Date Books, for Years a Top Business Gift, Feel the Pinch of 1990 Slump
1/1/91. Time to turn over a new leaf, seize the day and all that.
Having tossed 1990 out the window or, better yet, into a recycling bin for obsolete calendar pages, millions of office workers this week will crack open tidy new date books--some cheap, some choice--from bankers, stockbrokers, publications, insurance agents, pharmacists and morticians, all seeking to keep their names in plain view of past and potential clients.
“The neat part about a calendar is it lasts 365 days a year,” said Clay Conover, vice president of the advertising specialty division of Keith Clark in Sidney, N.Y., the nation’s largest producer of such items.
If each year millions of these diaries survive and actually get used, it’s a safe bet that millions more get chucked into trash cans or stuffed into desk drawers, not to be seen again until the year in question is history.
That recipients tend to treat date books with something less than respect doesn’t stop businesses small and large from sending them out by the truckload each year. And if the thought occurs to any nervous marketing officials in these recessionary times to cut corners by cutting out calendars, H. Coleman Norris has a bit of advice.
“This is the worst thing they can do,” said Norris, president of Columbian Art Works Inc., a desk calendar and date book maker in Milwaukee. What else would a fourth-generation calendar man say?
Even so, with many banks, real estate firms and savings and loans against the ropes in 1990, Keith Clark, which also makes the ubiquitous At a Glance and Ready Reference calendars, saw a flattening of date book orders this year from the 4,200 companies that distribute its products.
Although “growth has been substantial in the last 10 years, business this year was not what we had planned,” Conover said.
In the date book market, which industry estimates put at $300 million a year, Keith Clark competes with hundreds of other privately held printing companies as well as direct mailers such as American Express, U.S. Sprint and the Economist, which markets its coveted date books to subscribers at a cost of $26 to $65.
Moreover, Sharp Electronics Corp., Casio Inc., Atari Computer Corp. and Poqet Computer Corp. have come out with electronic versions costing $100 and up that are finding favor with gadget-oriented executives.
The 20 million date books that Keith Clark makes for promotions cost an average of $5 to $6 wholesale. But what really tends to catch the fancy of executive types is the fancy leather variety with gilt-edged pages, which cost far more.
Rather than chop 1990 pre-holiday prices, as other retailers did, Brooks Bros. decided to lure its upscale clientele with an old-fashioned freebie. And 45,000 customers took the clothier up on the offer to come in and claim a leather-bound 1991 pocket diary.
The button-down clothier enclosed a redeemable certificate with a letter to credit customers noting that, even though the retail clothing business “verges on a state of chaos,” with debt-laden merchants forced into rampant markdowns, Brooks intended to maintain its policy of only two sales each year--post-holiday and summer.
The handout “got people in who may not have seen the store in a while,” said Sharon Moss, vice president of marketing for the New York-based chain, owned by Marks & Spencer of London.
Each year, Brooks Bros. usually sells about 25,000 pocket diaries in its stores or through its catalogue, at a cost of $18. Many customers also buy the larger, $28 desktop model, complete with metric conversion table, time zone chart and maps.
For bells and whistles, it’s tough to top Filofax and its less expensive imitators, such as Day Runner (started by a West Hollywood couple). In the 1980s boom days, the sturdy six-ring Filofax personal organizers--at $150 and more--with their many replaceable inserts, became symbols of “yupward” mobility.
Last year, however, British manufacturer Filofax PLC began swimming in red ink as pink slips forced customers on Wall Street and elsewhere to forgo ostrich-covered organizers in favor of more humble agendas. Despite a cash infusion from Tranwood Earl, a British investment group that bought 51% of the company in August, Filofax expects to report a loss again for 1990.
In an effort to broaden its appeal, the company in 1990 brought out two downscale models, the $55 Lincoln and the $100 Sherwood. It also expanded distribution. And, to cut costs, it is eliminating some of the more offbeat inserts, such as the military record and the photo exposure record.
The budget Filofaxes caught on with customers at Fred Segal Melrose. “People were elated” to find that they did not have to pay $155, according to Leonard Fagelman, owner of the Filofax boutique.
A sign of the times: Fagelman’s shop didn’t sell a single $1,900 alligator-covered Filofax.
John Belvedere, vice president of sales and marketing for Filofax Inc. in Stamford, Conn., the U.S. unit, said Filofax sales in this country grew 10% in 1990, despite the owner’s troubles. Given that organizers have yet to catch on outside major cities, Belvedere sees solid growth ahead.
