“What sells?” I was asked the other day by a young lady, a budding entrepreneur, looking as though she expected some deep and secret insights from me.

Fortunately, I had a simple answer to give her: “Brands that people trust. Brands they associate with the good qualities they seek and a name they associate with the absence of risk”.

The concept of “goodness” is universal. It applies to products in exactly the same manner as it does to humans.

Think of a good human you approve of. I imagine it would be a person who does things you approve of.

Bottom line? Do things that earn approval for your brand.

Now what could that be? Many opportunities to do good and earn approval make themselves available every day.

Here’s a story that demonstrates such an opportunity:

Australia’s Northern Daily published an article some time ago, about how local councils have contributed huge sums of money for calico bags to be distributed free to residents.

The 13 participating councils are Armidale Dumaresq, Glen Innes, Gunnedah, Guyra, Gwydir, Inverell, Liverpool Plains, Moree, Narrabri, Tamworth, Tenterfield, Uralla and Walcha.

Vanessa Tiernan, project co-ordinator for the Northern Inland Regional Waste Group, said that each of the group’s 13 constituent councils had contributed a collective $65,000 to buy 86,000 “Don’t Waste” bags.

They would all carry the same “Don’t Waste” message, but there would be one difference from council area to council area. In Tamworth, the bags would carry the message “Don’t Waste Tamworth”, whereas in the other areas, the message would be “Don’t Waste Glen Innes” or “Don’t Waste Inverell”.

Sensible. Where plastic bags are usually used just once or a few times before being discarded, reusable cloth bags are so durable they can be used for months and even years.

Each one of these bags is going to be reused at least 300 times. Assuming even a modest 50 eyeballs each time, 86,000 X 300 X 50 = 1,290,000,000 – that’s more than a billion  exposures to a brand that would get approval every time.

Sponsorship of a programme like this in your city can cost you less than you think. With citizens of hundreds of cities in the United States, Canada and the UK asking for a ban on plastic bags  in their cities, new opportunities like this arise every day.

If you’d like to earn respect and approval for your brand, talk to me.

You will be pleasantly surprised by how attractive and economical reusable fabric bags can be http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Even though they cost so little, they are a low cost high potency weapon for guerilla marketers.

Stumble it!