Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Donini/Beckett Love Affair Continues: How Far Does It Go?

So, Donini sent over another box to Beckett, again a week early. Im sure it was for all the "favors" to be named later, but this one gave us some indication of how deep the love affair really runs. Not only was it a week early, fresh from the factory, but it contained an auto that Donini has been publicizing non-stop since the Premiere last month.

They managed to "pull" (being a subjective term) a Percy Harvin School Colors fugly silver paint pen auto, which in itself isnt that big of a deal. The reason I am mentioning this is solely because of the sheer fuckload of marketing they have done on these cards. They have released digital galleries - twice - as well as provided extremely visible coverage from the premiere signing of the cards.

After seeing all of this marketing crap, I guessed that it was happening because when Donini releases an on card auto subset, its a holiday! No matter that they are fugly beyond belief, they are just happy to be a waiter at the on card auto dinner table, right?



Obviously, post-beckett break, its making a little more sense to me. Considering that Beckett was delivered a box with a top of the class auto from this set, we are now seeing the purpose of the Beckett box break. Its no longer about setting unrealistic expectations for the box breaks that are done by real collectors, but now its about pimping your ugly ass subsets to draw up needless buzz. My uncle, an emmy award winning writer, once said that hollywood only advertises early when its a dog, otherwise they let the stuff speak for itself - then blow it up. Here we clearly have the dog, being blown up as long ago as the fucking rookie premiere. Then you send a fresh box to Beckett with a "great" example of that target? Cmon, im not that dumb.

Im not even going to talk about the 2 patch cards they received in the same box, something that NEVER happens in boxes of Classics.

Lastly, on an unrelated note, Im happy that Donini has sort of solved their floating swatch problems, as some of the jersey cards look good. However, they majorly fucked up the base formula by editing out the field and replacing it with a weird ass brown background. Im not sure why, as I think the field is ABSOLUTELY necessary to do a picture it's due justice. Without it, you just have overdone photoshop abortions with no character.

9 comments:

  1. Damn, those are ugly.

    But I must say, despite my own dislike of Beckett, they only get boxes a week early because the box breaks help promote/advertise the new releases. Not saying that any of the other BS that happens is okay, but that one detail isn't the problem.

    If anything, I suggest you, Gellman, contact the PR people at the card companies. What you're doing with this blog is providing card buyers a place for new release card reviews. There's no reason you shouldn't be getting boxes to bust for a videos. Show them the number of hits you get each day, and it's a no brainer (just don't expect as many lucky breaks as Beckett). Writing reviews and promoting a hobby is job, even if you're doing it for fun, and getting actual cards to bust should be an opportunity to expand your site even more.

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  2. I have been offered tons of boxes to break and review, but none of them would be the ones that my friends buy in local shops. Each wednesday I go and watch some breaks of the new stuff, and do my reviews that way and through eBay. No reason to compromise the intent of the blog for free cards.

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  3. I don't like that design at ALL, especially the huge cursive writing straight thru the middle of the card..

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  4. At the very least, these cards aren't quite exactly the same as last year's. Close, yeah. They've got a bigger design deviation than any previous 09 Donruss stuff though.

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  5. Oh, I'd suggest giving away the cards as incentive to view the video, but yeah, I hear ya. Not suggesting anything underhanded.

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  6. You definitely have a point there, I agree.

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  7. AT least they didn't get loaded boxes LOL.. Only your buddy Greg at UD does that

    -wheeler281

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