So I was at the Wal-Mart (note evil shadowy image) or “the wal” as I like to call it late yesterday morning at 1:00am because me and a few of my fellow chaps had been craving a game of Monopoly. However as we stared deeply in to the vast shelves of board games, we tilted our heads in confusion. There literally were 10 different types of monopoly i.e.(spongbob squarepants, little mermaid, disney pixar, cars, etc.) Now, I don’t know about you, but when I want to play a game of monopoly, and I land on boardwalk… I wan’t the property to say boardwalk, not “patricks house” or “ariels castle” I am not a friggen baby, and even if I was I still wouldn’t want to play this version of monopoly:

That is the Monopoly “Electronic Banking” edition, and I thought about buying this one for about 2 seconds till I realised the entire point of Monopoly is to collect money, and not holding it makes it a lot less fun. Note: One of the pieces is a segway scooter, and I am not one of the few who think those are cool. Dane Cook is not a fan of monopoly, not that anyone cares.

My point here is that Hasbro is ruining the game of Monopoly, by licensing its rights to corporate demon seeds such as Nickelodeon or Disney. I cannot even find the original Monopoly anymore, and I forgot what it even looks like. Actually I did see a really nice Michael Graves Monopoly wood box set at Target just recently. Which is beside the point, and I guess not every deal Hasbro makes is lackluster. However my biggest gripe is with the Monopoly “Here and Now” edition, which has cities that were voted by Americans instead of the original property names (there is also a UK version.) I don’t see the appeal of this, and as a true fan of Monopoly, do not get it other than it is an attempt at a marketing ploy. I do not wish to own Las Vegas, and I think New Orleans is bankrupt. Bottom line, next time I go to wal-mart to buy Monopoly, I want to at least see the original edition on the shelf.

American Express has been advertising their PlumCard website recently featuring Jim Davis and his company MusicDirect. Here is the ad:

Music Direct is a website that sells CDs, vinyl, music hardware, cables, analog gear, and hi-fidelity music equipment. AmEx has been trying to appeal to small business owners, especially those with big aspirations. The previous PlumCard commercial featured new trendy frozen yogurt company pinkberry.

The Plum Card marketing campaign is flawless, they even have an expensive adwords account for several terms as shown here in a full blown report from netbanker regarding the “Scarcity Marketing” technique used by AmEx to attract consumers. I personally think it is a brilliant move by AmEx to appeal to the growing small business and start up crowd by opening a niche market. This is credit cards we are talking about here, the entire idea behind them is to feel rich or exclusive. It is a status thing, so people in business are going to be attracted to that.