Do You Believe in Magic?

A recent post on the Wall Street Journal's "The Juggle" Blog about laundry was especially active with comments today.  Why is it, do you think, that people (especially those of the Wall Street Journal's educated and usually financial elite) are seizing on such topics as mundane as this?  It's the kind of subject that binds humans together:  rich or poor, we all have dirty clothes we have to wash, and in most cases, fold, and puta way.  No one teaches us one way to do this, it's a solution that evolves based on experience. Why are we so anxious to share these details, and why is the conversation remarkably lacking in rancor?

Of course I had to put my two cents in:  and that's my endorsement of one of the most amazing products ever, OxiClean. 

Yes, that's right, the loud guy on the tv commercials who makes you feel just a bit strange watching the intensity of his pitch. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NNv2oiWdRU]

But I can't deny, the product works.  It really does.  Recently when Safeway wasn't carrying it, and I had to use a substitute from Clorox that just didn't work as well; I realized that the product was GREAT.  And I want to tell everyone about it.  And I wasn't the only person on the thread to talk about how great the product was.

In return, another reader posted that Kaboom!, a bathroom product from the same company, was equally effective at its job. I'll be buying and trying it this weekend.

Such are the things that viral marketing gurus dream about.  But again, it all starts with a product---that works.

There's so much hype about search/display/affiliate  type marketing, but as Seth Godin says, if the product doesn't work, that stuff is like a Meatball Sundae.

What are some of your favorite products that you just can't wait to talk about?  What are you doing to make sure the products you sell are worth talking about?

PS An update as of 2/16/2008: Kaboom! worked wonders on some pre-historic soap scum in the shower with relatively little scrubbing, though I did use half the bottle on two passes to get it all.