A couple of years ago; at the last industry conference I attended before the world changed, I, as one does at such events, walked through the massive hall filled with vendors vying for my attention by offering various giveaways and raffles. It’s really a pretty ingenious model, the vendor scans your badge, thus gaining access to your information so they can send you monthly emails for the rest of your life, and in exchange, you get whatever trinket they are giving out. Socks were the item of the year it seems, and most of the booths were offering variations of socks in all kinds of corporate colors with corporate logos emblazoned on them somewhere. I was fairly selective about the booths I visited, but there was really only one booth that grabbed my attention. It was a booth that gave out various flavors of thick-cut bacon to anyone who would stop by, this of course is a great way to get my attention and I visited the bacon booth as many times as they would let me.

Two years later, all of the socks are gone save for one pair that is simply the most impressive pair of socks I’ve ever owned. They are so comfortable and durable that I found the faded brand name sown into one of the bands around the foot and bought a full supply. Have I ever done any business with the company that gave me the socks? No, I haven’t. And I don’t even remember the name of the company that gave me all that wonderful bacon.