Bon Voyage Mr. Salinger

Last week, the ultimate icon and influence of twentieth century J.D. Salinger passed away. For most of us from the Gen X minus 1,2,3,10, 20 years, for all practical purposes and given his recluse and agarophobic predicament, Mr. Salinger was in the Dead/Not Dead betting category for quite a few decades now.

However, his writings and the characters in the Glass family with Franny and Zooey and of course Catcher in the Rye influenced us all. The characters live within us. Reading Salinger, as most like me will identify with, is/was a rite of passage that transcended race, gender, geographies, elite or bourgeoisie, class and languages.

As you know, Mr. Salinger dedicated “Franny and Zooey” to William Shawn, where he wrote on the preface,“I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors, to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.” [See reference below.]

We all were William Shawn for that day when we read it.

Reference: Read New York Times Obituary "J. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91" - http://nyti.ms/cYpe4c

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Domino's gets people talking by telling everyone how crappy their pizza USED to be

Cait Warner of BNET recently talked to Domino's Chief Marketing Officer, Russell J. Weiner, about the radical changes to their pizza and their innovative and self-depreciating marketing campaign.

Until recently, Domino's has used the same pizza recipe for the past 50 years. While their pizza was affordable, it certainly was not considered to be.... good. How do you turn your brand around when that brand is built upon an image of cheap, but bad pizza? How do you convert the doubters who normally aren't even willing to try your product? Domino's answer was to admit that their pizza really sucked.

The full interview with Russell can be read here, from www.bnet.com.

I personally was one of the doubters who was hesitant to order Domino's regardless of how cheap it was. Did I buy in to their marketing strategy and try their new and improved pizza? Yes, I most certainly did. As Domino's promised, their new pizza and far better than their previous product. And it's still pretty cheap.

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