Law of Cards Parody: Now, er…Instant, er…Immediate, er…PDQ Cards
In light of the industry's fervor over trading cards available only for 24 hours covering events that occurred within the last 24 hours, Law of Cards sat down with CEO Dewey Profit of the fictional Trading Card Company ("TCC") to discuss his future product plans.
(And yes, this is a parody.)
Law of Cards ("LoC"): Thank you, Mr. Profit, for your time today.
Dewey Profit ("DP"): No problem. But, before we begin, my attorney advised me that I should not use the words NOW or INSTANT in association with TCC's new product line because Topps and Panini might be accruing trademark rights in those words. So, to avoid those words, I brought this thesaurus.
On the flip side, I instructed my attorney to file trademarks on every synonym of NOW and INSTANT, so that other trading card companies won't be able to use those words to describe their…
…IMMEDIATE trading cards.
LoC: How overly competitive of you.
DP: Considering the other trading card companies already trademarked the words for just about every type of metal out there, I figured we'd corner the industry on time.
LoC: Along those lines, TCC decided to launch a NOW, INSTANT or IMMEDIATE-type product, correct?
DP: Yes. With the creation of limited-edition cards available 24 hours after the fact, all previous product types have been relegated to the past. What I think the industry will start calling "Eventually" cards…cards sold by trading card companies that eventually show up in stores and hobby shops. And by the time those products do, they're outdated. Players have played more, their stats have changed…and heck, some of the players have changed teams.
Topps Now really launched a trading card arms race. Cards based on events from the prior day? Sure, that's innovative, but what we liked more was the charging of $9.99 for a single base card. That's something we could get behind.
To jump on this cash cow, last week we launched our new product line TCC PDQ. TCC PDQ is innovative because we offer cards based on events that occur every 24 hours…and the PDQ cards are only available for 24 hours.
Most importantly, we charge $9.99 for each card.
LoC: That sounds a lot like the Topps Now business model.
DP: Oh, nonono. Instead of having a…
…SOON card that covers only sporting events, we're going to cover everything that occurred during the entire 24-hour period, on and off the field. And when we cover the sporting events themselves, we're not going for just gameplay…heck…we'll go for everything. Fights, streakers…you name it…we'll put it on our PDQ cards.
We chose this more controversial route because we believe Topps Now missed a huge opportunity. When Rougned Odor smacked Jose Bautista's sunglasses into the next time zone, that image should have been a Topps Now card. It was the most talked about event for that day in baseball…if not the whole month…but Topps played it safe probably so as to not tick of the MLBPA or MLB. If Topps had made that card, I bet it would have been the highest selling Topps Now card.
We didn't want to miss that opportunity. So, this week, when Machado and Ventura got into it, we made a PDQ card of it. And we're happy to say it sold almost 10,000 copies. And at $9.99 a card…well…yeah…we're pretty happy with that. And guess what? Again, no Topps Now card of the brawl.
We're kinda visionaries.
It's also what the collectors want: in-game shenanigans cards. Because really, how many "walk off" cards do collectors need? Especially in May and June? Or Trevor Story cards? Or cards of the Cubs covering random statistics?
Also, while NOW and INSTANT say they cover the previous 24 hours, really, they're confined to game time. We're truly 24 hours, covering athletes even when they are "off the clock."
LoC: Are you referring to your Aqib Talib card?
DP: Exactly. We believe we are the first trading card company to have offered a "GSW" trading card.
LoC: I'm sorry, GSW?
DP: Gunshot wound.
LoC: Ah. Should have figured that out.
DP: And since he should have a full recovery, no one got hurt making that groundbreaking card.
LoC: Except for Talib.
DP: In addition to being big fans of our customers' money…I mean, again…$9.99 for a single card…that's awesome…we're also First Amendment fans. And with streakers and because quite a few athletes party in strip clubs, we expect we'll launch the first R-Rated instan…uh…
…AT THE MOMENT cards. In fact, rumor has it that our creative guys have pictures of an NFL quarterback at a strip club last night on stage with three dancers while throwing money to the dancers and the crowd. We're going to call that card, "Making it Rain" and it'll be the first TCC PDQ NSFW card. We're just inventing-fiends over here!
LoC: Wow. Uh. Any future plans for TCC PDQ?
DP: To pass Topps and Panini in this…
…PROMPTLY arms race, we plan on launching TCC ASAP PDQ, where we offer cards of events that occurred within the previous hour, and then offer those cards only for an hour. That way, we'll potentially increase our profit by a factor of 24. I mean…provide the customers more of what they want. Yeah. That's what I meant.
And in the future, we'll likely launch a minute-by-minute card product called TCC RIGHT AWAY. That's going to be a tough one; the logistics on that are just crazy. But that's the future.
Speaking of the future, we also plan on launching TCC FUTURE, where we print out cards of events that happen 24 hours in the future. All we need to do is invent a time machine first…but…we're working on that.
LoC: Ok then…thank you, Mr. Profit, for your time.
DP: Did you say YOUR TIME? That's great. We'll have to trademark that one too.
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