SmallBusinessNewz

If you haven't seen the film Juno, I suggest you check it out. It's a really good movie. A lot of other people feel the same way, and even if you don't read movie news, you can tell this just by the number of "hamburger phones" that are selling online.

The hamburger phone is a novelty item that has been around for years. Probably decades, but it has probably not been nearly as popular as it has now become. In the film, the lead character Juno uses and references a hamburger phone and this tends to get laughs from the audience. I remember after going to see the movie with my wife, she mentioned that she would like to have one herself. At the time, it didn't occur to me that this would become a hot selling item, but it makes you wonder, how many other wives said the same thing.

This is a perfect example of how you can take something in pop culture and capitalize on it. According to The Age, "hundreds of hamburger phones are flying off eBay's virtual shelves".

Now Fox Searchlight, the movie studio was giving away Juno-branded versions of the phone in promotional marketing, but even the plain old ones without the Juno brand are selling.

The lesson here?

It doesn't hurt to keep up with pop culture and look for ways that you can use it to gain business. Sure, the hamburger phone was more obvious because the promotional versions already existed, but if you are creative, you can find something that nobody has even thought to sell yet.

I'm not saying you should spend business hours watching movies, but why not try to use things you are interested in to get product ideas? If you watch movies, read books, listen to music, or watch television in your free time, you never know where you might a find a potential idea for your business.

This doesn't have to be limited to products.

You may find marketing angles in pop culture as well. An example of this that immediately comes to mind for me is from a small auto parts store in a town where I used to live. They ran a television commercial imitating the Wilson character from the hit television series Home Improvement. It had one of the employees standing behind a fence with the lower half of his face covered.

If you're not familiar with Home Improvement, this was a joke that ran the course of the entire series. The ad came off a bit cheesy to me, but here I am writing about it ten years later, so it obviously stuck with me.

You see pop culture influence in marketing nearly every day. Even our local cable commercials parody the popular TV show  "The Office". Have you ever used something from pop culture in any aspect of your business? If so, how did it work for you?