Mac & cheese. Spaghetti & meatballs. Bagels & cream cheese.
What classic food pairings do you love?
In this article, I’d like to talk about peanut butter & jelly, and the important business lesson that I learnt recently. In this video I’ve shared the Peanut Butter + Jelly metaphor that can really help boost your brand. Here’s how to make your brand a movement, not just a company.
The brilliant mind who introduced me to The Peanut Butter + Jelly concept is Jonah Berger, Wharton School of Business Professor and bestselling author of Contagious while I was at the Archangel Academy 2016 event in LA.
The peanut butter & jelly combo is a childhood favorite. If you think about it, peanut butter does a really big job for jelly. When peanut butter comes to mind, there’s a very likely chance you’re thinking of jelly as well.
This is concept has key implications in business terms. Consider this… how can you take something that’s already exists in the world, that can act as peanut butter, and make your brand the jelly to it?
Turn your brand into a movement that catches on and inspires positive change.
A perfect example of this concept in action is Miracle Morning, written by Hal Elrod who also attended the Archangel Academy event. Going back to our analogy, Hal has “Peanut Butter & Jelly’ed” the morning in his book title. He’s created an association such that when people think of the morning, they think about if they’ve read this book, or if they’ve heard about it.
This creates a behavioral trigger that makes you think of the Miracle Morning book when you imagine having a highly productive morning. Especially if you’ve read this book, the PB & J effect is even greater, because every day you’ll be thinking whether or not you’re having a miracle morning or not. Hal’s readers are always going to remember this book because he’s created a powerful behavioral trigger that inspires positive change in people’s lives.
So I invite you to consider… How can you apply this behavioral trigger to your business? Let’s look at how you can attract customers to do business with you. It’s extremely powerful when you can get into the daily triggers that your customers are already experiencing and leverage that to get your brand’s name out there and attract greater customers. And most importantly, to create the impact you know you can make.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, what real life applications of the PB & J concept have you witnessed? How can you apply this to your own business?