Gustavo blogged about California Coalition for Immigration Reform head Barbara Coe forwarding to her knuckle-dragging followers an article critical of Best Buy's all inclusive Thanksgiving greeting including a
happy Eid Al-Adha wish to Muslims, which naturally forced Babs to conclude the electronic giant is run by Islamic terrorists.
This brings to mind a recent Brandweek piece that discussed the pickle retailers find themselves in when it comes to evoking Christmas in their stores.
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The publication's for instances:
* Evoke Christmas and you may alienate some consumers.
* Don't evoke Christmas, and you'll incur the wrath of the Christian
Right and groups like the American Family Association, as Best Buy,
Kroger and Victoria's Secret have learned this year. (Victoria's
Secret? Really? The chicks wear angel wings, fer chrissakes!)
* Singled out by whoever is doing the singling out for being the worst
when it comes to not being jolly enough are Barnes N Noble, Staples
and Dick's Sporting Goods. (It is true the drones waiting on you at
those chain stores appear headed for the nearest ledge after work.)
* Christmas efforts deemed “marginal” or not enough are practiced by
Starbucks, Toys 'R Us and Whole Foods. (Starbucks? Really? So, what are
holiday pumpkin spice lattes? Chopped liver?)
* The best Xmas practitioners are apparently Macy's, Walmart, Sears and
Lowes. (You know, the places you wouldn't be caught dead in during the
holiday shopping season.)
(Wait a tic. Lowes?)
Seriously, walking a fine line between offending/not offending can
spell success/doom for one's bottom line. The same article has the
National Retail Federation predicting a 1 percent drop in holiday sales
this year.
That would take it all the way down to $437.6 billion. Who can possibly experience a merry Christmas on that?
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.