Category: Observed (Page 16 of 24)

Well said, Lane.

I have noticed in recent months that several household and food products I enjoy have disappeared from shelves. Sometimes the transition is easy—for example, switching from Tide Ready-Tabs back to plain old laundry detergent—other times, less so (you try finding a paste-and-gel fresh-mint toothpaste without whitening that you and your spouse both like).

Obviously, market forces create the shifts; my beloved Turkey Hill low-fat choco mint chip ice cream has ceded shelf space to low-carb mint chip instead. That doesn’t make it easier, though. As an ordinary consumer, I like what I buy, and I’m confused and disappointed when I can’t buy it. Companies don’t announce discontinuations; instead, one day consumers can’t find the product in the corner store, which leads to an increased neighborhood scouring, then a touch of hoarding as the realization sets in that this could be a last gasp to buy.

The problem is that in an age of increased brand segmentation, the expectations of simpler product worlds still persist. You like Coca-Cola, you buy Coca-Cola, simple as that. New Coke failed not because it was an inferior product but because it pulled the rug out from the expectation level of a vast array of demanding consumers. Now that toothpaste comes in 59 varieties, each one a little more suspect than the next (citrus whitening toothpaste with built-in mouthwash?), product turnover becomes more of an everyday occurrence. Yet the overarching brand continues, leaving consumers confused: do you switch to another tube of Crest, or change allegiances entirely?

Companies need to keep an eye on product discontinuations as much as introductions, for each dead product has an allegiance pining for it. Perhaps I would have benefited, for example, from getting free samples of replacement products along with the toothpaste I used to buy. Create a transition so the consumer realizes that there is a suitable replacement to the soon-to-depart. Higher marketing and production costs, sure, but higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, too. (Consider: I don’t buy Turkey Hill ice cream now that my favorite flavor is gone.)

I am more old-school than I thought, because I miss my discontinued products, right down to the Arizona diet asia plum green tea that I knew from Day One was too niche to spend much time in the corner deli. But that doesn’t make me wrong as a consumer. Just a little more wary as I settle into new habits. And I am probably just one of a sizable segment of shoppers who would benefit from a savvy marketing department that made product transitions easier.

In case you were wondering, Coca-Cola C2 tastes like—well, actually, it tastes like New Coke. A little too sweet, a little differently carbonated, a lot wrong.

In the interest of disclosure, I drink more Diet Coke than sugared these days, so my tastes are a little off. But I’d much prefer an eight-ounce glass bottle of the real thing (100 calories) to a 12-ounce can of C2 (70 cal). Or a Coke Slurpee. mmmm… slurpee

Third Avenue near 16th Street, yesterday at noon

The New York Times Magazine discusses Medium Footwear this week. The focus of the article? How the consumers in its target demographic “are hard to identify and thus may not even realize that they form a class at all.”

And to think I bought mine simply because they looked cool (and back in January, no less). Does that place me outside the target demo, or squarely in it?

The movie “Garden State” was, in my opinion, a rather mediocre movie: not particularly funny or moving, it failed to embrace me as I had been primed to expect.

I did, however, love the conceit at the heart of the film: that a young man could return home, after nine years without a single visit, and be embraced by his old friends as though times had hardly changed.

I have a group of friends from high school that has maintained itself for more than a decade. I count 10 of us, in my central core; various offshoots add several more. I refer to us as “the gang,” which my wife finds hilarious but my friends find matter-of-fact. For us, that feeling at the heart of “Garden State” rings true.

My gang is, at a glance, a pretty random bunch. Our group includes a handful of Jews, one German Catholic, one Filippino and one African-American. We live in five different states, from Boston to Chicago. Three of us still live within jogging distance of our childhood homes; two of us don’t own our own cars. Six of us are married. We count among us a policeman, a pregnant mom-to-be, an Ironman participant, an entrepreneur, four dog owners, five homeowners, two homeowners-to-be, four master’s and two associate’s degrees.

More than once my mother has asked me how I became close with my friend the cop. Simple: gym class, four years in a row, lockers next to each other, thanks to the alphabet. Life should always be that simple. Which is how we tend to view each other, simply, as old friends united by time, regardless of how often we see each other or the ways that we change.

