I often ask myself where I'll be in five years. And, every time, I realize the answer is simple: In my parents' basement sending inappropriate and sexually suggestive e-mails to companies, hoping that they'll send me free stuff for entertaining their customer service employee. My most recent misadventure with a company came after I thought up a brilliant, albeit highly inappropriate idea for Penn Tennis. My first e-mail to them looked something exactly like this:
Hello Penn Associates (or Pen Asses, if you prefer),
I've been a loyal Penn tennis ball user ever since I first picked up a tennis racket. For my money, nothing is better than hearing the pop of a newly opened Penn tennis ball can. However, I think you've only hit the tip of the iceberg in terms of Penn tennis ball potential. Or maybe the shaft of the racket in terms of potential, if you'd prefer a tennis analogy, heh.
I think it is time for Penn Racquet Sports to release the Penn 15 tennis ball. The Penn line has been phenomenal, but it's really time to upgrade. Sure, your Penn Pro, Penn Radical and the Penn Titanium have all been fantastic, but regular players and hardcore tennis pros alike need a ball they can rally around. Instead of just releasing some simple Penn 5 or Penn 6, I suggest you go straight to the Penn15.
I've already got some great taglines for the Penn15 Tennis Ball line. For example: ""Penn15: the hardest one you'll hit!"" Or how about this one: ""Can you handle the Penn15?"" It could even be made into a contest, with each person trying to take a Penn15 as deep as possible on the tennis court. Depending on how we market this, male tennis players might feel inferior if they aren't playing with Penn15 balls.
We could even see if we could get the Williams sisters to endorse the Penn15 tennis balls for us. But I've got a twist—we dress a Penn15 up in female drag and call it ""Penn15 Williams,"" another one of the Williams sisters, who also happens to be a tennis prodigy. It will be kind of like Lil' Penny, that crazy little puppet who followed Penny Hardaway around in those commercials.
As for design, I really want the Penn15 to be primarily a hard-court ball that really pops off of the court. I really want tennis players, especially females, to be able to stroke it well off of the initial bounce. On a serve, I want the receiver to really feel the force of the Penn15 all through his/her body on contact. However, I don't want the Penn15 to cause too much vibration through the shaft of the racket, otherwise the player may lose his/her grip.
I'm excited for our future partnership on the Penn15, and I eagerly await your response!
Hopefully I'll be whacking my Penn15 all over the court in celebration!
Your partner in Penn15,
Jon Spike
Generally, one of three things will happen when a company receives one of my playful ideas: They send a stock reply that was clearly pre-written and does nothing to acknowledge my idea and its ridiculousness, they actually reply and play along with my foolish ploy, or I receive no e-mail and a cease and desist warrant. Luckily, Penn Tennis chose simply to ignore me. However, I am not so easily defeated. I quickly developed a follow-up e-mail to really sell my idea:
Hello Penn Associates,
I sent you my groundbreaking idea last week about the Penn15 Tennis Ball line, but I think you may have accidentally deleted the original message. Either that, or you are too busy mass-producing the Penn15 Tennis Balls and coming up with a makeshift marketing plan to respond to my e-mail. Either way, I figured I'd resend my idea just to be safe.
In addition, I've come up with some more genius ideas for the Penn15 Tennis Ball. Have we considered locking down some serious male Pro Tennis talent in order to make the Penn15 huge? Picture this: We get Roger Federer to hold his Penn15 in his hand and explain just how much his Penn15 enhances his game - both on and off the court! We could also give our Penn15 commercials a humorous twist: Roger Federer walks into a sauna with a bunch of other male tennis stars holding his Penn15 in one hand and keeping his towel up with the other. He accidentally drops both, and the other tennis pros immediately get up and leave, clearly intimidated by his Penn15. Funny and informative!
I know what you're thinking—does this guy ever stop thinking about the Penn15? Well, the short answer is yes, yes I do. I've actually been thinking about a few advertising strategies that you as a company could use. How about a company tagline such as this: ""Penn is... the ball you'll stroke!"" You could play off of the phrase ""Penn is..."" in so many ways! ""Penn is... a hard ball to beat!"" ""Penn is... what everyone loves to stroke!"" I could go on and on with this tagline, as you can see.
I really hope you take my business proposal seriously. I'd hate for you to kick yourself later when you see the Wilson15 or the Dunlop15 bouncing around on tennis courts all over the world and have to think, ""Wow, those could have been our Penn15es being knocked around and loved by all."" Don't let this once-in-a-lifetime Penn15 get away!
Rubbing his Penn15 in anticipation,
Jon Spike
I'll let you, the unbiased readers, decide. The Penn15: Does the idea have legs (perhaps balls?), or am I wasting my time? If you think the former, then I guess I'll have to outgrow my penchant for creating penultimate ideas such as this pensive offer to Penn. Ah well. A man can dream... A man can dream.
Is this by far Jon's worst pun-laden article yet? Are you ready to pun-ch him in the face? Does he put the p.u. in pun? Let him know at spike@wisc.edu.
