Apr 26, 2007

Dowdy Newspaper Gets Scrapbook Makeover....

Apparently, the Wall Street Journal can't find any news that Wall Street would be interested in. The Dow at 13,000 apparently isn't as "sexy" as the "unsexy" world of scrapbooking. In the last 6 weeks, we (the industry) have been called "stupid" twice by the WSJ. Once for not realizing sooner that we should be courting men as our salvation (really?!) and now for not calling in the big gun aka Martha Stewart before 2007. LINK to the article.

The title of my post is a twist on the headline of the article - "Dowdy Craft Business Gets Martha Stewart Makeover". DOWDY?! DOWDY?! With the launch of the new MS products into Michael's this week, I can only imagine who they mean when they say "Craft Business". Ummm, that would be us? According to the senior VP of Marketing for Michaels, Martha's bringing "Sexy" Back...to the industry. (caution, SARCASAM AHEAD) Wow, good, because we can hardly string a complete sentence together and are having a REALLY hard time differentiating between "summer sky" and "robins egg" on the color wheel. And, we've all been waiting around to make a scrapbook the size of a newspaper. I can't imagine anything bigger than 12x12, but apparently, Martha can. Her albums are reported to be HUGE - which when full of pages means you'll need a special viewing platform for it. But then, as she said to a stunned audience at CHA Winter in Anaheim after being asked how she spotted trends, "I don't SPOT trends, I MAKE them." Really?! We'll see...

So, this week or next, I'm sure I'll don my dowdy crocheted shawl, BeDazzled sweat pants and hand-painted t-shirt and wander over to my local Michael's to take a look for myself. I don't anticipate hating the MS line. However, I'm just not sure we have been sitting around wishing for it. We have done quite okay for ourselves and history has shown that we don't really take kindly to outsiders trying to snow us by pitching wares with their names emblazoned all over their products. Note to the suits at the WSJ, we aren't as dumb as we look...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kim - I really enjoyed your post! Your sarcasm is just my style. I blogged about this article too because it's **kinda hurtin my feelings** to be called 'dowdy'. Anything to create controversy and sell papers, I guess! But I love your take on the whole MS issue. Keep blogging!

Anonymous said...

Great take on this Kim! I am not and never have been a fan of Martha. Especially since the prison time. I agree that WSJ was way off base on this one.

Anonymous said...

LOVE IT!!!

Anonymous said...

Funny thing about the article, WSJ seems quite ignorant on the subject. The title should have read, "Michael's Gets a Makeover," which they desperately needed because the store they describe is Michaels or a hobby store. It surely is not referring to my favorite lss or Archivers. Thanks for your article and sarcasm!

susan said...

Right on! What I loved was how they described craft stores as dusty and crowded with stuff...but that's what I love...poking through to find a treasure. So it will be interesting to see how the MS stuff does, won't it?