We get together as a full group four times a year, on average. And when we’re together, the transition from past to present is almost seamless. We remain bound by long memories, effortlessly recalling frozen moments of our youth, cracking jokes new and old, enjoying each other’s company without blinking an eye. Even the events are timeless: we’ve gone rafting 7 or 8 times, held half a dozen steak dinners, been to countless pool parties. Each time, we recall “the last time we did this, when—” and forge new memories while celebrating the old ones.

Our comfort is wholly unspoken, because it’s unnecessary. Our friendship, our bonds, are known and assumed. (I am certainly the only one in the gang who would even admit all of this, much less write about it. No doubt one or more of my friends is going to read this and call me a big old sap.) And that’s the way it should be: comfortable, expected, known.

Life moves forward, and very little stays the same. My childhood bedroom is long gone, my best friend from my formative years far removed from my phone book. But I still have my gang. And that makes me a lucky man.

I’m generally not a fan of sport-utility vehicles. Bigger car, worse performance, rougher ride, worse mileage—buy a sedan, I usually say. Or a minivan if you need storage.

That said, I love the ridiculously over-the-top International CXT. Imagine carpooling in this thing.

My macroeconomics professor told us a great story last class about his brother, Helmut. Helmut was a banker on Wall Street, in a decently successful but nondescript career, when his firm was bought out and mass layoffs upended his job.

Helmut took some time off, and enjoyed it until his wife said, “Helmut, this is ridiculous, you have to do something with your time.” So Helmut got a certification and began driving a school bus. It made him happy, being behind the wheel all day and taking the kids to school and to ball games.

After a while, though, his wife said, “Helmut, you really need a better job, the neighbors are starting to talk about us.” So Helmut shrugged and got behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town Car. Same idea, a little more slick. He could still tool around all day and enjoy it.

Helmut now owns a limousine company with 36 drivers, a 28-car fleet, and a dispatching center. He calls himself an entrepeneur.

Follow your dreams. I’m working on mine.

There’s a big fuss today about NBC’s replacing New York City’s coffee cups to promote the Olympics this summer. But really, what’s the fuss? The Beastie Boys did this years ago.

In the few years I’ve lived in the neighborhood, Union Square has completed an extensive round of renovations. Metal rails have replaced chicken wire fences, concrete plazas have been resurfaced in stone, embedded plaques and sturdy park benches ring the sidewalks, and new plants and trees abound. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the resuscitation of the grass.

In recent years the parks department has done a commendable job with the lawns in the square: it spends 10 months out of the year fertilizing and watering, to the point where, come May, the central areas of Union Square look as good as a proud suburban yard. The rest of the summer is spent battling the masses as they slowly trample the lawns.

As a local dog owner, Union Square is, in a sense, my yard, and I am thankful for the healthy, fenced-in grass. In the wintertime, we let the pooch run free at night when it snows, watching him romp in untouched powder, sometimes with other joyous dogs and their owners, as the cold makes the square a semi-private play area. In the summer, though, the lawn, and the rest of the square, ceases to be ours. Long into the night it is wildly populated, with a mix of people and a palpable vibrance that shouts New York.

I find great joy in people-watching as I pass by the lawns, as I spy groups I encounter daily and one-off surprises: the bums that sleep flat on the grass, some face-up, arms over faces, some face-down like they fell there; the teenagers that lean against the rails and sit on the stone walls; young couples relaxing, snacking, laughing, necking; groups of NYU students sunbathing, the men shirtless, the women in bikini tops, as though water were nearby; the pair of didgeridoo players practicing together; the man emoting loudly to himself, deep in a soliloquy, warming up for an unspecified performance or audition; the off-duty stripper reading a book, her unrealistic implants causing double-takes; the boys with signs rating cute girls as they walk by, temporarily diverting their efforts to rate my dog. (They gave him 8s and a 10.)

It’s not a private, quiet backyard, but for now, it’s my backyard. And despite the occasional spooky moment, there’s something comfortably reassuring about the throngs of people across the street, who serve as a nice reminder that in this town, no one ever needs to be alone.