Friday, 15 July 2011

Marketing genius?

When Sony invented the Walkman, it was the first of its kind, and there was much internal debate at the company as to whether it would sell or not. Of course it turned out to be a roaring success, and could have helped Sony to captilaise on their lead in the MP3 player market too, had they had the courage to create a product that might compete with their CD sales.

So here's another marketing question. You're in an area that needs to attract tourists, and you've got a disused single-track railway line going through your village. What do you do with it? Turn it into a cycle track or walking route? No, you you build little pedal-powered carts for tourists to pedal along a few kilometres of its length, and charge them for it. Strangely enough, it's a success, and it's fun to do, being different enough from run-of-the-mill holiday activities to attract the curious.

We went to enjoy it a second time recently, with friends from England.

2 comments:

  1. Be honest: how long did it take to dispel the irrational fear that you would meet a large diesel locomotive coming from the opposite direction? But I can see why I would love this.

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  2. The interesting thing is what you have to do when you meet a cart coming the other way: you have to lift one cart off the tracks to allow the other to pass. This happens a lot. Can you imagin selling this idea to a sceptical bank manager?

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