Section B·Page 4
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, December 1, 1999
Millennium
Bubbly in stock
Scott Alden, manager of Alvin's Wine and Spirit, 901 Iowa St., stocks champagne. He said it is better to buy champagne earlier this year because the price will rise the closer it gets to the new millennium. Photo by Nick Krug/KANSAN
Liquor stores advise buying champagne before prices rise
By Jeff Schilling
Special to the Kansan
As the millennium approaches, many people are expected to start selecting their party supplies.
With a month to go, liquor stores are ready for the last-minute rush of people buying their stock of champagne.
"I haven't even thought about buying my champagne for the new year," said Peter Mitchell, Stilwell senior. "Maybe I need to before it is all gone."
Scott Alden, manager of Alvin's Wine and Spirit, 901 Iowa St., said he wasn't worried about running out of champagne.
"We ordered about 40 percent more than we usually do for the New Year's," he said.
Alden said, however, students
shouldn't wait until the last week because popular champagnes would be gone.
"Many customers have asked when is a good time to buy champagne," Alden said. "I just say the sooner the better."
Not many people have bought their champagne, but the people who have are the lucky ones, he said.
"Prices will jump the later it gets to the millennium celebration," said Ron Hesson, owner of Ray's Liquor Warehouse, 1215 W. Sixth St.
Because of the demand, many local liquor stores will raise the price of champagne a couple of dollars during the next few weeks.
"It's not us raising the prices on the consumers; it's the distributors." Hesson said. "They see a demand for a product, so they raise the prices knowing everyone is
Kevin Polian, Lawrence resident purchased his champagne more than two months ago.
going to buy champagne."
Scott Simpson, Topeka resident, said: "I knew the prices were going to skyrocket, so I bought mine when the prices were still at a reasonable price."
In November, a bottle of Korbel Extra Dry champagne sold for about $12.95. However, by mid-December, prices were expected to jump at least $2 because of the liquor stores marking up the prices.
Hesson offered some advice.
"Buy as early as possible, and it will save you more then you think." he said.
Many companies are hoping to capitalize on the coming millennium in their marketing techniques. Products include cereal, toys, survival kits, crayons and maps. Photo by Chad Cummings/KANSAN
Companies jump at chance to use millennium marketing
By Jay Pilgreen Special to the Kansan
The shiny purple metallic box caught Chris Irby's eye as he walked down aisle six of Dillons supermarket. What he noticed was the new version of Cheerios with a '2' added to the familiar 'O' shape. They were Millenios.
In addition to the cereal, General Mills is marketing the millennium with a billboard above the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York's Times Square. The billboard read 'Is your cereal bowl Y2K ready?'
"You know that's when advertising has gone too far — when there is cereal made after a year," said Irby, Wichita junior.
Joyce Claterbos, University of Kansas lecturer in marketing, said that businesses linked their products to the millennium to make it more attractive. Many times this is done by changing the way a product looks.
"What you see in some products is simply a cosmetic change to make it more attractive," she said. "It's like putting 2000 on a t-shirt. You could have put the Rolling Stones name on the t-shirt. It doesn't change the fact that you buy a t-shirt to wear."
Wal-Mart sells a Y2K brand of clothing that is entirely dedicated to the new millennium.
Bonnie Tennyson, department manager of men's apparel at the Lawrence Wal-Mart, 3300 Iowa St., said that sales of the clothing brand had not been very high but that she expected they would grow. She said that the majority of people who bought the clothes were in their 40s and 50s.
"Younger people are not buying them yet." Tennison said. "Younger people are
procrastinators."
Some students said they didn't want to buy the millennium paraphernalia because it didn't serve a useful purpose.
Jake Brown, Shawnee sophomore, said that sometimes millennium advertising gave s consumers the idea that the new version of a product was best but that it shouldn't change their decisions.
"The old Hoover vacuum cleaners had the one little brush," Brown said. "Now they have windows that you can see the dirt and a little green light to tell you when the floor is clean, but in reality, both Hoovers suck the dirt off your carpet just the same."
Claterbs said that many times the price for newer versions were passed on to the consumers without them knowing it.
"Marketing is good if it creates utility for the society," she said. "Marketing is bad if it simply incurs costs and passes those costs on to the consumer in the form of higher prices but doesn't create utility."
Claterbos said the best advertising campaigns recognized what the consumer's needs and wants were. Good marketers decide how their product appealed to those needs and wants and marketed the product accordingly, she said.
"There's a lot of mediocre advertising, and using the millennium as an appeal only has a benefit if in some way that product can be linked to the consumer's needs for the millennium," she said.
Claterbos suggested that consumers think about their purchases before making them, making it easier to avoid the trap of marketers.
“It's like Cheetos putting the year 2000 on the package,” she said. “I don't buy Cheetos for that. I buy Cheetos for the cheese-flavored crunch.”
Edited by Becky Stauffer
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