Herd Mentality and the Marketing Power of Custom Clothing

[caption id="attachment_1866" align="alignnone" width="639"] Image source: Theredheadriter.com[/caption]   If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?   I'm going to guess that your parents once used this line on you. In fact, some of you might have used it on your rebellious teens before. It's a funny little phrase, but to be honest it goes against human nature. If a bunch of people are all doing something, then everyone else automatically gets excited about it.   You've probably experienced this scene before: you're walking along the street when you see a big crowd of people just standing around. You have no idea what they're looking at, but the mere fact that so many people are apparently interested in the same thing makes you think that it must be good. So, you join the crowd, stand around for a few minutes, and then you ask the person next to you, "Why is everybody standing around?"   He answers, "I don't know, I'm waiting to see what's going on just like you are."   [caption id="attachment_1867" align="alignnone" width="706"] Image source: Washingtonpost.com[/caption]   There's truly powerful marketing potential within this phenomenon. You don't really need to get 100 people interested in your product -- you can just get 20 people interested and then watch as the other 80 gradually wander over to see what everybody is so excited about.   Custom clothing can trigger this mob mentality, especially if the articles of clothing are worn by a very large number of people in a small area. Let's suppose, for example, that you see a shirt with a logo for Big Name Soda every week for a year. That adds up to 52 total views, which is certainly enough to leave an impression. Now, suppose that you were walking down the street and you saw 52 different people all wearing logos for Big Name Soda. That one event would have a much larger impact on you than if it was spread out across an entire year. You would wonder, "What going on with Big Name Soda? What do they know that I don't?"   [caption id="attachment_1868" align="alignnone" width="540"] Image source: Clairification.com[/caption]   That, I think, is the core motivation behind this quirk of mob mentality. What do they know that I don't? The curiosity fuels us to get involved, do some research, and benefit from whatever is getting all of these other people so hyped up. We don't want to feel left out when opportunity strikes. Just look at the popularity of viral social media campaigns and crowd funding -- hype creates more hype.   This is why handing out custom clothing at major events like festivals, band concerts, and trade shows can be so incredibly successful. All you have to do is hit a critical mass of people wearing your logo, and then everybody who isn't wearing your logo will wonder what the big deal is.   The important thing to keep in mind is that the marketing power isn't the custom clothing itself, but the people wearing the clothes. If you really want to drum up support, I recommend bringing a bunch of friends, employees, and family members to an event and giving them clothing with your logo. This will be way more successful than simply setting up a booth and handing out freebies because you can guarantee that people will advertise your brand. Pretty soon, you'll have a giant crowd of onlookers silently wondering, "What do those people know that I don't?"