What you didn't learn in Marketing 101
Saturday, November 1 1997
Published on AllBusiness.com
Even after death, Princess Diana is still an economic windfall. Joseph Carvalko, a Connecticut inventor, has devised countermeasures to the persistent flashes of paparazzi. One product is a pager-size device that will detect a photographic flash and fire back a counterflash that obliterates the film image. Another gizmo would emit a red laser beam that creates scribbly lines on the film. Of course, these products will not be cheap (ranging from $250 to $1,500), but stars must pay a price for their privacy, right?
File this under the don't-try-this-while-driving category. Mobile Office Vehicle Inc., in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is selling a product called AutoExec Pro, a passenger-side desktop with storage capabilities for a printer. Along with space for files and a cell phone, the contraption also has a two-level desk so a driver can use a computer and write at the same time. Might this create a new moving violation: DWC, Driving While Computing?
Football fans tend to be true fanatics about their home teams. They'll buy anything remotely related to their beloved gridiron heroes. So, the Bank of Ann Arbor in Michigan decided to run a promotion that promised to pay buyers of 12-month certificates of deposit an extra quarter of a percentage point if the University of Michigan's football team won their season opener. The Wolverines won the game and investors got 6.25 percent interest. The bank scored too, tallying more than $3 million in new CDs during the six-week promotion—triple its volume in a typical quarter.
File this under the don't-try-this-while-driving category. Mobile Office Vehicle Inc., in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is selling a product called AutoExec Pro, a passenger-side desktop with storage capabilities for a printer. Along with space for files and a cell phone, the contraption also has a two-level desk so a driver can use a computer and write at the same time. Might this create a new moving violation: DWC, Driving While Computing?
Football fans tend to be true fanatics about their home teams. They'll buy anything remotely related to their beloved gridiron heroes. So, the Bank of Ann Arbor in Michigan decided to run a promotion that promised to pay buyers of 12-month certificates of deposit an extra quarter of a percentage point if the University of Michigan's football team won their season opener. The Wolverines won the game and investors got 6.25 percent interest. The bank scored too, tallying more than $3 million in new CDs during the six-week promotion—triple its volume in a typical quarter.
