New Jersey showed that music added in a manufacturing plant reduced absenteeism by 88%.   The brand Muzak introduced a form of franchising in 1938.  William Benton of Benton & Bowles advertising was an owner of the brand at one time.

Technology has changed but the fundamental idea is the same.  Even the Ipod owes its success to the same basic idea.  Background music increases work efficiency, whether in the hallway, at the desk, or in the gym.  What an idea to brand!

That brings me to the Edge™ brownie pan, where an entrepreneur figured out how to make a pan that would bake brownies all of which had at least two edges, some three.  Google this one.  It is a perfect example of creating your own brand.  Find a need, solve it, invent it, protect it, align it, name it and introduce it.

May or may not be a big idea, but the first step is a brilliant one.

Ms. Fitzgibbons, a Minnesota farm girl who became one of Madison Avenue’s greatest writers asked the young interviewee to take his time but to create for her an interesting way of describing a horse.

The young man waited not too long and said, “From above, a horse looks like a fine violin.”

She hired him on the spot because of his ability to look at things from unusual angles.  He became a real star for her, and had a fantastic career in advertising.

“The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.”

I have given this same speech in different words so many times “after” an accomplishment.

Bill Egan, a client when he was International President of Johnson & Johnson once complained to me, “People think vision is ‘let’s go into the hair care business.’  Where is the real vision.”

We think that real vision is the ability to imagine and see in detail a scenario that has not happened yet, but theoretically could.  I believe a part missing in Bill’s comment is “bigness.”  I think in part vision is in the BIGNESS.  If one said, let’s own the hair care business, a minimum of 70%, it would be different.  In other words, is it possible that the size of a goal can actually lead one to Visionary Thinking?

For instance, the goal, “let’s invade and take over Cleveland,” would lead to visionary thinking, wouldn’t it.

I am of course speaking of Topsy Turvy, the new tomato plant that grows upside down out of the bottom of a hanging basket.  Everything about this product fits the principles of Killer Branding;  Focus, Alignment and Linkage. I know you must have seen it on TV.  And now I am getting emails about it to follow up the TV awareness.

The only thing that keeps me from buying this brand is the same thing that keeps me from having a vegetable garden in the first place.  I have very little sun, and frankly vegetable gardens are ugly and defeat the purpose of gardening to me, which is to envision, create and grow beauty.

Topsy Turvy is ugly also.  It did not have to be, but it is.   I cannot see one hanging on my patio.

In 1902, Nabisco created a special package of Barnum’s Animal Crackers, the circus wagon box as a one-time Christmas promotion.  The box had a string so that when empty it could be hung on a Christmas tree.

Up until then the crackers were sold only in bulk in barrels in store.  You bought them by weight.

The circus wagon package was so popular, and the string became popular because kids carried the box by the string, that over time Nabisco came to own this category with its Barnum Animal Crackers, which clearly are a KILLER BRAND.

Can you differentiate a drinking glass in a compelling and ownable way, and become famous for it?

Well, the Tervis Tumbler™ is just that.  Except they are not a Killer Brand, because as successful as they are, very few people know about them by name, even when they are drinking from one.  Are you familiar with the brand?

A Tervis Tumbler™ is a glass made from two layers of clear plastic around a layer of air for insulation.  The expectation could not be more clear nor better delivered.  Hot or cold, or full of ice, Tervis Tumblers do not sweat, no matter the surrounding humidity.  The insulation air layer does the trick.

I think the product was originally developed for boating and/or yachting, as a thermal glass that kept drinks cold, and eventually caught on for outdoor use.  I think the “no sweat” expectation is much more compelling indoors.  I drink iced coffee, iced tea, soft drinks and water over ice all day.  It is great to have a glass that will not damage furniture no matter where you set it.

The Tervis Tumbler™ is probably better known as an advertising medium itself than a brand of drinking glass, for the insulated layer provides a perfect place for another brand’s logo.  Mine has a big Georgia “G” fabric patch in it.  Now you know what they look like, don’t you?

Consider.  Delta with giant resources starts a new airline named Song.  Millions later Song is gone.

While during the same years, in the very toughest economic times, in the United States’ most troubled city and state, Detroit, Michigan, a young Korean whose family immigrated here in 1982, drops out of college because of insurmountable student debts to work in his family’s millinery shop and creates a Killer Brand in a long dead category, women’s hats.

Luke Song, who admittedly has an unbelievable array of designs, produced first a local following for his brand, Mr. Song, then because of the compelling differentiation of his both his designs and the workmanship, began to be known among hat wearers everywhere.  Aretha Franklin who has been a Mr Song customer for many years chooses one his creations to wear to sing the National Anthem for the 2009 innauguration, and suddenly Mr. Song is a household word.  At least if you are African American and wear spectacular hats to church, he is.  Mr. Song’s business is up 700% to 800%.

Is it just the Aretha Franklin appearance that did it?  Absolutely not.  That might be what those think who believe that luck is all it takes to succeed.  No, it takes hard work combined with luck.  It is the appearance of a compelling and unique design and the already burgeoning reputation of Luke Song that comes together to create marketing magic, that moment when preparation meets opportunity.