I was walking past a towering display of Da Vinci Code DVDs when I noticed a cover that seemed out of place. I looked again: it was Sleepless in Seattle, the venerable romantic comedy with a much younger Tom Hanks. But it wasn’t a mistake in shelving: Sleepless in Seattle was wrapped with a copy of The Da Vinci Code, so you could buy them both for just one inflated price.
This seems like good marketing to me. If you buy a good movie bundled with a bad movie, at least you get something for your money.
I might suggest the same marketing tactics with books. It seems to me that Random House could bundle The Da Vinci Code with a good book, so you’d have something to read when you bought it. I might suggest The Grail Code. It features some of the same cast of characters, and it tells a much more engrossing story in a much more entertaining way.
