Purple Power to the People

Do you have an image or message below your email signature? We recently added a new graphic e-signature on all our employees’ outbound emails to keep our new branding consistent.

During the last year, we decided it was time to “refresh” our company’s brand. For most companies, this means you re-do your logo. And your packaging. And your advertising. And your website. You get the picture.

Even the emails we send needed to reflect our brand identity, so we added a standard e-sig to the bottom. All employees have the same font style and footer image now. It was an adjustment for some who had been customizing their own signatures with different colors and fonts.

Every time I get ready to send an email, this e-sig pops up and it makes me smile. It feels happy. And I’m glad to report that it’s not just me or my employees who appreciate the new e-sig.

Our new e-sig

This morning, I had to update some online account information for a service we use. After I made the change, I sent a courtesy reply to the individual (in accounting) who originally notified me. I didn’t expect her reply:

“Thank you, Ms. Caplan! Love your signature logo!”

What I didn’t expect was that I would get yet another email from her less than 10 minutes later:

“By the way, we Filipinos love purple potatoes. We cook them in almost anything and everything. Just put them in the microwave and voila…perfect snack!”

It really surprised me to see how a happy, engaging e-sig could start a conversation with a complete stranger.

Although this person is probably referring to the Okinawan/Ube Yam-style purple sweet potato, which is a different variety and flavor profile than our Stokes Purple®, I thought it was great that our little e-sig could inspire her and remind her of a pleasant food memory.

…and it revealed a potential marketing opportunity for us. Perhaps the newer Stokes Purple® Sweet Potato variety would appeal to the Filipino audience, which is now the second-largest Asian population in the United States.

Each of us has a market for our product or service. I wonder if there are hidden gems of customers just waiting for us to discover them? We’ve positioned this product for fitness buffs, vegetarians, and vegans. We didn’t really think of it as an ethnic food.

By the way, I got one more email from her after I told her which of her local markets carried Stokes Purple® Sweet Potatoes:

“I will look for them at these stores. My family’s favorite way to use them is to make ice cream…”

Another new product idea…Purple Sweet Potato Ice Cream. Yum!

Bon Appetit!

Karen