Let your customers play, too!

A couple months ago I came across this awesome new book of “poetry.” This “writer who draws,” Austin Kleon,  takes newspaper articles, blacks out most of the words with a marker, and leaves certain words that form some kind of thought-provoking (or not) poem. Soon after I bought the book and loved finding what this guy could find in random sections of text.

But what I liked most was that Kleon doesn’t use the book to present himself as a master of the art and a hugely profound philosopher/poet. Instead, at the end of the book he included a how-to section. He doesn’t have a monopoly on the method, and he encourages his readers to play around come up with their own poetry and even submit it to his Tumblr blog. He wants everybody to experiment and come up with their own “found art.”

I think this can be a very powerful idea for brands. We all know that the more uses you can promote for a product, the more value it can have–and the more it can sell (Arm & Hammer, anyone?), but how many brands go out of their way to encourage their customers to use their products in new ways or give them a way to share new uses with others?

This Newspaper Blackout example reminded me of what TOMS Shoes did for Earth Day. Since their shoes wear out just like any others, they came up with a few ways you can recycle your old pair of TOMS into a bracelet or plant hanger, among other things. If you come up with your own project, you can share it on their website.

Another quick example: I’m sure you’ve heard of someone who made their Prom dress or tux out of duct tape (by the way, the Duck brand does a great job of owning that idea), but did you hear about the girl who made her own dress out of gum wrappers? She liked the colors of Wrigley’s “5″ gum wrappers, so she collected as many as she could and put together a dress and her boyfriend’s vest.

I don’t know how she made a dress out of the wrappers and I have no idea if Wrigley ever contacted her, but how cool would it be if they had a contest or website that featured different uses or even art made of the colorful wrappers? (This almost reminds me of this campaign by DDB Sydney.)

I’m sure that for every WD-40 there is a dozen products that people have found additional uses for. Why wouldn’t a brand want to energize and give a voice to these innovative people? Have you seen other examples like these? Do you know of any new uses for a common product? Let me know below!