On what was a pretty normal and sedate work day, a colleague from work brought in a bottle of old-style Pop Shoppe pop (soda to those of you south of the border) , which has recently been resurrected from the graveyard of the 80’s. What struck me as interesting was the excitement that the return of this product inspired in my colleagues. It was almost as if they regressed to childhood in front of my eyes, swaddled in oversized adult clothing as they marvelled at the bottle. You would almost think it was the Coke bottle from The Gods Must be Crazy.

While, I’m way too young to remember the Pop Shoppe in its original incarnation and thus couldn’t share in the recollection of fond memories, what really grabbed me where these tiny sayings written on each bottle. The orange ‘pop’ bottle read: “You’re not the boss of me.” and the grape flavour read: “My Dad Is Bigger Than Your Dad.”

That got me thinking about how these simple playground banter inspired sayings add a nostalgic dimension to the product that turns what might otherwise be looked at as just another retro soda into what one could describe as a Social Object. Jyri Engström on his blog basically defines a social object as a shared object which forms the basis for connecting people. He then goes on to outline five principles that a social object should have, and Pop Shoppe seems to fit the bill.

1. You should be able to define the social object your service is built around
   The product is the social object. It’s built around the nostalgia associated with the product.
2. Define your verbs that your users perform on the objects. For instance, eBay has buy and sell buttons. It’s clear what the site is for.
   People share stories and memories around their first encounters with the product. They discuss and to a lesser degree consume the product.
3. How can people share the objects?
   They are easily gifted, or purchased at a growing number of retail stores.
4. Turn invitations into gifts
   The low cost of the product make it easy to gift to friends and family. In doing so, they are invited to take part in the discussion.
5. Charge the publishers, not the spectator
   This one is a little more service specific, but with enough consumer demand, a distributor could possibly assume some of the costs of carrying the product in some form of retail exclusivity agreeement.
   

While I’m sure the pop tastes great, the truth is that the large majority of purchasers of this product aren’t buying it for the taste, but for the way it makes them feel when they drink it, the memories it envokes, and the discussions surrounding it. The product is not the pop itself, but rather the nostalgia associated with the product. The childhood phrases are a fantastic way to jumpstart a conversation around the product. The pop is the social object. And while I haven’t even tasted the stuff yet, and I already want to track down the store where he got it and find out what the other sayings are -each bottle is sort of like a nostalgic trading card.

As an aside if you’d like to read more on the social object construct, Hugh MacLeod has a several posts on the topic, and Jyri Engeström has a presentation up on SlideShare.