It may be true that the simplest ideas are often the hardest to think of, but when it comes to marketing, it may behoove you to think hard about simplicity.

I’ve got a great example of marketing in its simplest form. I take my dog Katie to “camp” now and again – quite literally a place here in Nashville called Camp Bow Wow.

I also take my dog to the dog park – one of the most popular and therefore busiest dog parks in the area.

When your dog becomes a camper at Camp Bow Wow, they put a red tag on your leash. On one side of the tag is your dog’s name – so they can give the right leash to the right dog, on the other is their logo. Its a good quality plastic tag about the size of a silver dollar.

The tag is fastened on in such a way that you could take if off the leash when you got home, but why would you? Its not in the way and you know when its time to go back to camp, you’re going to need to reattach anyway. So most people just leave the tag on their leash all the time.

Once my dog became a camper, I started noticing these red tags on the leashes of many dogs at the dog park. Cool, I thought, these other dog owners also like Camp Bow Wow and their dogs are campers too.

Knowing that other dog owners take their dog to the same camp gives me a measure of confidence about the place. Other dog owners trust them, so I feel validated.

But that’s not the only benefit of these little red tags. Today there were about five of us with tags on our leashes. This prompted other people in the park to ask about the tags.

“Hey why do you all have red tags on your leashes?”

The five of us then went on to rave about Camp Bow Wow – how the dogs loved it there, how well cared for they were, etc. etc.

When I finally shut up about the place, it hit me how smart these Camp Bow Wow people were. A little red tag started a conversation in a dog park, probably started many conversations in multiple dog parks.

Word of mouth marketing baby! Marketing in its simplest, most powerful form!