Former Walt Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner has been making another name for himself as a player in the original content space of online video. Through his Vuguru studio, he bought the rights to Prom Queen, which was a success, both in viewership and financially.
He also landed Dinosaur Diorama Productions Inc. to produce a new series about a group of musicians on tour called "The All-For-Nots.
All that is interesting, but I wanted to talk about Eisner's quest to buy the Topps Co., the sporting and general card and sticker company.
It's not the deal itself that's important to focus on, but why he's going after the company in the first place.
Besides the obvious sporting cards, he would also have access to card titles like The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Teenage Mutant Turtles.
So there is a mix of existing products, licensing deals and statistics. There is also a wealth of characters and potential material he could use to create more online stories.
When considering the card aspect of it alone, think of that with your online strategies. If you have an existing base of customers, is there something in the area of cards that would fit in with your marketing?
I know of someone for a few thousand dollars had a huge colletion of cards made up that were a real hit with customers. The interesting thing about it was it was a labor of love, rather than making money, as the reason behind it. He suddenly discovered his cards were in high demand and people were almost begging him to charge for them. He eventually started doing that and accidently discovered a pent-up demand for something he wasn't even thinking of making money with.
Are there ways you could use cards in your particular business? You'd be surprised at the interesting statistics and information you can put on those little things. They could definitely be used for marketing in a way that would be very low key and non-intrusive to the user; almost like a business card with pictures, statistics, insights, or whatever it is you may be offering that people would enjoy seeing. I could even see products or services with descriptions and contact information as part of this.
Just taking this one idea can bring out a ton of ways they can be used to brand or even promote the business or specific products and services you're offering.
I wrote about this like this to show how we need to always be looking at numerous ways existing products can be taken and adapted to our specific way of doing business.
Here's a website showing a bunch of Mario memorabilia. Look at the various things there and many ways someone can promote their products.
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