My friend Kent Dicken at Shared IDiz had a great blog post last week that involved the coolness of bananas. That’s right. Imagine if you were the marketer for Chiquita. You need to somehow differentiate your banana. Go.

Any ideas? Think about it. I’ll wait.

They did something very simple. Very random, and it changed the way I buy bananas. Success.

Yesterday I was listening to the local news and a reporter, Stephanie Strickland struck her own version of Olympic gold when she was able to get the attention of Snowboarder Shaun White. How? With a banana.

As she tells the story, she knew there was no way she could get an interview with this icon, and there were literally thousands of photographers and reporters that would be waiting for him outside the venue. So…..she got some poster board, a  few Canadian stickers and a banana. She wrote “Sign this Banana” and waited. It worked.

Shaun walked over and said “You want me to sign a banana?”

“Yes, please.”

And so he did.

Then he posted a picture of it on his Facebook page that simply said “I had to sign this banana.” 4,582 Facebook fans agreed.

Lessons learned. Shiny happy people on your marketing stuff does not differentiate you. So stop doing it! Think like a banana. Be the banana. Find your inner banana.