Isn’t It Time to Swat That Stupid Millennium Bug?

Which is a more powerful influence on human behavior, marketing or science?

Based on the hoopla surrounding the forthcoming millennium, marketing is the runaway winner. Science and logic say the 21st century starts Jan. 1, 2001. The cash register says it begins Jan. 1, 2000.

A local furniture store blasts, “Pay no interest ’til the next millennium!” They clarify: It’s 2000. Can’t blame them for not wanting to wait an extra year to get paid (as so many direct marketing freelancers do).

So 2000 it is, with the totally valid assumption that as of Jan. 2, 2000, marketers will reset their calendars and point out that the real date is 2001, so let’s build a new sales program around next Jan. 1.

Anyway, the supernerd community has given us the semi-word “Y2K,” shorthand for year 2000. That’s when the old computers will bring us back to the kinder, gentler times of the year 1900, and the banks and government will work even slower than they do now. The sky is falling! Yeah, sure.

Some of the promotions are downright silly. Here’s a vase from the Irish porcelain company Belleek: The Millennium Vase, which the company says will be available only through the year 2000. Accompanying Belleek is the Wedgwood Millennium Teacup and Saucer, “In celebration of mankind’s achievements over the past three centuries since Wedgwood’s foundation.” Pretty thin, huh?

Have you heard about the Millennium Dome? It’s a gigantic billion-dollar stadium in England, squatting dead center on the Greenwich meridian, zero time zone. And why is it called the Millennium Dome? Probably because it’ll be another millennium before it pays for itself.

And of course, public speakers are tailoring the titles of their presentations to the millennium. If you look at various conferences and trade shows and association meetings you’ll find a slew of provocative titles-how the millennium will affect everything from credit cards to chess games.

A very respectable professional marketing conference, held in the United Kingdom but advertised heavily in the United States, added this main headline for 1998: “London Prepares for the Millennium.” Oddly, not one session title had the word “millennium.” It’s a hit-and-run headline, proving once again that hanging on to the tailgate of a tired idea is the only idea some ad-writers can command.

Oh, sure, why not cash in on the current craze? Princess Di is wearing thin (I think I’ll fume about that next issue), so it’s time for the next in line.

What both the doomsayers (in their mad quest for that Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame) and the promoters (in their mad quest for easy money) both overlook is that history moves in a linear direction, not cataclysmically. Remember George Orwell’s “1984”? That was a pivotal year, and we’re half a generation past it, with post-Watergate reporting obsoleting Big Brother brainwashing forever. Remember Arthur C. Clarke’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001”? At least they got the year right, but we aren’t about to have a space station on the moon and a manned launch to Jupiter. Anyway, the computer on that spaceship didn’t seem to have any problem crossing the year-2000 barrier.

Nor did Hal, the “2001” computer, have a lawyer to intervene, filing some sort of class action suit on behalf of the computer’s RAM. Sure enough, though, here’s the Inc. newsletter InBox, whose slogan is “Delivering Innovative Ideas for Building Your Business.” Here’s one of those innovative ideas, from a lawyer who (so help me!) is “founder of the Year 2000 Team at the San Francisco law firm of Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges”:

“If a business experiences disruption due to the Year-2000 related systems failures, it risks a serious risk of incurring liabilities to customers and third parties damaged by the business’s inability to fulfill contracts and other legal obligations…Current estimates are that only 20% of [small businesses] will be even partially ready in time.”

Two reactions: 1. Why single out the millennium for the possibility of a company not fulfilling its contrBAD