Now that the JC Penney catalog and Sears catalog are ghosts of Christmases Past, Amazon is filling the void with its own "A Holiday of Play" catalog. The cover simultaneously tries to:
- play down the Amazon name (which reminds us that it was one of the forces that destroyed brick-and-mortar)
- evoke a "happier time" when we had simpler toys and made our best toys out of cardboard boxes (and apparently, TiVo? those antennae, paired with the smiles below look a lot more like TiVo symbol than the rabbit ears of actual TV)
- place that Amazon symbol prominently on the box to remind us you get boxes delivered to your door for free when you order from Amazon!
The catalog itself is kinda skimpy in comparison to the 600-page heyday of Penney's and Sears. All this would be by-the-by... however, the catalog contains no prices. Now, this may be because of the ever-changing natures of prices online, but it raises my hackles a bit as a possible ploy to create desire for items before revealing their price.
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