.‘Wall Street Journal’ to Offer ‘Rub ‘n Sniff’ Ads
That is the headline, and I am not making it up. Just in case you don’t believe I’m not making it up, I’ll quote the article itself:
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — And you thought the Small Street Journal was a new experience. The Wall Street Journal is on the verge of offering scented print-ad units that will appear on the regular pages of the paper. The technology takes “scratch ‘n sniff” to a more refined level — think “rub and sniff.”
That was in yesterday’s online version of Advertising Age, and in case you are wondering, as I did at first, if this is a hoax by The Onion, it actually quotes not one of The Onion’s regular “American Voices,” but the publisher of the Wall Street Journal itself:
“You actually have to rub some part of the ad,” said L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher, The Wall Street Journal. “This won’t be like the early days of magazine ads, where you picked it up and felt like you were walking through Bloomingdale’s and spritzing you.”
I hear from sources in Mountain View that Larry Page and Sergey Brin pulled an all-hands-on-deck all-nighter in the Googleplex last night to try to come up with a response to this latest salvo from the sinking ship otherwise known as the newspaper industry, which appears eager to capitalize on the raging success of its most recent killer idea, the smaller-sized newspaper.
Word has it that after racking their brains over pizza and Red Bull, the only response Larry and Sergey could come up with was,“Is this a hoax by The Onion?”
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2007 Jeff Matthews
The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of Mr. Matthews. Mr. Matthews also acts as an advisor and clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews’ recommendations. This commentary in no way constitutes a solicitation of business or investment advice. It is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.
One reply on “Sergey and Larry Hit the Panic Button”
Jeff:
Regarding ‘Rub ‘n Sniff’ Ads
Maybe they should be considered in the context of Aaron Koral’s comment to your last post “Will That Be Private Equity Paper, or Plastic?”
Aaron Koral wrote:
On the flip side, though, I thought the analyst (who shall remain nameless) who “struggled with his numbers” and asked what Abbott’s consent decree was about, truly did sound like a “moron”. I guess he forgot to do a Google search before participating in the conference call.
My comment:
Now we can all agree that every responsible analyst reads the Wall Street Journal. From my criminal experience and reading Aaron’s comments and other comments I can still see that too many analysts are still not very smart.
There are many analysts with no brains and many others that may have brains but don’t know how to use their noses, too.
I learned once in journalism class the concept of a reporter having a “nose for the news.” It’s about the ability to “sniff out” information and combining their various senses to dig up information.
Perhaps these ‘rub ‘n sniff’ ads is exactly the fundamental training many Wall Street analysts require? It teaches them to get close to the content and sniff out information. From that they can learn to actually rub their noses where it counts and hopefully apply their brains, too.
Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)
Jeff: This time like you I am not making this up. In my day the most of the crowd of analyst’s I dealt with either had no noses to use with their brains or had no brains at all. The rest of that story is now taught to many accounting students. Perhaps one day finance majors and Wall Street analysts will learn that story too.
Category: Lessons to be Learned