The Goat at Saks and Other Marketing Tales

Lorne Manly in the New York Times Book Review:

Few children's books carry promotional blurbs from the likes of the fashion designers Roberto Cavalli, Giorgio Armani and Jean Paul Gaultier. But then "Cashmere if You Can," is not your typical children's book.

This new lavishly illustrated book from HarperCollins Publishers follows the misadventures of Wawa Hohhot and her family of Mongolian cashmere goats who just happen to live on the roof of Saks's Midtown Manhattan store.

The location is no accident: a Saks Fifth Avenue marketing executive came up with the idea, and the department store chain owns the text copyright. It is as if the Plaza Hotel had underwritten "Eloise: A Book for Precocious Grown-ups."

On sale now only in Saks stores, HarperCollins plans to distribute the $16.99 book nationwide in January as if it were any other children's picture book. And "Cashmere if You Can" has inspired HarperCollins, a unit of the News Corporation, to make a business out of these sorts of corporate collaborations.

More here.