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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Douglas Holt and James Twitchell

the breakfast table
entries

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from: James Twitchell

I Want To Know ...

Posted Thursday, May 31, 2001, at 11:43 AM ET

Yo Doug,

I feel your pain, buddy. You are experiencing everyone's worst nightmare: being trapped in an elevator with an English professor. I mean the idiot is over there in the corner nattering away while you are furiously punching the door-open button.

But you are not getting off ... yet. I've got some questions for you.

I want to know what you do. Superficially, of course.

Like what are you working on this summer? Title, please. And what is your favorite course to teach? Ditto: title.

And do you ever worry that you are teaching the future Masters of the Universe and that if you make a mistake in class and give bogus info, the world might blow up? Well, OK, if not that, then if you give one of them a low grade, he might--once he controls the world--come back and blow you up? Forget the question.

Hey, I want to know what a sample essay question would be on your final exam in Marketing 101. Yes, Doug, I want the actual question.

OK, I drop $1 million in your lap (the money I save by not running the "new and improved" Absolut campaign) and tell you to do whatever you want inside your field. Like go anywhere, talk to anyone. What do you do?

And "outside your field"? What would you do if you weren't in this business? You don't have to answer that one if it's too personal.

About 15 yrs ago I thought about getting an MBA. I went over to the business school here at Florida. I took a course in management. I lasted for less then a week. The minute we had to split up into little groups and talk with each other, I was outta there. From time to time I talk with the folks who teach marketing. After about five minutes with me, they get up and go out for a smoke.

We're divided by a common interest.

Now I'm going to answer your question: If these professorial types understand advertising, how come no one hires them? Look, if stockbrokers understand the market, how come they go to those dingy offices and make cold calls?

I'm teaching "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in about an hour. Do you remember it from high school? It's one of my favorite poems. It's so bizarre.

Stay tuned,
Jim

the breakfast table
entries

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from: James Twitchell

I Want To Know ...

Posted Thursday, May 31, 2001, at 11:43 AM ET

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

James Twitchell is supposed to be teaching English literature but is more interested in the marketing of stuff. He has written books on advertising (Adcult USA, Twenty Ads That Shook the World) and has a mild defense of luxury consumption coming out next year (Living It Up: Why We Love Luxury). Douglas Holt is a professor at Harvard Business School.

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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Let's talk about coffee. Joseph Britt., below, was just one of many--follow the thread, and consider the question of tipping the barista. He still had time to discuss milk, here, too. And Brendan Herlihy took on ice-cream here. Neill Hamilton is looking for more "dissent, anger, blood feuds... I want the people writing in the Breakfast Table to open up life long vendettas" here (he always is, he's the Breakfast Table's official trouble-maker), but Richard Walrath enjoyed the banter: "it's almost like being there with the third cup of coffee."]

We're really talking about two different things here, aren't we? Coffee, and then all the froofy coffee-influenced liquid dessert-style beverages that take up most of the space on coffee house menus. I have nothing against the latter (because making fun of them is always a good time), but coffee is a really serious subject. If you're going to drink something nearly every day, it might as well be good. This is why I've never understood all the sneering condescension directed at Starbucks. Pre-Starbucks, most coffee served in public places was awful--you were ahead of the game if you ordered came out hot, caffeinated and with no taste at all. OK, most coffee served in public places is still awful, but with Starbucks you at least have the choice of having a good cup of coffee.

I confess I think Starbucks is slipping, based on extensive research I've done at the Minneapolis Airport. They used to offer a rotation of different coffees--Sumatra, Mocha Java, even New Guinea--but now seem to mostly serve up a couple of blends with names like "European" and "Christmas." Talk about your brand marketing. Also they routinely serve the coffee so hot you wonder if there is something wrong with the water they're using.

--Joseph Britt

(To reply, click here.)

Maybe the students in Mr. Twitchell's anecdote couldn't tell good poetry from bad without guidance, but this doesn't strike me as being universally true. Poetry isn't my thing, but music is, and I have no trouble separating the good from the bad using only my own ears. If there wasn't something intrinsic in good art, we wouldn't, over time, have come to a general agreement about the relative worth of, say, Mozart vs. Salieri.

--Chloe Pajerek

(To reply, click here.)

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