Wednesday, August 23, 2000

An Olympic Event


Forget about the fact that they made three new announcements about
smallest and fastest digital cameras and a printing digital camera,
Olympus America's press party for these releases were cause for
announcement as well. If you were from Fox or the New York Times or
Popular Science or Mens Journal; if you were from a press office,
you were there. And you witnessed a massive white balloon on stage
show projections of faces morphing as they said, "I am the face of
Olympus."  The balloon exploded and out jumped a theatrical troupe
of gymnastics, tumbling across the stage and bungee jumping from
catwalks. These antics wowed the guests, but press (as you know,
are sometimes jaded) needed something more. So Olympus added a
laser light show and loud techno music. Meanwhile, giant-sized
models of Olympus' newest cameras were raised from podiums, out of
smoke and flashing lights. The biggest one of them all was lowered
to center stage. And for the finale--blue and white rectangular
confetti sprinkled below from the ceiling while strobe lights and
loud techno music jammed. If it weren't for the rows of attentive
Olympus blue-denim shirted representatives watching the whole
escapade and guarding their tables with product so dearly, you
wouldn't of known it was technology-related product launch at all.
Well, maybe the banners or the big new techno-slouch hip bag with
voice-activated recorder in it might've given it away.