"Won't bind your legs"

Have you ever had one of those days where you learned absolutely nothing, gained no knowledge at all?  It feels empty and incomplete.

A day without gaining any knowledge at all is a day wasted, no matter what else happens, because knowledge is currency and one day there'll be an opportunity to draw on it.

Whether it’s trivial or mountain-shifting, edifying or entertaining, there’s always something new to be discovered. Learning a single piece of something may also start you on a trail of creative discovery that can uncover a whole series of thoughts, ideas and insights, which in-itself is always exciting.

Example?  Did you know that (back in the day) Chuck Norris helped design and endorsed a range of jeans specifically for “stunt fighting in action movies”? Yep, what every man needs for those stunt-fighting sequences you find yourself in every day (as an action man does) is a pair of appropriately named Action Jeans.  The key feature of Action Jeans was a hidden gusset, the benefit of which was that they “won’t bind your legs” or rip when shooting your enemy with a high kick (in cowboy boots or nothing, it goes without saying). And Chuck endorsed them, so you knew they were good.

Until today, I didn’t know this but now I do (thanks to a bit of tweet-farming).  It entertains me and because of that it sticks and that’s my point.

For instance, could the idea behind Chuck Norris’ jeans story be leveraged to create different marketing stories? Maybe even used to think about improving or developing new products (that overlap needs or wants) or creative ideas that cut-through and invite? Could the simple act of just knowing it lead you to unlocking new ideas for differentiation from your competitors through innovation?

The connection may not be immediately apparent and it will take some fairly lateral, creative thinking in most cases, though I’m certain that there’s a story or angle to be drawn on from this (and I’m not talking about the 120-odd degree high kick on Chuck) and other things you come across daily.

Keep your eyes open, your ears tuned and experience all things that pass you by because with a bit of thought, there just might be some insight to be learned that can unbind your legs and set your marketing story apart from the rest.

** Revised & republished from The Polished Turd (www.thepolishedturd.com), first published August 2010