On 06/28/2000, Mary Taft <marytaft[_at_]tricord.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 27, 2000, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you for the interesting information.
> >
> > Several years, er uhh, well actually, several decades ago, I took
> > a business class where the project was to develop a business plan
> > for a company to sell air.
> >
> > The interesting lesson was that it was quite expensive to sell
> > air. Indeed there was arguably an inverse relationship between
> > the material cost of the goods sold, and the total cost. Selling
> > something available for free costs a lot because you have to
> > convince people through packaging, advertising, etc that it is a
> > better product, worth paying for, and you often have quite expensive
> > costs in arranging and collecting payment.
> >
> > The lesson stuck with me, and I see its application quite often.
>
> Re: per selling air
>
> I guess the bottled water companies never took that business class :)
Actually, they probably did, as they have convinced the public that it is worth spending a buck or more for 10 oz. of what you can get from the water fountain. They did it the way John's class suggested -- brand identification and suggestions of quality. The fact that tap water in many parts of the country smells and tastes like a chlorine leak doesn't hurt.
There was an interesting piece on Morning Edition today on how the music industry can make money in a world without copyright (although they didn't really put it in those terms). For those who missed it, it should be available on NPR's web site under "latest show" at http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/ tomorrow (it currently shows yesterday's stories).
Kevin Grierson
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