Now that I'm thirty, I find myself making business deals with local chain hotels on a regular basis. It's one of the perks of being a grown-up, I guess. Hotels just want your business, especially when you're planning both a comedy fest AND a wedding. Oh, crap, I said the W word! They're gonna raise the price 200%, oh deary me!
I've been taking lunch meetings with the sales manager of the D-tree and she has been bogging me down, gloriously, with their signature chocolate chip cookies. Their Hilton-managed schtick is this: they hand you a warm chocolate chip cookie upon check-in. It's a psychological device marketing dreamed up to trip your home/mom/comfort trigger in your brain. So unless you grew up in a crackhouse orphanage situation or with a chocolate allergy, the cookie is supposed to Madeleine you back to your blissful childhood memories.
And what dense fuckers these cookies are! The cookies have their own website, which says something to the effect of "these m-fing cookies are a dense 3 oz!" They are tall and heavy, like me. And they are packed with choc chips, oatmeal, and a tree nut that would make Schrader blow up like a cheap party balloon! So no cookie for you, Dave. Sorry, man. I'll find you a less lethal cookie when you're here.
As I am bringing the hotel $1000 dollars or more worth of business, I have had no fewer than 18 cookies bequeathed to me, most of which have been consumed by people with MLS degrees. I feel bad everytime the nice saleslady orders the kitchen staff to bring me a tin of cookies, but this psychological fuck-with gesture probably only costs them $2 wholesale and they in turn get 50 or so rooms sold to my guests and festies. Marketing wonks, take heed!
I brought one home for Bob tonight, because reader, I LOVES ME SOME BOB. All of Bob, actually. Action Pillow!
Posted by Zerd at April 10, 2006 08:07 PM