Monday, August 10, 2009

Even better: A Shack Attack!

(Or "Shaq Attack": I'm not sure how we'll be spelling it.)

It looks like it's official: Radio Shack is going to use their racing team as a central part of rebranding their company. Here's a quote from Radio Shack's chief marketing officer about the role that Lance and company will play in the rehabilitation of their image: "Having Lance on our team will no doubt accelerate our brand’s evolution" (from the VeloNews article).

Hum. I suppose. Hell, what do I know about marketing?

Still I think they should bring back this campaign:


Ah, yes, the TRS-80: like the Commodore 64, except actually useful. (Meaning that you could do things other than play Ghostbusters or Spyhunter on it.)

If we're looking to compare, that means that Isaac Asimov : Lance Armstrong :: Tandy : _____. Cell phones? I dunno. Put that in your GRE testbook and smoke it.

Either way I hope it means that Lance is going to grow some supafly sideburns.

5 comments:

co2cycle said...

Perhaps this is why Lance has been Tweeting so much--getting every Trek owner stoked to purchase a Tandy Tweet device. Also, I think that Geoff Kabush is actually the Isaac Asimov of cycling. Mainly because of the sideburns, but also because Canada seems like something from a weird, alternate universe. Let's call Lance the Michael Crichton of cycling--improbable fiction based on medical science, but at least he gets kids interested in reading.

curveship said...

That Radio Shack ad describes a scary amount of my life as an 8 year old in 1983: reading Asimov stories and programming my school's TRS-80.

I don't know the solution to your analogy, but if you flip it around, then Asimov : Tandy :: Armstrong : those annoying "tired of being tired" web ads that seem to be on every cycling site.

DukePirate said...

So who would be L. Ron Hubbard? (Gifted rider with a messianic complex inspiring cult-like devotion and a quasi-religious movement.) Could that be Lance as well? Now I'm getting all confused. Good thing this isn't the GRE.

I read the Foundation series (the Trilogy plus the prequel) for a book report my freshmen year of high school. That's right, while everyone else was doing their damnedest to read the bare minimum, I was pouring over the 1000 pages of Asimov's work. I don't think that I fully understood the work's political implications, and I've been meaning to go back and read it again, but one thing thing I do know when looking back was that I was a dork. And that was before I started cycling. *sigh*

curveship said...

I did my book report on the Foundation trilogy in 7th grade, which I believe makes me even dorkier than you. (Or maybe not -- shouldn't you have been spending more time with girls by 9th grade? At least at 7th grade, the hormones weren't at full tilt.) There was a political allegory? I can't remember anything about the books except that some kind of math said that society was all going to heck unless something happened.

I think that was the last Asimov book I ever read.

And I think you're onto something with L. Ron Hubbard. Could Lance be the next Tom Cruise?

DukePirate said...

7th grade, eh? Not bad. If I remember correctly that means that we were working on our dorkitude simultaneously. Sweet.

Mmm, no, surely Lance does not equal Tom Cruise. Surely not. Can't be. Not.

OK, I can kinda see it...