Everybody needs an elephant

So I spoke at the AIM Conference in Halifax this week about how businesses can make their marketing more social. You know, giving people something worth talking about, and helping facilitate the conversation. I thought I'd write about one of my favourite points in the talk.
Everybody needs an elephant.

Well, something like that. This came to me while having a conversation with a friend a couple weeks back. The inevitable and obvious question of "What's new?" got asked, and neither of us had anything particularly interesting to say.

So he suggested that he should just buy an elephant. That way, there would always be something to answer that question with.

"Just trying to figure out if I'm going with an Indian or African elephant."

"Oh, I'm still haggling with the owner."

"Would you believe it? Damn thing's caught up in customs."

You could go on and on about how the paddock construction is going. How much food you have to buy, and on and on. Actually, the thing never really has to arrive.

It's just something to talk about.

And everyone's looking for something to talk about.

People will go to extraordinary lengths to have something new to talk about. Hell, we'll even pay tons of money on a vacation just to have the subject of new conversations.

Does your business do anything that might give me something to talk about? Are you at all helping me buy my elephant? Are you so interesting that you can replace the elephant?

Does your business have a blog that's regularly updating with things I can bring up with coworkers? Does your packaging include funny or fascinating takes on the industry you're in?

If you make cutlery, why doesn't your packaging say how many forks are made worldwide in a day? Why don't you tell me a bit about the history of modern cutlery? When company comes over, I'll have something to talk about.

If not, I guess I have to keep trying to buy that elephant. And that's a bit of a pain. Too bad you couldn't help.