Krispin of Krispin Cars struggled to get people to use his self-driving taxis. He decided to get Louis Sideways, founder of Sideways Marketing, to pitch a few ideas so people would take rides in the driverless vehicles.
“First idea, naptime,” Sideways said as the two sat down with a list of ideas. “You know those toddlers that only seem to sleep in the back of a car. You put your infant in the back of a Krispin car, and it drives the kid around so that he dozes off for a nice nap.”
“Shouldn’t the parent be in the car?” Krispin asked.
“But the parent could just drive,” Sideways said. “We’re trying to figure out things the car can do for you.”
“Well, what’s around the block mode?” Krispin asked.
“If there’s something you’re avoiding at your house, like your wife’s book club or your father-in-law, just put the car in around-the-block mode. The car can keep looping your house until the annoying people leave.”
“Won’t it look weird to see a Krispin Car circling the block?”
“Well,” Sideways said. “I think your cars should also have disguise mode. What if it changed colors every time it looped?”
“That seems hard,” Krispin said.
“Another idea,” Sideways continued. “Date mode. For the bachelor that is too busy to clean his apartment. Have a whole date in the car. You can go to a drive-thru to pick up dinner and then cruise around the city getting to know your prospective partner.”
“That sounds like it could get messy fast,” Krispin said. “You’d probably also need to have breakup mode.”
Sideways took out a pen and crossed out breakup mode from the list of options. “On the flip side of the relationship pool, Phil Mickelson mode.”
“The golfer?” Krispin asked. “You want to play golf in the car?”
“No, Phil Mickelson’s wife was tracking his location, so he started hiding his phone in random people’s golf carts so it looked to his wife like he was playing golf. So in this mode, you’d let someone put their phone in a car, and then the car would drive around. That way, whoever is tracking their location won’t know where they really are.”
“That has to be your most ridiculous idea.”
“No, it’s not,” Sideways said. “That would be parade mode. Grab your friends and get some cars, and you can get your Krispins to line up and do a mini parade. Any street, any time. Just wave at people through the sunroof.”