STORY:
Cashing in on the Millennium

Millennium madness in the marketplace as the Year 2000 moves closer

Engraved champagn e glasses, stuffed millennium bears and rhinestone Year 2000 pins, all are available for your buying pleasure. We’re reaching a landmark year and it’s time to cash in on the novelty of it all.

Pretty much any and everything you could need or want is for sale and tagged with the word "millennium" so you will buy it. Entrepreneurs are pushing millennium madness to the extreme.

It’s like there’s an additional holiday and everyone wants a piece of the marketing pie.

Take a quick search of the Web for a look at what "millennium" treasures are available to you. There’s a bottle of Y2K bug spray, a Year 2000 voodoo bag and even some Y2K tanning lotion for just $33.75. Internet shoppers can get a coin that bears a picture of Jesus, with words "Christianity2000". In an effort to be fair, the company will inscribe the denomination of your choice on the coin.

The word "millennium" is a hot title this year. In fact, Barnes and Noble have 113 Y2K titles in its database. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted 272 registered trademarks for goods or services bearing the word millennium. Of course spelling is an issue, 21 people spelled the word millennium wrong on their application for a trademark. 1, 415 companies are still awaiting trademark approval. Hope they get it before it’s too late, or before the millennium is old news anyway.

"A lot of the Y2K panic is dependent on the fact that most Americans don’t have a clue about how a computer works, and because of that, they have a lot of anxiety," Ray Eve, Professor of Sociology, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. " Somehow buying this stuff, you own it, you control it, so there’s a little psychodrama about purchasing control over the uncontrollable."

This year Y2K preparedness is also an issue and another chance to make some quick cash. How about an Executive Survival Kit for the year 2000, complete with a knife, battery-operated clock and a stress grip? If you don’t want that, what about a Y2K bug a bugle-eyed trinket that promises to protect the owner from any technological disasters?

There’s always another way to prepare for the dawn of a new millennium. Stock up on Millennium Monopoly, Cabbage Patch Millennium babies, millennium engraved champagne flutes and toast in the New Year at home surrounded by all your new toys. You may think one day you’ll be able to trade in the toys for cash, after all collectors’ items are worth something aren’t they. The answer may be yes but the problem is you won’t live long enough to cash in. The millennium souvenirs of today probably won’t be worth much until the dawn of the third millennium, one hundred years from now.

DATE: 11/12/99

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