Doodle: organisation ‘Swiss style’, easy and effective. In other words, cool!

Doodle takes care of everything… it’s a sexy piece of kit! Huh? You mean it’s the ideal guy? No, it’s just the ONLY website that helps you organise and plan:

• your next girls’ night out
• the local sports club, chess, cookery, finance, committee meetings
• a simple meal with your expat pals who only come to Switzerland once a year
• family reunions that no-one ever wants to organise because they’re such hard work

In short, it’s a great product, which was given a brilliant launch… with minimal marketing. Oh, and BTW, it’s a Swiss company!

Doodle, for those of you who haven’t used it yet, is a site that helps you plan an event easily, even if you’re the sort who has a hectic calendar. All you need is Internet access, a few friends and you’re done.

It’s hassle-free: no need to sign up, you just go to doodle.com, plan your event, list your availabilities and participants (their e-mail addresses), then you send the “questionnaire”. Doodle takes care of the rest: it sends an e-mail including link to each guest, tells you when guests have filled in their availabilities and it plans the respective agendas on Outlook or Google.

Just for the record, the launch took place in 2003 and was described in a press release by Le Monde newspaper as ‘a great gag’: We are pleased to announce the launch of Doodle unplugged. With Doodle, you can plan your events for up to a year. When it comes to the press release, however, it’s a matter of grabbing your pad of lined paper and a pen… like in the old days. Funny how some habits soon get lost in the mists of time…

A few years on, no publicity, just an inspired choice of name given its similarity to Google, and it’s a huge hit. Well done Mr. Näf from Zurich!

Clotilde Marsault, buzzmaker for coolbrands.ch

This post is also available in: German