Yet another posting on my favourite cycling forum from someone bewailing the absence of a pack of Haribos from their Wiggle order. For those unacquainted, I should explain that Haribos…

…are  little bags of sweets, available from any good cash ‘n carry for somewhere shy of 10p a pack.

One of the UK’s main players in the hotly-competitive world of online cycling retail – Wiggle – have long been in the habit of adding a pack, for no apparent reason, to the goods they send out. A stroke of genius, you might think: for under 10p, they significantly boost that positive vibe, and generate reams of social media good coverage. But no. That’s just smart marketing. The genius is that sometimes they send a pack without any Haribo in.

No-one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been able to establish whether this is policy, an oversight, Wayne getting lost on his way back from from the cash ‘n carry, or what, but either way the upshot is the same: another post to the forum, setting off another little thread that puts the name ‘Wiggle’ back in front of the eyes of Wiggle’s core target audience for a few more days.

I just did a search on Haribo, which turned up almost a thousand posts, going back to 2011.

A little imagination (and a little bag of sweeties) can go a long, long way.