In these days of dot-com dollars, nothing is what it at first appears to be. Witness the humble banana -- no longer merely a yellow fruit popular with babies and monkeys, but an advertising vehicle for search engines! "What's a recipe for banana pudding?" the sticker on my banana winked at me this morning. For the answer, I merely had to log on to "Ask.com."
Where once the Chiquita logo had reigned supreme, a dot-com was now hawking its wares. Is there not enough ad space in the bulging Net business magazines or on TV?
Personally, I loathe banana pudding and wouldn't make it even if I could find a recipe for it with the click of a mouse. But Ask.com, a search engine on a spending frenzy, has other marketing strategies for tough nuts like me. Last month, the site sent me free tickets to an Elvis Costello concert -- which, much like the banana, was not merely an evening with a grizzled crooner, but a marketing extravaganza for Ask.com.
This company that uses bananas and rock stars as marketing gimmicks is the same company that, last Thanksgiving, plopped its main company icon -- Jeeves, the butler -- on a float and sent him marching in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
What would Jeeves think? Would P.G. Wodehouse's flawlessly proper butler approve of Internet-mania taking over even the skin of our fruit? I guess I'll just have to ask.
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