The Times (the other one, no relation) recently published a letter from a gentleman who said that the answer to his question, "What happens to an occasional table during off-moments?" was often met with a puzzled silence. He was grateful therefore for another contributor's learned article on the Periodic Table.
And you thought the silly season was over. Just to further prove it isn't, there was an enormous media fuss last week over the Levi jeans ad featuring a supposedly dead hamster named Kevin. And lots of publicity for Levi Strauss, of course. (More now). It's the Benetton strategy: create an advertisement so controversial that it becomes "news" in itself. Well ho hum.
It seems that Levi Strauss recently decided to drop the "sexual content" of its commercials, a content I can't say I have ever noticed. The ad some years ago with Nick Kamen removing his jeans in a launderette always seemed to me a perfectly good ad for a launderette, if only they had thought to provide the establishment's name and address.
But by all accounts the company has now decided to go for the "offbeat" (hence Kevin the hamster) in an attempt to stop falling sales of denim jeans. Apparently, young people are now rejecting denim in favour of Chinos, Dockers, combat trousers and sportswear. Why, you ask? Because, it seems, of what has been called the Jeremy Clarkson effect, with young people not wanting to look like their parents. The 38-year-old Top Gear television presenter is seen as the perfect example of the middle-aged jeans wearer. In juvenile parlance he is a "sad" person, not to be imitated.
Jeremy, notoriously not a new man, is most famous for his one-liner summarising the sexual appeal of some car: "snaps knicker elastic at 50 paces". But no doubt the car manufacturer is now going for the "offbeat" approach. Today, just about everybody selling anything is going for the offbeat approach. If you buy a yard-brush in your local hardware store you will be sold it in an offbeat, hip, laid-back manner. The funky way it gathers up your backyard rubbish may be pointed out. ("No problem"). If you invest in a lawnmower the salesman will provide a laid-back, cool, hey-anyone-can-operate-it demonstration. Even the purchase of a loaf of bread increasingly involves an effusive congratulatory high-five: "May I say I think you've made a good choice there, sir. Enjoy!". It is probably only a matter of time before the offbeat approach is adopted by some eminent firm of funeral directors.
In our very own Business This Week last Friday we read of an airline company chairman whose offbeat approach involves him dressing occasionally as an Elvis lookalike, and of a fashion supremo who goes snowboarding with his kids as part of an overall marketing strategy.
These people are big successes, and so are their companies. Offbeat pays off, it seems. The lesson has not been lost here in the Irish Times offices, where after all the notorious years of fustiness, the trend is increasingly hip, funky, right-on and above all, offbeat. We are all encouraged to think of ourselves as part of the sales team now, each and every one of us from the racing tipsters to our ink suppliers.
Until recently, we sold newspapers: now we shift product, and naturally, as much as possible. But we are going beyond the offbeat. For example we are taking a cue from the soap opera Coronation Street, which has just announced the launch of a whole new range of fashion. This of course is what's known as merchandising, and the Americans are as usual way ahead of the posse. Planet Hollywood, for example, is on the face of it a restaurant chain, but in reality people go there to buy mugs, T-shirts, jackets, key-rings, baseball hats and other must-have logo-bedecked accoutrements of hip modern living. It is possible to buy food and drink at Planet Hollywood, but only in an emergency.
Fired by these brilliant ideas, the Irish Times is planning to relaunch itself dramatically, and we already have some highly experienced offbeat consultants advising us. In a couple of years' time the newspaper itself will be only an unimportant sideline but we plan to be huge on branded mugs, T-shirts, dishcloths, baseball caps plus a whole new funky his `n' hers Irish Times fashion range. It's all hush-hush at the moment, but there are exciting offbeat days ahead.
