Nog een paar voorbeelden van de Longtail

Ik voorspel (..) dat er nog veel over de longtail geschreven gaat worden. Kwam toevallig een artikel tegen met een paar voorbeelden:

In the hospitality industry, for example, developer Ira Drukier is applying a set of rather narrow consumer insights to create a different kind of luxury hotel. As reported in The New York Times, Ira’s idea is that there’s a market in Manhattan for a hotel with small rooms; and even shared bathrooms and bunkbeds; so long as it’s equipped with wi-fi, iPod docking stations, and flat-screen TVs.

Drukier figures that if the rooms are clean, neat and wired, he’ll attract young travelers whose only option at $125 a night is not nearly as, well, luxurious. “You can find hotels in the city that offer bunks for $89 a night, but the rooms are scary,” says Drukier. He also expects to attract Europeans, for whom big rooms and private baths aren’t essential. Point is, he’s applying the principles of luxury to hone in on his target audience.

In the beauty-care category, Fast Company reports that Lush Cosmetics tightens bonds with its most passionate customers by offering up limited-edition “personal batches” of discontinued products online. As Simon Nicholls, Lush Web site manager, notes, “Only 300 people around the world will have these products.” Oh, we happy few!

And in apparel, the cross between “luxury” and the “Long Tail” manifests itself in the advent of limited-edition T-shirts you can’t find at say, Target, or even your local vintage-apparel boutique. Some people are willing to pay a premium for these shirts, because, as one boutique owner told The New York Times, “People like the idea that there’s only one, that it’s their own style.”