Of all the places to run across a cool book like "Music Legends - A Rewind on the Local Minnesota Music Scene By Martin Keller" I found it at...SuperAmerica. That's right. The Gas Station.

I wasn't looking for a book on Minnesota Music History...well, actually I was, but not at that particular moment in time. It was a bona fide impulse buy. If there was a XXX video there starring Salma Hayek, Aishwarya Rai, and Halle Berry, I would have bought that too, but I certainly wasn't expecting to purchase books or movies at a gas station checkout.

But marketing people [Author's Note: Don't even get me started on Marketing People...wait a minute, I've already started.] have always believed that if you could just get your product in front of every man, woman and child in the Multiverse, that $$$ is sure to follow. They don't really care what the product is, just get it in front of the people. This is the entire philosophy behind television and radio advertisements, roadside billboards (curse them and the soulless bastard who thought them up), advertisements in bathroom stalls, and e-mail SPAM.

Had I been driving 35W North to Tobie's in Hinkley and actually read each and every billboard on the way (A nearly impossible task, since no human being can read that much) and seen an advertisement for a book on Local Minnesota Music History, I would have done that thing people do; pursed my lips and nodded my head slightly, thinking to myself, "Kewl, I'll have to pick that up if I see it." But that's the problem; the majority of advertising requires the potential customer to actively Go Someplace Else to buy the product being advertised. The advertisement plants the "impulse buy" seed in the subconscious, and marketing people hope that the seed takes root and grows into the action of purchase.

But now they have figured out a better way. They realized that the tiny area of real estate near the cash register sees MANY MANY MANY people a day. MANY. But it gets better, because those people are already in a store! They are already in "gathering" mode! There is already a cashier in place to make the transaction, and all the necessary equipment. The customer already has their method of payment out, and is going to MAKE A PURCHASE! Every obstacle between the customer purchasing the product is cut down to the impulse. The customer only needs to reach over, pick up the product, and toss it in the cart with their existing purchase! [Editor's Note: Insert sound effect of entire excited marketing department wetting themselves here.]

Now remember, marketing people don't really care what the product is, just get it in front of the people, right? They don't really care if they are trying to sell a water pump for a 1996 Saturn, if they could just get their product to sit at the counter of Starbucks, IT WOULD SELL. Every single cash register in the world has now become a convenience store. Every website checkout is a potential selling ground for someone to ask, "Do you want fries with that?" or "Since you are buying a book on Equestrian Philosophy, you probably also want a Horse Calendar and a copy of 'The Horse Whisperer' at a reduced rate!!!" Caribou Coffee sells greeting cards. Starbucks sells CDs. McDonalds has the Redbox DVD rental, and SuperAmerica is selling books on Minnesota Music History.

Of course, these are retail chain franchises, so the store managers probably don't have much say in the matter themselves, and probably aren't getting much of the profit, since that is all being done at the corporate level. But for independent business owners, this could be a new form of revenue. A restaurant that carries band merch? That could happen. Hell's Kitchen already carries their own line of clothing. It isn't a stretch to think that they might move some stuff around to make room for some Jagged Spiral hoodies. An Indian restaurant selling lawn care chemicals? Maybe not.

The Million Dollar Idea is for a company to take over the middleman job of selling that space, just the way Clear Channel (Hiss!) sells advertising space on billboards and radio. If a company came along that walked into Magers and Quinn Bookstore and said, "Hey, let me have a one-square meter of space here near the checkout, and I'll find people to lease it for a monthly fee, you just sit back, and I'll send you a check every month..." Well, seems to me there is a business opportunity there for someone more industrious than myself.

Sadly, what this will lead to are checkout counters that look like 35W north, or your inbox, crammed with a bunch of shit you don't want or need, and have nothing to do with the store you are at. During your next visit to the dentist, when you have to stand on tiptoe to see the receptionist over the ostrich waxers, keyboard warmers, and the new Jagged Spiral incense line...well, maybe then you will learn to dislike marketing people as much as I do.

KTHXBYE,
-CZ

Labels: Business Phenomena, consumerism, Million Dollar Idea