Thursday, March 24, 2011

What do you stay awake for?

Since it is apparently still winter:

(I shoveled about 6-8 inches of this wet, sloppy mess yesterday. It was like shoveling a driveway full of Slurpees. I still hurt.)

I want to comment on what terrific marketing Caribou Coffee has. Their motto is "Life is Short. Stay Awake for it." I love it. Granted, as part of my One Little Word for the year, Reduce, I've cut back on caffeine almost entirely, but I still love Caribou's marketing strategies. Evidence:

1. Every day they have a quiz question, where you can get a dime off if you answer it correctly. I bought something once just so I could say the TV show set in Sunnydale and perched over a Hellmouth is...Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ta da!

2. A while back they covered a cup with life truths. I picked my favorites from them (after I bought every size cup--there were different sayings on each!) and made this page:

(Click on the image to see the life truths.)

Design-wise, I added some grunge textures to my photos, then reduced the opacity. I like how it warmed my photo. I also added a digital frame I got taking Jessica Sprague's Good-to-Great Workflow class. (Might have been the photo effects class. Don't quote me.)

3. They recently started a new cup, this time with customer contributions answering the question "What do you stay awake for?" Note what's in the upper left:

Yes, that would be my top answer too.

Here's some of my other favorites:
  • Walking down #18 on a cool fall evening with my Dad--Joel S.
  • The pitter-patter of little feet as the sun rises--Abby M. (That one may not be a good one)
  • Extra innings and overtime--Dana F.
  • Vampire love stories--Terri B.
  • Velociraptors lurking in the shadows--Mike D.
  • My 3-yr.-old asking "Mommy what letter does S start with?"--Lisa G.
Of course, being a scrapbooker, as soon as I saw this cup, I started making my own list to put on a future page. Here's a few of mine, sans the obvious (scrapbooking):
  • Another episode of Bones
  • Domimic and Rowan climbing on my lap to hear a story
  • A really big thunderstorm
  • A cup of hot tea
  • Baking chocolate chip cookies
  • Dominic chattering to himself in bed (this is the only not-so-good thing on my list--he can do this for hours, which means for a grumpy tomorrow for him)
  • The next chapter in a mystery book
  • A cat purring by my ear
  • Popcorn cooked on the stove
  • Warm summer nights with a warm breeze to keep the mosquitoes away
  • The smell of lilacs
  • Family movie nights
What do you stay awake for? Share with me, then go to the Caribou Coffee site and look for the icon; you can submit yours to the company. (You don't have to enter your name with the initial entry, BTW. The one that says "Jennifer L." twice is me!) And I hope you turn yours into a page.

4 comments:

Jackie said...

what a great idea!!!! I might scrap lift the "Truths" idea too! Your blog has become one of my (just-about) daily stops! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

LOVE this :) Great ideas, Jennifer - thanks for the inspiration!

Diana said...

I love LOs like this, life's truths and I know this much is true and so on.
As for what I stay awake for? Scrapbooking, definitely. The next chapter of a good book (or the ending if I must know.) A game of scrabble with DH. A kid-free conversation with DH.
Not TV anymore though... .

Moongirl said...

Great list! I think I will add this to my to-do list. I too, would stay up for another episode of Bones and the next chapter in a book :)