Maybe Ginger hasn't snapped

Remember, you read it hear first - The Spice Girls "Friendship Never Ends" World Reunion Tour.
 
Now I realize it may be jumping the gun a bit to predict the reunification of the five Spice Girls less than 48 hours after they officially split up on Sunday with the announcement by Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) that she had quit.
 
But what better marketing strategy could there be for the most successful female pop singing group on the planet since the Supremes?
 
Make no mistake, when your 11-year-old daughter hears the bad news Sunday morning on radio, and is on the phone within 30 seconds of said news to discuss the implications with her best friend - a scene repeated in millions of homes around the world - we are talking about a major selling opportunity.
 
Consider the possibilities.
 
Split up now, reunite a few months later - think of what this example of "Girl Power" would do for future tour and record sales considering that, even without any controversy, tickets for the Spice Girls' July 11 Toronto concert at the Molson Amphitheatre, part of their upcoming North American tour, sold out in 30 minutes.
 
The Spice Girls, remember, are the ultimate '90s marketing phenomenon - created in 1993 after answering an advertisement in a trade paper for singers and dancers to form a new pop group, much as the Monkees were created by television executives in the 1960s to cash in on the rising popularity of the Beatles.
 
I suspect our own Jane Stevenson may have let the cat out of the bag all the way back on Jan. 18, in what now seems her eerily prescient report on a Spice Girls' press conference in New York promoting the release of their first film, Spice World.
 
Titled: "Losing their flavor? - Super-sensation Spice Girls say their 15 minutes of fame are almost up," Stevenson led with how Ginger Spice herself - considered the intellectual force behind the group as well as being the only one who has posed nude - addressed the issue of how much more time in the limelight the Spice Girls thought they had.
 
"We're at 14 (minutes)!," she said. "Let's go to 15 and a half.
 
"Even it it ended tomorrow (aha!), I feel bloody proud of my four friends that (we) have got this far. I think that's an achievement in itself to be able to do what we've done. It's fantastic. So who cares whether it's 15 minutes or whether it's two?"
 
See? The seeds of Sunday's breakup were already being sown last January, back when the rumor was that Mel C. (Sporty Spice) was about to leave the group to pursue a solo career.
 
THAT'S NO COINCIDENCE
 
Instead, less than six months later, Ginger, who was already talking back then about the Spice Girls having almost used up their 15 minutes of fame, now says she's leaving? Coincidence, you say? I think not. The Spice Girls are merely re-inventing themselves.
 
Need more evidence? Go back to the lyrics of the Spice Girls' first megahit, Wannabe, with its repeated reminder in the chorus about the importance of friendship that eventually became the group's anthem. To wit: "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends, make it last forever, friendship never ends." (My italics.)
 
Another co-incidence, you say? Pshaw!
 
Everyone knows the Spice Girls' core fans are pre-pubescent girls. Well, at that age, don't little girls often have fights with their best friends and later make up?
 
Clearly the Spice Girls - marketers extraordinaire - are merely playing out this script to their target demographic group using the world as their stage in a classic storyline of youth.
 
That is, young heroines take the world by storm, dress up in gaudy clothes, sing and dance in front of millions of fans (every young girl's dream), get rich, have a public falling out, break apart and, in the final chapter yet to written, reunite and live happily ever after.
 
Think of the catharsis! Think of the angst! Think of the record sales!
 
Anyway, either I have this whole Spice Girls thing figured out, or, as the Sun's Paul Cantin dryly observed yesterday: "If Ginger leaves, what's going to happen to Mary Ann and the Professor?"
 
Oh, great. Something new to worry about.