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).

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.

Announcing Snuggiebook.com – the Social Network with Sleeves!

SnuggieBook.com is a Social Network for Snuggie Enthusiasts worldwide. This site is intended to give you a platform to connect with old friends, make new ones, post videos, pictures, slideshows, SnuggieChat, the list literally goes on, and on, and on. Join now and be one of the early members. You will find some familiar faces and celebrities from the Snuggie culture. Daniel Russell is going to be a Snuggie Rock Star; just look at the female adoration he is getting thanks to the Snuggie (and he can say he was Member #2 of SnuggieBook.com).

And then there’s Brook, the Snuggie Wizardess who ended up in last week’s Life&Style Weekly Magazine. She’s on SnuggieBook.com

We even have the Snuggie Lady’s Sister – Marjorie.

You can organize your Snuggie events, such as the LA Snuggie Pub Crawl. Join SnuggieBook.com and get the word out about your Snuggie event, whatever it is (Snuggie Giveaways, Snuggie Promotions, Snuggie Flash Mobs, Snuggie Proms (this will happen…mark my words), Snuggie Songs, whatever you have going on in your head related to the Snuggie you can now get out there in a big way and be seen).

Update – Although SnuggieBook enjoyed a user base in the hundreds, I ultimately decided to shelve it. This was around the time that Facebook decided to start suing companies that used the word book in their domain name.