30: the nook has a nook

My second year at Cornell is winding down (finally, and yet so soon), and I am frantically trying to juggle group projects and last assignments (and personal side projects, as always). As part of my Business Management final project, I've spent the past 3 days doing research on Barnes & Noble's Nook eReader and analyzing it according to the 4 P's framework (product, price, place, promotion). Of course, the promotion part is the most interesting to me, so I thought I'd share with you the TV spot that Barnes & Noble has been using to promote its Nook.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly captivated by this commercial, but it definitely carries a sweet sentiment to it, and certainly there is something very sharp about the link between individual and technological evolution, if you will -- from child to teen to college student to a mother-to-be; from picture books to hardbacks to eBooks on digital readers. It really brings home the idea of the Nook as "the only eBook Reader from the bookstore you've grown up with."

Given that B&N and Amazon are major competitors, it's kind of exciting to see B&N finally really leveraging its retail store presence. I mean, I sat between bookshelves, looking at Beverly Cleary books when I was just a six-year-old baby. I did the whole "Friday night movie at Regal/sugary drink from Starbucks/debauchery at Barnes & Noble" special as a semi-autonomous pre-teen (just kidding on the debauchery part). I wrote college entrance essays just a few years ago, curled up in little Barnes & Noble armchairs with US News reports on either side (don't judge).

It's easy to hate on Barnes & Noble for being this big corporation -- you know, the type of mega-bookstore that tried to kill Meg Ryan's business in You've Got Mail -- but through this advertising campaign, Barnes & Noble is reminding us all that their bookstore has been a place we've been able to consider home for much, if not all, of our lives. And it's good that they're bringing that to the forefront of their campaign, because it implies that the introduction of the Nook is not just some out-of-the-blue push to get market share in the eBook industry. Instead, it feels like a natural progression, and makes the Nook seem that much more integrated with the rest of the Barnes & Noble brand.