It’s that time of year again – hell for posties labouring under unseasonably heavy loads, and heaven for house-dogs who get to gnaw overtime on the marketing manna which drums daily upon the doormat. Yuletide beckons and it’s raining catalogues!Online shopping may have come of age, but it shows no sign of elbowing the good old printed catalogue out to grass. Right now our paper-recycling bin is matching its wine-bottle counterpart pound for pound – and that takes some doing, I can tell you.
Of course, being in the promotional marketing business, I have every excuse to spend as much non-washing-up time as I wish in scrutinising these pocket emporia – more than once I’ve solved a brief with their assistance. And fun reading they can make, to boot. Take Hawkin’s Bazaar – a company who always seems to employ copywriters after my own heart. This year their Christmas suggestions include ‘Russian Roulette Chocolates’ (“delicious pralines, one of which contains enough chilli to blow your head off”), a book ominously entitled ‘101 Illnesses You Don’t Want to Get’ (described as “not for the faint-hearted” – pun intended, I bet), and best of all, ‘Owl Puke’, a kit containing a real owl-pellet and a 92-page guide to its dissection.
Under normal circumstances I would have ended that last sentence with an exclamation mark, but if you’ve clicked on my profile (which I fully appreciate is hardly likely) you’ll know I have more than a fluttering interest in all things ornithological, and not least the miraculous dried-dung-like fur-ball that is the owl-pellet. However, I have to confess, that not even in my wildest dreams did I see their potential in the gift market! (And there goes the said screamer.)
Still, as far as I know the Chinese have not yet perfected owl-pellet production, so that means to make owl-pellets you need owls, which bodes well for the conservation of one of our more endangered feathered friends. As for the (product) life-cycle of ‘Owl Puke’ – well, Hawkin’s Bazaar have an uncanny track record in spotting a winner. I’ll leave the last word to their catalogue: “If it all sounds a bit gross, then you’ll understand why children like it so much!”
