Patrick Rhone recently paid a visit to the State St. store in Chicago, discovering the existence of the Circa sample bars. As previously discussed, these are workstations where employees work with customers to build completely custom notebooks as free samples. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The obvious implication of handing a free custom notebook to a curious customer is the increased probability that customer will ‘get hooked’ on the product.
Nonetheless, I am still thoroughly amused with the diction Patrick used, taking this analogy to the next level when calling the sample,
The store was stocked with, from what I could tell, the full catalog of Levenger goodness. The staff was amazingly knowledgeable and helpful. They even had a table where they helped you build a free Circa notebook. You could choose which page types, ring colors and add ons you wanted in it. Obviously this is simply a gateway drug to get you hooked on the product (as I already am) but it sure was effective. I built one in the Junior size (half letter size) with a nice mix of gridded pages, cornell style pages, some daily agenda pages and a pocket in the back.
