Montblanc refuses to sell their pens online. I’m waffling between being horrified and amused by their strong brand management stance. Here are the choice quotes:
“Luxury by its very nature is not ubiquitous, and that’s why by its very nature it doesn’t make sense for it to be on the Internet.” -Montblanc North America marketing exec Eric Werner
“Part of what makes a luxury brand command the large prices that it does is an implied scarcity or exclusivity of product. It’s difficult to maintain that air of exclusivity when any consumer with any PC from any point in the country can buy them.” -Jupiter Communications digital commerce analyst Mike May
Vendome, Montblanc’s controlling company, also does not allow Cartier, Piaget, and Alfred Dunhill to be sold online. So do you see the market opportunity here? How do you communicate the essence of luxury in the ecommerce environment? And does Ashford.com agree that this isn’t possible?

Mutual amusement. A sign of a healthy relationship, or one about to blossom.

The Nov/Dec 99 issue of Poets & Writers magazine (they have a web site, but it doesn’t include their “dead tree” content) reports an interesting trend: public libraries partnering with Starbucks. In Portland, Oregon and Stamford, Connecticut (hey, I used to go to the Stamford Mall all time!), you can stop by the local library for your frappucino fix! The folks in charge of the libraries won’t admit that they are trying to compete with bookstores, but $43,000/yr (what Starbucks pays the Stamford branch) can’t hurt the local taxpayer (though I’m not sure how library budgets work) so I’m all for it. Starbucks is taking over every corner anyway (I’m within a few blocks of 3 myself), why not have their rent money go to a good cause? Now, if I buy a latte, can I get my overdue fines erased?

The portrait representation of Betty Crocker has changed over the years to keep up with current styles. I identify with the 1972-1980 Betty best since that’s who was(is) on my mom’s most-used cookbook. This fictional character has her own weekly column, radio show, and, of course, web site. When the creation of “digital actors” reaches a certain level of quality, will characters like Betty Crocker be commissioned as fully directable, 3D, digital representations from places like Protozoa? Just imagine, soon a digital Betty Crocker can duke it out with a digital Martha Stewart (can’t you see Martha commissioning an artificially intelligent avatar to keep her empire going when her mortality catches up with her?).

Just had my first weblogger emotional reaction to what I thought was unattributed paraphrasing of something I wrote. So I pose you this question: how do you feel when you hear/read someone say/write something that you’re pretty sure you said/wrote first, but it gets attributed to the direct source, not the original source? This goes on all the time in the news media and just plain ol’ conversation. I had a bad reaction to seeing something I had posted repeated and not attributed to me, since I was sure that I was the original source. I believe that I should get over this because it is a natural course of events that information gets passed along, and it is the information that is important, not who found it first. However, if it is an original thought, idea, or theory that I know was mine first, then I think I have the right to be upset. Perhaps someday I’ll have that flattering opportunity.

I have to admit that I am strangely but certainly drawn towards the Gap ads: what I think of as the “singing drones” trilogy (dress you up, mellow yellow, i just can’t get enough), and the new holiday ones with the cool (literally) special effects. This got me thinking, again, about ownership and transfer of digital files (see 11/21 below), because I was lamenting (only a teeny bit) that the Gap won’t run these ads forever. But, I can watch them online. Now, what if the Gap let you download those ads for a limited time only? And what if some people had the files and other people didn’t, but wanted them? Could a market be created like we have for physical objects like trading cards and (gag) Beanie Babies? Of course, digital files can be easily copied, so there isn’t guaranteed scarcity. How do you have a “first edition” Gap ad or a “limited edition” pokemon jpeg? There could be fancy digital signature technology; that’s what Transactor developed (apparently they’ve since repositioned themselves into something different) and placed underneath 10Six, a networked game where you could sell weapons and equipment. A central server or some other nifty method is needed to validate limited digital items. How else to get uniqueness? It’d have to be on a storage device that doesn’t allow copying … ACK NO, not like DIVX!! Someone needs to market this limited digital file concept along with workable technology and a cool brand and it’ll catch on like wildfire. I’m not saying it’s a good idea. But it’s one whose time has come.

Went to lunch at Armadillo Willy’s today and discovered that they are using “Coaster Calls”. You know how at some restaurants you get a pager to let you know when your table is ready? At Willy’s you order your food before you seat yourself and they give you a kinda thick, square coaster which is actually a pager. It’s made with see-through plastic, and has a neato ring of red LEDs circling the indentation for your glass. When it goes off, it vibrates and the LEDs cycle around. I asked if anyone had a screwdriver so I could take mine apart. Hacker! (It actually doesn’t have any screws.) Coaster Call is made by Long Range Systems.

Interesting discovery: Amazon now has “was this review helpful to you?” “yes”, “no” buttons under their customer reviews. What do they do? When I clicked on one the text changed to: “Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours.” Hmmmm.

In my ongoing attempt to figure where my money really goes, I’ve discovered that Eddie Bauer (where a large part of my clothing budget goes) is actually part of Spiegel (known for their mail order retailing). I commend them for their excellent brand management; I never would’ve guessed the two were related.

While looking up “wile” (as in “feminine wiles”) using the wonderful GuruNet utility, I noticed that there was a definition for its usage in “wile away a Sunday afternoon” which I always thought was “while away”. “wile” in this context means “to pass time agreeably”. Curious, I looked up “while away” and there was an entry for that also, so I have not been abusing the English language (this time). That entry says “This expression is the only surviving use of the verb while, meaning ‘to spend time.’ [First half of 1600s]”. Neat.