Earlier this year, every weekend saw multiple Snuggie Pub Crawls in various cities across the United States (go to my SnuggiePubCrawls.com website for the running list of dates and locations).

As the weather warmed, the crawls cooled, with the months of July and September being the only months on record this year without a Snuggie Pub Crawl. Now that we are in October, let the Snuggie Pub Crawls commence in what we’ll call the 2009-10 season.

This second season of crawls will feature all the new Snuggie colors and styles, college snuggies, etc. and perhaps some revelers will bring along their canine’s decked out in their own Snuggie for Dogs. What started with 6 guys in Cincinnati on January 30, 2009 has grown into a cultural phenomenon.

In addition to these dates listed below, there are dozens more in the formative stages. Here are a few that are taking shape right now, with dates set, many with event websites, Twitter identities, and Facebook Event pages.

Knoxville, TN (Oct. 17)

Salt Lake City, Utah (Oct. 23 – Pink Ribbon Snuggie Pub Crawl for Breast Cancer Charities) – Other cities may join together on this date for Breast Cancer Awareness. I will write more on this later as well as the Pink Ribbon Snuggie for Charity.

Harrisburg, PA (Oct 30)
Boston (Nov. 7)

Philadelphia, PA (Nov. 8th)

I’ve also been contact by New Brunswick, NJ, Atlanta, New Orleans, and will be posting more details on those locations and dates as soon as I get them.

Whether you love or hate the Snuggie, one truth remains – the Blanket with Sleeves has been (and will continue to be) a monster hit. Marketers of all stripes are experiencing a severe case of Snuggie-envy, asking ‘Why? Why is the Snuggie so successful?’

Perhaps twenty years from now, when I’m an old man, wrapped in my Snuggie, some major media outlet (like VH1) will come calling, asking for my perspective as to why the Snuggie became so popular. Until that day comes, we can gain some insights from this article – Blanket Coverage – a study conducted by Nielsen Research and Proctor and Gamble.

The quote that caught my eye was this:

“Sure, the commercial campaign would have continued, but we would have encouraged more events like the pub crawls, celebrity sightings and video parodies to reinforce the magic mix of quirky, cool and functional, the secret to Snuggie’s success.”

An affirming quote like that brings a smile to my face (although I think the non-celebrity sightings are more fun). And speaking of Snuggie Pub Crawls, I’ll just say that this Fall and Winter are going to be crazy as the 2009-10 season begins. Stay tuned.

If you have a single marketing bone in your body, you really should study everything Snuggie does. Case in point – Snuggie holds a fashion show yesterday. Some would ask why. Word of mouth…that’s why. That Fashion Show has been reported on by numerous news outlets (Time Magazine, Gothamist, etc.), and then spreads across Twitter, Facebook, etc.

As word begins to spread, people start searching online. As more and more people perform a specific search, the term starts popping up and presenting itself to others. So here’s an example, revealing that the Snuggie Fashion Show is one of the top searches on DogPile right now (too bad those dogs on their home page aren’t wearing Dog Snuggies).

This is one dogpile you can step in. Snuggie Fashion is the #2 Favorite Fetch - Mock the Snuggie at you peril, smug marketers.

While we are on the subject of marketing, I would be remiss if I didn’t congratulate Scott Boilen and All Star Marketing on their Direct Response Marketing Alliance Marketer of the Year Award. They’ve gone from 4 million Snuggie sales in January to over 15 million today. Umm…HOLY DANG!

So, as I said, All Star/Snuggie has rewritten the playbook when it comes to marketing in today’s environment. Simply put – NO ONE gets more free advertising than Snuggie. It’s to the point now that all they have to do is launch a new commercial and all the media outlets clamor to cover it and give free airtime. Here’s a clip that exemplifies this phenomenon – wait for Willie Geist to finish on his Kanye West take and he’ll then air a free Snuggie ad on his show about a minute into this clip.

With all this said, I’m prepping a 10 day/10 part series on how you can use Snuggies to market your own business or brand, offering up ideas on how you can get hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Get ready for fun in fleece.