Marketing marvel

Imagine this.
Your child sees a CD-Rom encyclopedia in the shops. It costs only $28. The nagging starts. So you buy it. Right? Wrong.
It might present a world of information at your fingertips. It might be a wonderful interactive learning tool and homework help. But this week the electricity's due, or you've already bought books at the book club at school or you know you'll pay later if you give in to nagging even this once.
And yet just about every parent I know diligently collected the coupons out of the Courier-Mail every day for 14 days. They raided the money box for $2 coins. They went to the newsagent every day for 14 days - and if their newsagent was out of stock they drove around town until they found one that wasn't. Parents in schoolyards compared notes on which newsagents had the best stock. The sandwich boards outside news agencies advertised that the discs were available.
This was marketing at its best. A demand was created that never existed before and we all fell over each other to get in on the act.
In a way it's hard to argue against it. A volume of an interactive encyclopedia for the same price as a Macca's toy - that has to be a worthwhile investment.
There's winners all round. Sales of the Courier-Mail boom, newsagents must benefit from the increased traffic and families get a bargain-basement priced reference set.
And now like just about every other family in Brisbane, I have a 14 volume interactive reference set which I suspect is destined to go the way of the World Book before it. Sitting on the shelf, barely used and rapidly going out of date. No home should be without one.