I have an image of certain iconic products that seemed to follow adults around when I was a kid in the ’60s. English Leather. Pall Malls. Schlitz. Yesterday I saw an ad for what appeared to be a new small-batch bourbon from kentucky. Etched, big-shouldered bottle, handwritten manifesto, and the tagline: “The Bourbon Lover’s Bourbon.” But when I looked more closely, it was another icon from some basement circa 1955: Old Forester. This cracked me up, because I remember Old Forester as an inexpensive, hard-working liquor that my grandfather probably drank. (I think he did, ’cause there were always bottles of it, and Canadian Club, on his knotty-pine bar shelf. Right next to the corkstopper featuring two hillbillies who kissed when you pressed the lever, and a wooden sign that said “Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.”) So now they’ve given the old man a facelift, and there are a million entry-level drinkers who have just discovered whiskey who might embrace it, thinking it’s a new, trendy handmade sipping whiskey. It probably still tastes like it always did . . . but I give them big credit for dressing the old boy up. Hmmm. I believe more research is required . . .
I’m a big fan of digital marketing, and a not-so-big fan of paper catalogs, which I believe lead to fewer trees, bigger landfills, and more paper slurry puddling around my apartment. So when IKEA’s fall catalog offered a chance at a gift card if I opted in to get three text-messaged questions about items in their new print offering, I thought, “Why not?” Seemed like a diverting way to get people like me to do something we normally hate: to detour the average catalog on its quick trip from the mailbox to the recycling bin long enough to flip through it. more
