Monday, August 6, 2012

Powerful marketing: yarn and toy edition

The goal of marketing is to make a Thing look cool enough to buy, and the downfall of we crafty types is that it's not hard to make yarny things look super cool.

In fact, just the other day I was talking to Marie - Marie does not knit - and she told me that her screensaver is a photograph of yarn.  Taken at Lettuce Knit.  Which she likes in spite of not knitting because it's so cool there.

And to further my argument, let's look at this promotional video for Wabi Sabi in Ottawa, Ontario - aka the yarn store I didn't get to go to the last two times I was in Ottawa, a fact which might now crush me absolutely:


So.  Have we established that marketing is powerful and we must forgive ourselves for succumbing to it?

Because even in this new age of Me Getting Rid Of Stuff, I have succumbed in the most awful way to Playmobil.  Yes, you read that right.

What happened was, I was in a store over the weekend that sells toys, and I saw a display of little Playmobil figurine grab bag pouches.  Usually when I see those there is one box, but this time there were two, and the new one was pink.  Three guesses which category of children (or childlike persons) was the target of Box Number New.

On the front of the box, in a long string, was pictured all the possible figurines which might be contained in the packet you selected and - I don't know why - I was overcome.  I bought three.

First I got the ballerina.


Then I got a feisty ancient Egyptian girl.


I am pretty sure she's using that feathery thing as the equivalent of two fingers behind Ballerina's head, and not as a threat.

And finally, though at first glance into the grab bag I thought the long black skirt inside indicated the vampire...


... the little Dutch, or possibly Lithuanian? girl showed up.

I shouldn't really want to play with these toys, should I.




But I do anyway, and furthermore I want most of the rest of the set.  I can do without the cheerleader and the Lara Croft lookalike, but - yeah.  I know I'll be buying more. (hey, at least they're little.)

Hope you had a great weekend.  If not (or even if so), perhaps you would like to make a fresh start to the week with this image in your head?


The lake the morning after a storm.  YUM.

1 comment:

Marianne said...

I have the Disney Tinkerbell miniatures, they are just so cute!! Nice find on the grab bags!! I'll have to look for a store that has those!