From The Way Back Machine: Laurel As Marketing Guru
From my days on the Lipstick magazine blog, circa 2008. (Although, in my new incarnation as media guru, I would like to add for my clients that I understand -- and love -- e-blasts and viral videos, but I remain ambivalent about mass text alerts.):
I will be the first to confess that I am no marketing guru.
I have an OK head for business — supply and demand, profit margin, yada, yada. But I could care less about packaging, price points, focus groups and all the rest of it. (My brilliant slogans for Lipstick — "Read Lipstick magazine!" "Lipstick is a good magazine!" — were met with blank stares, and probable questioning of whether or not I was a good hire on the fourth floor.) I like what I like, and I tend to assume that other people will like what I like, too. Self-involved? Yes, but it's gotten me this far — 8' X 4' cubicle and all the printer paper a girl could want — so why ask questions now.
Apart from my love of funnyordie.com, I don't necessarily understand all of the new-fangled means of marketing like e-mail blasts, viral videos and text message alerts either. But, despite the fact that I can be out touch with what the kids are doing these days, I do still think of myself as a relatively informed and intelligent human being.
And it is for this very reason that I am completely baffled by CNN's latest venture. When you go to the CNN.com main page, you'll notice that certain stories have a little video camera and a little t-shirt icon next to them. The video icon is so that you can watch the story. This makes sense. After all, CNN stands for cable news network. The little t-shirt icon is so that you can purchase a t-shirt with that particular headline on it.
Seriously?
I read US Weekly; I've noticed how much fun people have putting pithy sayings on t-shirts. I've seen plenty of "Your boyfriend thinks I'm hot" and "Everyone loves an Italian boy." And, while sometimes it's hard to find the appeal of this ("Give me my coffee and no one gets hurt"? on a shirt? why?), I can accept it.
What I can't understand is why anyone would want to wear a CNN headline. Here are some examples from yesterday:
Colossal squid has soccer-ball eyes
Teen too young for 'come hither' pose?
And my personal favorite: Crying 4-year-old found along highway
Why on earth would anyone need a shirt emblazoned with "Crying 4-year-old found along highway"? I hardly think it's the same frat boy market that buys up "Beer drinkers get more head," or the politicos looking for "Every time you vote democratic, God kills a kitten." And I can't really see how slogan-ed t-shirts would be the final piece of Ted Turner's multi-layered, much-researched media empire.
Then again, I'm no marketing guru.