In the world of direct marketing, which is the professional space where I operate, one powerful tactic is to motivate a potential customer to use their imagination. “Imagine yourself without bad breath and dirty teeth.” “Imagine a life where you jet off to exotic locations.
” “Imagine a totally different approach to portrait photography.’ It was a tactic the late Ron Popeil, a super-successful direct marketer and a sometime Aspen resident, employed to great effect. He sold $1 billion worth of a product called the Showtime Rotisserie Oven.
He sold this product to people who already had two or three ovens in their kitchen plus a grill on their deck. Nobody who added the Showtime Rotisserie Oven to their culinary arsenal woke up on the morning of their acquisition thinking, “The one thing I must have today is another oven.” Ready to use your imagination? Imagine Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley without the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport.
“You’re crazy!” you scream as you launch this newspaper across the room or start punching my visage on your screen. Am I crazy? We can all agree the airport flap is quickly going sideways. One group that opposes plans to widen the runway (a project that would allow aircraft with greater wingspans to use the airport) is vectoring to get a referendum on the ballot.
Another group, with no experience in the field of airport finances, is telling everyone, “nothing to see here boys and girls ...
we don’t need hundreds of million.
