To solve a mystery — That thunking sound referenced in our Facebook post earlier in the week came from Restoration Hardware’s bundle of 13 source books which they claim add up to a “significantly reduced impact on the environment.”
RH’s Source Book Package
We say, “hummm….”
With 2-Layers of Plastic Peeled Off.
They certainly have gone out of their way to shout about how environmentally committed they are. The flip side of the cover had the three steps RH has taken “to be more responsible stewards of the planet.”
RH’s “Commitment”
We know, based on social media, that most people never got to this page. The 17-pound package went straight to recycle. And, from what we heard, a lot of these “thunk-dumps” happened because the recipients had not opted in to receive these source books. Say what? What list were they using for their mailing labels? Could they have messed up big time? Or, more likely, they figured the buzz would get a moribund business back on the top of mind. Hard to say.
AWSI, RH missed a golden opportunity and it has to do with this…
Okay, say you were really serious about these being annual source books that you want people to hang onto — look at the size of that stack?
Stacked Source Books Up-Close.
Where would one store this many source books? In a drawer? In a box? Stacked on a book shelf? If the latter, how would they be positioned? Standing up or laying down?
Good ponderables, right?
Just for fun, we jumped on the RH website and typed in the word magazine to see what popped up.
Magazine Search Yields This.
That was after a search for “source book holder” turned up a subscribe to the source book page. Say what again??
RH’s Source Book “Subscribe to” Page
And, by the way, that page offers you to an option to download an app or view it online. Seriously?
I don’t know about you, but our experience with heavy-duty “keeper” magazines (think “Lucky Peach” or “Food & Wine” or “Sunset”), is that they don’t stand well. They curl up and that kind of ruins them.
So why didn’t RH create some kind of customized keeper / holder for those fine, environmentally correct source books? And if they really wanted to extend the theme, the “keeper/holder” could be made from recycled material, right?
So yeah — snooze lose for RH.
BTW. We checked into bookends as an option.
The Bookend Search Results.
Not really an option. So right now, they are spread on a ginormous coffee table.
Coffee Table Full of Source Books.
We look forward to delving further into the source books for ideas. And we will also try out the app and online versions. They got us curious, which is a good thing. But as far as we are concerned, they blew this opportunity on a number of levels.
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