When Pop Tarts opened a New York store I have to admit I made a mental note that I would definitely be going there the next time I got to New York. In fact, there's a good chance I will go there straight from the airport since I apparently have the sweet tooth of an 8 year old that makes me do ridiculous things like buy $10 giant gummy bears (they are 1200 calories each btw) and I can't event get into what happens to me when the Peeps hit the stores for Easter.

From a marketing perspective though Pop Tarts is doing some interesting things lately. The TV spots are ramped up, their online presence has exploded, and now a store you can actually walk into and they're not the only ones.

Tide has 3 dry cleaning stores in Kansas and Mr. Clean has car washes in Ohio, Atlanta, and Texas. Well known brands are making a foray into the service industry and I think it's related to all of the social media going on in the last few years. Here's why:

Social media has showed us the importance of having a story. With television, you had 30 seconds to a minute to tell a story so we were conjuring up quick and simple stories for viewers. After that, people went on their merry way. With social media (and I'm not talking just online here, social media is really the way connecting is going on nowadays) there became a major emphasis on stories. Even long stories like the Johnny Cash Project where people uploaded their Johnny Cash portrait to become part of an ever changing collective view of the man in black. You can follow stories about how car companies come up with new designs or how clothing is chosen to become part of fashion shows. The story is huge.

So what's the story on a simple product from a major company that makes a billion products?

Kellogg made stories by branching out into the service business. Aside from the major press they received from excited folks everywhere they can talk about the making of the restaurant, how new flavors are doing with customers, they can have video from the line outside the door every day. In other words, story galore. I'm not going to pretend that this move isn't profit driven because surely owning the whole car wash can bring in more profit than just selling a product to them. However, from a marketing standpoint this makes sense as well because the brand will own the story from start to finish. Mr. Clean doesn't have to send video crews to some other car wash in order to do "behind the scenes car wash" videos, they can just film their own. People can check in on Facebook and Foursquare to an actual location. The addition of a location will undoubtedly boost their online buzz a million fold.

I'm interested to see what other products we'll be seeing with retail soon.