Political Spin for the Rinse Cycle

Success has a thousand fathers, the saying goes, but failure is an orphan. But in the case of Tom Bihn, a specialty maker of backpacks and carrier bags for laptops, no one’s rushing to claim paternity for the viral marketing coup that has doubled sales since last April—although everyone at the Port Angeles, WA-based company is willing to welcome it into the family.

Here’s the story, according to marketing VP Darcy Hudgens. Bihn bags are sewn and sold in French Canada; thus their care labels are printed in English and French. The workers there wanted to poke some fun at their company president, Hudgens says. So after instructing owners not to bleach, iron or machine dry the bag, the French half of the label added two sentences more: “We’re sorry our president is an idiot. We did not vote for him.”

No one knows when this “joke” began appearing inside the bags, Hudgens says. They only know that in April, 2004, some blogger with time on his hands read his care label and enjoyed the zing so much—presumably mistaking the president in question—that he posted it on the Web. To shield them from repercussions, the blogger didn’t even post the Bihn company name.

That’s when the Internet took the item and began doing its viral thing, sending it around the world in no time. Eventually, someone linked the bag label back to Bihn, and the 12-employee company began to ride a wave of free publicity as friends forwarded .jpegs of the label to friends. Sales began to build. Eventually, the local NBC affiliate even came out to one of Bihn’s two stores to tape an interview for the local news. MSNBC took the story, and then the Associated Press and Reuters.

At first, the company was worried about the publicity in this politically charged year. “It wasn’t really intended to be a marketing play,” Hudgens says. “But once it got out there, it doubled our sales.” The boost has been ongoing, and has even created a $60,000 back-order problem at the 12-person company. Hudgens expects that this holiday season will be the best in the company’s history, thanks to the free publicity. The company also noticed that its non-computer bags—café shoulder bags, messenger bags, totes and such—are selling better since the label story broke.

Selected posts from various blogs retelling the Bihn label story suggest she’s right: “hahaha… dude that is great”; “I am dying laughing… seriously”; and best of all, “Gotta find one of these bags.”

Buyers can find them, thanks to an extremely user-friendly Web site (www.tomBihn.com). A handy page on the site not only tells the official Bihn version of the story but identifies which bags come with the “idiot” label, to avoid disappointing customers buying bags partly to get the label.

Of course, not everyone has a sense of humor. “In the beginning, we received some nasty e-mails,” Hudgens says. “And we thought about what good could come of this—besides doubling our sales.” The answer the company came up with was T-shirts with blow-ups of the label, with profits from the item going to the Seattle Veterans’ Center. That amounts to about $16,000 at press time.

Bihn started making and selling his own bags in a Santa Cruz storefront 20 years ago. But the company really took off when he opened an Internet site, and then grew further with a larger production facility in Port Angeles. Now the company runs a retail store in Seattle’s Pioneer Square and another in Port Angeles, but about 85% of its sales are online.

Bihn doesn’t produce a catalog, doesn’t even discount prices, and prefers a soft-sell “community” approach to marketing, says Hudgens. The Web store reflects this: photos of Bihn bags carried to every continent on the globe except, strangely, Africa; pictures of company pets; links to Web pages for favorite bands; and Flash animation of an egg inside a Tom Bihn bag being dropped and surviving intact. A helpful pull-down menu lets customers size the bag they want to the model laptop they use.

Under “ideas”, Tom Bihn’s personal page includes, “Call the White House, 202-456-1111.” (Obviously, to apologize for the presidential confusion.)

While Tom Bihn maintains an active e-mail list, Hudgens says the company only mails its customers once every two months or so, and only with new product information or special events. “We don’t want to annoy people,” she says.

Instead, Bihn offers customer forums that let buyers post their opinions and get answers to their questions—about the bags, about computers in general, and yes, about the label—from other customers. Posters can suggest new products or improvements to current ones and get a response from Tom Bihn himself. Products in the works: a Bihn diaper bag and a bag insert to hold a camera.

The “French label” portion of the Bihn Web forum does contain one post from last April that reads, “Enjoy your boycott here in the States. Hope it was worth it.” Judging by the sales charts, it probably was. And now Bihn doesn’t have to change the label for another four years.