Consumers : Sticker Shocker

Another warning has been added to labels reinforcing our abstinence, caution and social conscience--a credit card sticker to remind Christmas shoppers that overuse can be dangerous!

“We’re not grinches out to steal the spirit of gift-giving,” said Paul Richard of the National Center for Financial Education that is selling the labels. “We’re out to increase happiness because how enjoyable is Christmas for someone who has just gone into debt buying gifts for others?

“We want to make sure that everyone’s Christmas is paid for by Dec. 26, l988 . . . and not by Dec. 26, l990.”

It was Richard--director of education for the San Diego-based center, a nonprofit group dedicated to a financially healthy citizenry--who developed the sticker. And none more experienced than he, a recovered overspender and former bankrupt.

“We had been sitting around the office talking to a woman who wanted to buy a house,” he explained. “She said she’d never be able to afford a down payment as long as she was paying off her credit cards.”

Richard suggested a credit card label. It would ask her to think before buying. “What would be more important,” said Richard, “buying that particular item or saving that amount for a house of her own? She eventually got her house.”

Three weeks ago, Richard dusted off his idea to advance personal thrift over the holiday season and “we’re in our second printing of 6,000 labels with about 10,000 sold and distributed nationwide.”

With most credit card interest rates, fees and late payment penalties due to increase in January, he said, the stickers will have a usefulness way beyond Christmas. They could also negate that elderly saw about the tough going shopping when the going gets tough.

A string of seven labels costs $1 and may be obtained from the National Center for Financial Education, PO Box 34070, San Diego 92103. Orders should include a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Fish Shows the Way

Andrew Mancini--leader of a team of marketing luminaries at Eveready of St. Louis--has developed a toy that just might enshrine him alongside those thinkers who gave us Pet Rocks, Cabbage Patch Dolls and Slinky.

It’s a fish named Larry.

It’s a squeeze light trademarked Pocket Trout.

It’s a disposable rubber flashlight shaped like a chub but no bigger than a bluegill and suitable for illuminating the little things, from purse interiors to wine lists.

“It’s also just a funny, crazy, inexplicable, wonderful, whimsical, silly thing,” enthused Eveready spokesman David White. Not since the musical plumber’s helper, he agreed, has there been a parallel product. “We’ve just taken a very practical thing like a squeeze light, given it vibrant color and an imaginative name and made it fun to use.”

Within Eveready, the Pocket Trout has been a marketing inspiration.

Its packaging proclaims great moments in Pocket Trout history: “Dateline 1509--Michelangelo, frustrated by the poor lighting in the Sistine Chapel, worked tirelessly with a Pocket Trout in one hand and his brush in the other . . . “

There are instructions concerning care and feeding: “Although descended from the lantern fish and cousin to the electric eel, Pocket Trout are extremely embarrassed about their inability to swim and would drown if immersed in water . . . “

The rubber fish was first designed, said developer Mancini, as a pajama pocket flashlight alongside two other childrens’ toys--Dream Chasers and Beastie Beam, both projection lights.

Kids grabbed for the projection lights. They weren’t quite so turned on by Pocket Trout. But by then, said Mancini, the coolsters, the Sharper Image set, the Swatch watchers, had adopted Pocket Trout as the only way to illuminate the keyholes on their Volkswagen cabriolets.

About 500,000 Pocket Trouts are now eyeing customers from displays at Ralphs, Target, Spencer Gifts, Toys ‘R’ Us and other stores nationwide. They cost $5 and come in 36 colors without any fishy odor.

Rated by Concerns

Call it a Consumer’s Report for the socially concerned.

It’s a 128-page guide published by the Council of Economic Priorities that rates companies and products not by price or value but by the concerns they represent.

“Shopping for a Better World” evaluates 138 firms and 1,300 items by social criteria set by the council--including corporate advancement for women and minorities; their investments in South Africa; concerns for the environment; charitable giving; stands on animal testing and their acceptance of military contracts with emphasis on nuclear weaponry.

“While all of us have personal values that influence our shopping decisions, the guide helps us by presenting some clear choices,” said Alice Tepper Marlin, the council’s executive director and a co-author of the guide.

The booklet, for example, lauds one line of products because their producer offers its employees family benefit packages. On the other end of the scale, a pharmaceutical company is condemned for allowing animal testing without anesthesia.

How about this detergent? Well, that company doesn’t have any women on its board. What about this floor cleaner? Fine, because this company was the first to stop using chlorofluorocarbons.

The guide--with the National Organization for Women and Co-op America among its co-sponsors--costs $4.95 and is available from the Council on Economic Priorities, 30 Irving Place, New York, N.Y. 10003.

It is printed, naturally, on recycled paper.