Chapter 57. The Web Is Full of Copycats

The infamous Snuggie (a blanket with sleeves) was actually created by Gary Clegg in 1998 when he was a freshman in college, except he called it The Slanket. He actually promoted the product a long time ago on places such as QVC; however, his marketing was off the mark. No, wait. He got his butt kicked by the Snuggie marketing team years later. There's no other way to put it. A good old-fashioned butt kicking.

The Slanket and the Snuggie are pretty much the same product. However, there are differences in the product and the marketing. The Slanket is more like a big blanket, while the Snuggie is more like something you wear as clothing. The makers of the Snuggie realized that you don't carry a blanket with you around the house while making toast and letting the dog out to pee. So instead, they designed the Snuggie as something you could wear that lets you stay active, even showing people in the ads wearing it outside of the house!

However, therein lies the real difference of the two products— the marketing behind them. The Slanket was marketed as a luxury item for fancy and rich people to use while lounging in their million-dollar mansions, while the Snuggie was marketed to the masses, the regular people who might be picking their kids up from a lacrosse game or driving through McDonalds for lunch. In addition, let's be honest, the marketing for the Snuggie is very kitsch, which helps it tremendously. Kitsch is a German word denoting art that ...

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