wayner@hermod.cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner) (11/30/90)
There was an interesting article on marketing today in the WSJ. (Thursday, cover of the B section). It described how some companies were approaching "sensative" marketing issues. For instance, J.C. Penney's recently introduced a fashion line where the buttons, hooks and other microscopic fasteners were replaced with velcro. Women with arthritis (which some people estimate is half of the population over 45) are the main targets. Penney's, though, could not find a good way to target the catalog so the decided to just put it on the checkout counters in stores. They figured that most people would be insulted or disheartened or embarrassed to get one of these in the mail. The article goes on to discuss the problems of coming up with tactful names for overweight and other marginal groups. One amazing fact I gleaned from the article is that almost 1/3 of America is classified as being "hard to fit" and that just means being out of the ordinary. Now, here's where insideous databases could help. If companies can keep nationwide lists of people with needs, then the markets to help them can be efficient and take advantage of mass-production. Final closing annecdote: I know one girl, who is shorter, wears a size 4 and can hardly find clothes in America. When she was working this summer in the SF Bay Area, she discovered that one Nordstroms (and only one) had an abundance of clothes in her size. Why? Because of the large population of relatively small Asian women. Now if we just had more efficient Big Brotherly databases, she could find clothes in the Wilds of Minnesota where the Scandavian Diaspora settled. Big Brother is your friend-- really. :-) Peter Wayner Department of Computer Science Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY 14850 EMail:wayner@cs.cornell.edu Office: 607-255-9202 or 255-1008 Home: 116 Oak Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850 Phone: 607-277-6678