But What if Grandma Can’t Drive?

This month, it’s time to share a few unconnected tidbits that have crossed my desk recently. Consider it my annual spring cleaning column – not that I actually do spring cleaning, but it’s a nice thought.

Consolation Prize

About two weeks after bidding unsuccessfully for a book on eBay recently, I was surprised to receive an e-mail from the seller, Bud Plant. The e-mail thanked me for my bid, invited me to visit BudPlant.com and offered to send me a free copy of their print catalog.

This was a shrewd move on their part, and a clever use of an online auction. Placing the book up for bid (and letting it go at a slightly discounted price) was a minimal investment, in exchange for qualified leads eager to step up and identify themselves as prospects.

Www.fakeurl.com

As many people are aware, when a telephone number is mentioned in a book, play, movie or television show, it usually begins with the digits 555, so a real person or business’s number isn’t inadvertently broadcast to the world (example: 212-555-1234).

As URLs are increasingly mentioned in all forms of media, I wonder if a similar ruse will have to be adopted for Web site addresses, maybe a “wwb” preface instead of “www.”

If you see a URL in a commercial, or at the end of a television program, you assume it’s valid. But if a character in a sitcom says “Oh yeah, Charlie just started his own Web site, Imabigloser.com,” chances are you won’t go to the site, assuming it doesn’t exist. Or, you could look up the address and be either disappointed that the site isn’t real, or that it isn’t connected with the show.

For weeks, “The Late Show With David Letterman” has been mentioning www.drivemehome grandma.com (a site purportedly about quintuple bypass surgery), and flashing the address on screen two or three times a show. I typed in the URL one day, fully expecting nothing.

I was happily wrong. At that Web address, you’ll find the top 10 reasons why you should let grandma drive you home (No. 6: The pleasant, melodic sound of the left blinker on all the way will relax you), as well as a link to the “Late Show” page on www.cbs.com.

Again, another shrewd move. The on-air promo got me to spend time on the CBS site, which I normally wouldn’t even think to visit. Those folks at the home office in Wahoo really know what they’re doing.

O Yeah!

I – and probably half the columnists in America – have ranted in print about cataloger, publisher and (sorry, Roseanne) domestic goddess Martha Stewart. How she sets goals for women that are unattainable. How she’s just too Stepford-wifey perfect. How she just, well, how she just sort of frightens us.

I have now seen the light, and realized it isn’t Martha we should fear or emulate at all. It’s Oprah.

Now, I think Oprah is grand. In my next life, I want to be Oprah. Who wouldn’t? She’s a celebrated icon of womanhood, but not in as spooky a way as Ms. Martha. Oprah has let us see her fat and thin, with makeup and without. The public knows and loves her as a real person – and a marketing juggernaut-to-be.

Oh sure, she hasn’t branded herself up the ying-yang. But just wait. Following in the footsteps of Martha Stewart Living, she’s launched her own lifestyle magazine, O, “The woman’s personal growth guide for the new century.” (Thank goodness! I was feeling so lost!)

The debut issue, according to www.oprah.com, has an attractive soft-focus photo of Oprah herself on the cover. Inside, women can be guided by articles on how to live out their dreams and make Sundays “just for [them].”

But peer beyond those glossy pages and into the future. Can a catalog be far behind?

Oprah has already established herself as a trendsetter for her considerable viewing audience. Look at how titles by the authors she’s featured in her “Book Club” have soared to the top of the sales charts. Oprah likes it? Then it must be good!

And she already regularly does shows devoted to her favorite products for decorating, holiday gifts and the like. I can’t imagine this sort of national exposure hurts sales, can you?

So O: The Catalog is the next logical step. You read it here first.

Maybe the good folks in Wahoo will pick up on the idea too. I can see it now – Dave: The Catalog. Canned ham and decaf coffee sales will skyrocket.