Something to talk about

Let’s say you’re thinking of throwing a party anyway. It’s a mid-summer kind of urge, undertaken in response to the nagging sense that you have yet to properly exploit the social potential of this short and glorious season.

So why not enlist the aid of a nifty new outfit in this pursuit, and enjoy the largesse with which its unique concept seeks to furnish you? LetsPartyTalk is a novelty of an idea that takes word-of-mouth marketing to its limits with the somewhat cryptic offer of access to new products, prizes and promotions for individuals who volunteer to host a party.

These “socially outgoing brand influencers” (read: regular folk whose access to a network of friends is valuable to any number of corporate brands) need only pick a date and send out the word (the invites are managed by the site’s web-based system). Once 15 of your nearest and dearest have responded in the affirmative, the folks behind this new idea will kick into gear, rustling up exclusive access to products and services yet to be rolled out to the rest of the left-behind population. Want to be the first to try the latest innovation in barbecue fare? Or wine cooler? Or flavoured mayonnaise? Knock yourself out.

Your party, complete with such exclusive cachet, will be all that anyone is talking about. Which, as the obligatory end-of-event survey that LetsPartyTalk requires every guest to fill out drives home, is pretty much the point.