The Dr. Seuss cake

One of our crackerjack graphic designers, Aldo, just welcomed a new son into the world with his wife and daughter.

We didn’t have to look far to find the perfect gift for the growing family — what parents of a newborn don’t need diapers? A box full of Pampers just wouldn’t do, though. We needed to find a way to send this useful gift with a little pizzazz.

Enter a growing company with a formidable name: Stinky Cakes, a local outfit owned by Mychal and Adrienne Connolly. I first met Mychal at a social media conference just after he’d launched his business, which creates custom ‘Diaper Cakes:’ three-tiered ‘cakes’ festooned with a wide array of brightly colored ribbons, stuffed animals, bibs, and pacifiers.

“We provide the cake,” he told me. “You provide the stinky.”

He had me at Stinky.

The company started as a small family endeavor, and today is delivering their creations all over the map. Each cake can be customized with the baby’s name and a personal message, and even a graphic of some sort.

The latter offering is, of course, attractive to a marketing agency – especially one with a new logo. With glee, I uploaded our brand-new logo to the Stinky Cakes website. I figured it would be a nice way to welcome a new face to the Winstanley team, however small that face. Plus, Aldo had a hand in creating it, so wouldn’t it be neat to show it off to family and friends?

A few days later I received a few photos of the finished product. Talk about exposure – talk about pass along rate! That logo is going to see more action than a billboard in Manhattan — and its fair share of spit-up too, I’d imagine.

I kid about the exposure, of course. We’re happy that Aldo’s new baby will have a few free diapers, a new teddy, and a bib to keep him clean and warm. But there’s another lesson here, too — there is no rule that says corporate gifts need to be impersonal, mass-produced, or serious.

Go local, go different, go with your heart. We did.

Jaclyn Stevenson is the director of public relations and social media for Winstanley Partners. She’s easily amused.