The hard sell, the poorly-priced sell, the non-sale

[pseydtonne]

I have a few things that I should tell you about:

1. I joined a gym a few weeks ago. It had been several years since I did weights and crunches on a regular basis.
   
   When I walked into this modern Gold's in Hollywood (in the original offices for Technicolor on Cole & Romaine), I felt like I'd landed in an episode of The Jetsons. They have lots of newer equipment, so I've been learning. They also have TVs built into the treadmills: two episodes of South Park have never been so useful to my health.
   
   I got a good deal on the membership: I paid for a year and got three free months, bringing the net to $32/month. However I was unaware of their frightening up-sell practice on extra services. They give you a free personal trainer session, which was amazing for me. Then they bring in a separate person to tell you the price, which is more than I pay for my car note each month. It was a painful 45 minutes of this guy not letting me leave until I played up my blood sugar dropping. I haven't had such a painful sales experience since I tried to buy a Japanese car.
   
   
2. The Los Angeles Times web site now has a limit of 15 free articles per month. They have an introductory deal of 99¢ for the first four weeks, but then it jumps to $4 per week after that. I'm not certain their paper is worth that: the far-superior New York Times only charges $3.75 per week for a digital subscription.
   
   I've figured that the LA Times does not use a cookie to track this, because deleting them did not change anything. However they seem to track it based on your browser, so I will be swapping browsers each week to read the paper.
   
   
3. Another pastime in Los Angeles is figuring out how hard an upcoming movie will flop solely based on its ad campaign. When I see too many billboards for one flick but the ads are all the same, I can tell it'll be a flop.
   
   John Carter, or "Ishtar on Mars" as the New York Times called it, is an excellent example. They bought loop space on the video billboard at the Target on Santa Monica & La Brea. The last thing to buy so much bandwidth there was Contagion, and the latest is Wrath of the Titans. If you look at those ads, would you know it was based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs series? No, you'd think it was about Jimmy Carter's fictional older brother getting chased by yeti revenuers. The flick cost $350 million to make and couldn't get buzz in an apiary.
   
   When your movie is on every bus shelter in Hollywood and West Hollywood then can't be found elsewhere, that means they did the minimum necessary to promote it and people in the business can see it. Hey, director about to flop? Here's proof you did work. Don't ask for any more work until you've paid us back.
   
   You might have a real movie if they're willing to displace the fashion billboard on the southwest corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega (which sounds like a fine band name when translated: Saint Monica and the Swamp).
   

-dans un marais de joncs mauvais, i'y avait..., Ps/d

Comments

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

I still want to see John Carter, just to see what they did with it.

[bluepapercup]

I have come to prefer the LA Times over the NY Times, actually. I'm not sure when it happened, but I've been dissatisfied with some of the large pieces the NYT wrote in the last few years. Perhaps it's that the LA Times covers California issues really well? Either way, I read a little from both papers but not enough each month to warrant a subscription.

The SF Chronicle is free online, but in this case, you are getting what you pay for.

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

apropos of nearly nothing, other than that it's awesome: look, generative typography!

-steve