A couple would buy a Swatch watch. And a couple would go eat some shrimp. And Carnival became a multibillion-dollar company. We have the opportunity to become the Carnival Cruise Lines of this environment.
Predictor: Leonsis, Ted
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Mark Nollinger interviews Ted Leonsis of America Online: ”To the naysayers who persist in believing that the world is full of intrepid adventurers just itching to climb the mountains of cyberspace on their own, Leonsis has a final story about human nature. As he relates it, the cruise-ship business was once fragmented into hundreds of tiny little companies. Then a guy named Ted Arison came along and discovered that what excited people the most about cruises was the idea of sailing to exotic foreign lands. So Arison started Carnival Cruise Lines. For a few hundred dollars, Carnival gave passengers a nice berth and all the food they could eat, and sent them off on a journey with people like themselves. And when they arrived at that exotic foreign land, what did they do? ‘Well, half of them would run to the Hard Rock Cafe,’ Leonsis says with glee. ‘A couple would buy a Swatch watch. And a couple would go eat some shrimp. And Carnival became a multibillion-dollar company.’ Then he delivers the punch line: ‘We have the opportunity to become the Carnival Cruise Lines of this environment.’ It’s the path of least resistance. It’s the shopping mall, the packaged tour, the fast-food joint, the all-in-one deal. It’s all those contemporary mass-market phenomena that leave elitists shaking their heads in wonder. It’s the desire to be comfortable, safe, and warm. It’s the thing you know. It’s America, Online!”
Date of prediction: September 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/aol_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry