Tag Archives: marketing - Page 4

A Thousand Years and We’re Still Doing It

Posted by on August 5, 2012 No comments

Back in the dark ages and possibly before, there has been class struggle. And the ones with the most money have the least care for the ones with the least money. And over time, as we socially evolved, our least-wealthy have experienced a growth in standards.

Back in those olden days, it was common to use your money and/or power to make the desperate do things they normally wouldn’t do. They could do it for their own amusement, or they could simply exploit them for gain, possibly through a sideshow event.  People would be attracted to these exhibitions.

So centuries go by, people get more refined, society as a whole gets better.  You’d think we’d be beyond this whole exploitation thing.

Then you see it in action in the current age.  What am I referring to?  Sign holders.  Those people who stand by the side of a road and hold a sign, usually for a “going out of business” sale, but could be for most anything, even construction workers.  I’m not referring to sign “flippers” who would be demonstrating talent – they would be more marketing or salesman types.  I‘m talking about the sad people who you know wouldn’t choose to be doing such a boring, mindless job.

And although it sounds damning against the businesses who resort to this tactic, hiring temporary employees at a minimal wage to simply stand there and do nothing but hold a sign, it’s more of a revelation to know that it really does work.  We do look at those people and those signs.  If the sign was not there, it could easily be ignored, but because there’s a person there, we check.  is it a safety thing, making sure they don’t run out in front of our car?  Is it just curiosity, “What’s that person doing?” Or is it something else like pity or sympathy?

Think about that marketing concept for a while.  A sign alone does nothing; a person standing next to a sign gives results.  The person doesn’t have to do anything, just be there.  You are paying a person to exist.  As a business decision, it is cheaper to hire people to do nothing than to spend on more/better advertising.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that some people don’t see people as being that valuable.

Stop The Insanity

Posted by on June 15, 2012 No comments

Driving to work today, I saw a truck with a silly caricature on the back.  The side read “Mad Man Mack Furniture” with something about low prices.  It made me start thinking about marketing.

America has an entire marketing concept based around a business owner or manager mispricing product due to some sort of mental illness (aka Our prices are INSANE! or Crazy Joe’s Furniture).  It’s hard to say when this idea started.  Maybe a bunch of customers asked a shop owner how his prices were so low and he just started saying he was crazy.  Just having fun, sure.  But at what point did someone decide it was a good thing to promote that they were crazy, even if fictionally? 

We all play along and think it’s fun to go to a place that is supposedly run by a crazy person, but think of the reality. Why do we promote taking advantage of the mentally ill for our personal benefit?  Picture an actual mentally ill person opening a store.  You’ll find TV’s for $100 and candy for $2000.  Why?  Because the owner has no common sense, let alone business sense!  Things are priced by the value they have to him.  He likes candy and doesn’t really want to part with it, but TVs don’t mean anything to him.

Now,obviously a business like this would go bankrupt in a month, but imagine how it would play out.  First you would have the people buying things quietly, because they don’t want to the owner to know he’s losing so much money.  Why should they care about someone who is incapable of setting proper prices?  Then word gets out and you have the masses stampeding the store grabbing anything they can, like Black Friday on cocaine.  Why should they care about the owner?  they don’t care about anyone but themselves.

It’s a sad and sickening scene, nothing like going to a normal discounter like Bob’s Crazy Dealhouse.  Shouldn’t we be better than trying to convince buyers that we’re better because we’re crazy?

Inflation Hurts The Poor The Most

Posted by on January 25, 2012 No comments

It’s true, isn’t it?  It’s all about percentages.  When you typically spend $1000 in gas a year and that cost goes to $2000, that’s a much more significant impact on someone making $18,000/year vs. someone making $60,000/year vs. people making six figures.  So imagine how shocked I was when I bought lottery tickets at the store and the price had doubled.

“I’ll take 5 for tonight’s Powerball”

“Sure, that’ll be $10.”

The first thing I thought was that she rang up power play tickets.  Nope, the cost of lottery just went up.  Most state lotteries are pretty transparent – they will show where the money is being spent.  I wasn’t able to easily find any information about how Powerball proceeds are divvied up.  It’s probably just as well not to know; the obvious thing is they need more operating money, so they changed the odds to withhold more money for themselves.

The most ironic thing I find about lotteries is their fairness.  The odds are SO high that it can be nothing but luck to win.  There’s no way an obscenely rich person could leverage their money to ensure a win.  A millionaire and a bum have an equal chance of winning with a $1 ticket.  Excuse me, a $2 ticket.  And that’s where I’m a little irked.  Putting aside the obvious cases where people overspend on lottery and treat it less like gaming and more like a religion – in that they make an offering and hope the god of chance accepts their offering and blesses them with riches. But I digress.  Aside from those cases, this is simply a higher barrier to entry. 

A hypothetical family may just pick up 5 or 10 tickets a week – like me, a casual gamer.  That cost of entertainment just doubled.  That impact is going to be felt much stronger by someone who doesn’t have as large of an entertainment fund.  Now, the person who has more disposable income can shrug off the increase, while other people may have to reduce the number of tickets they buy to meet their budget.  Now, the rich person has a higher chance of winning.

Now, the most shameful part of this “improvement” is how the change is being marketed. “Bigger!” “More!” “Better!”  There is no value to any of it.  What are these incredible changes?

  • Starting jackpot goes from $20M to $40M.  Well, of course.  The ticket price doubled.
  • 2nd prize goes from $200K to $1M.  It’s the exact same thing you used to get when you spent the extra dollar in the old version. Now you just don’t have that option.
  • Powerball-only prize goes from $3 to $4. The most insulting change of all. Your winnings go from 300% to 200%.
  • Odds to win Jackpot goes from 1:195M to 1:175M.  This is still so high as to be irrelevant.  Someone is going to win eventually.  It may be you, it may be someone else.
  • Overall odds goes from 1:35.1 to 1:31.8. So before, you could theoretically win something if you spent $36. Now, you can theoretically win something if you spend $64. This is key.  If you happen to get one Powerball-only win in all those plays in the old game, you have lost $33.  In the new game, you have lost $60.

It’s been said to death that lottery is for the mathematically challenged, which is untrue.  I might be inclined to believe it’s for people who can’t grasp the concept of huge numbers.  I have no problem with the odds.  I do have a problem when companies try to market less as more.  In summary, the new Powerball has better odds at winning less, while costing more to play.

Making It On Your Own After You’ve Made It

Posted by on January 12, 2012 No comments

I saw a posting online about a comedian who produced his own show and distributed it himself. I guess it was supposed to be some amazing feat because he made something like a million dollars, but only invested a couple hundred thousand and only charged customers five bucks.  And I think there was something extra about the rights on the product, which were far less restrictive than normal.

So from this, people will jump to a few conclusions.  Marketing companies are greedy, middlemen are bad, and everyone should be doing this.  Some people can point to cases where this has been done before, like Radiohead.  Why aren’t there more people doing this?

The thing is, a lot of people are doing this.  Most everyone that’s trying to get started in the entertainment business is doing this.  Find a local musician and ask if they have a CD of their original music for sale.  I’ll bet they do.  Find a budding author and ask if they have any self-published digital eBooks on Amazon.

What’s the difference?  First, it’s economy of scale.  When someone famous cuts out the middleman, they are able to make more and the customer saves more because of the volume.  Actually, after you make back your production costs, you could give the product away, especially when dealing with digital products.  So this famous comedian sells 200,000 copies of his video.  Is your local musician or author going to sell 200,000 copies of their product?  Not so likely.

Secondly, it’s a perception of value.  When you have a famous person selling something for cheap, it’s viewed with high value.  When an unknown person sells something for cheap, it’s seen as having no value.  When an unknown person sells something for a high price, it gets mixed results, it may be seen as valuable or as unrealistic.  So, the local artists have an immediate hurdle to overcome.

Does that mean it’s a case of either “paying your dues” or getting your big break?  For every success, there are countless failures.  Not everyone can be a superstar.  Does it also prove out another aspect of “the rich get richer”, where they have the luxury of cutting out the middleman and can operate on their own, where lesser people have to rely on expensive assistance to accomplish the same goals.

The Carpet Bomber vs The Sniper

Posted by on January 11, 2012 No comments

I got a job posting from LinkedIn today.

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The thing is, my LinkedIn profile clearly shows that I am currently employed, that I am a computer programming expert, and that I have been doing that profession for 15 years.  Yet somehow, someone seems to feel that I am an excellent candidate for a part-time clerk position.

One question that comes to mind is, “You can’t just walk out on the street and ask 10 people if they need a job?”  Unemployment is SO high right now and you’re emailing me?

But I think the truth is, it doesn’t matter.  They don’t care.  Like someone deciding between utilizing bombers and snipers and thinking, “Either one still kills ‘em, right?”  One just has more innocents in the way.  But all’s fair in love, war, and commission-based employment.

In years past, I heard many pitches about “more targeted results”, “better leads”, “reduce your effort and increase success”.  It doesn’t seem that these goals are desired any more.  When it takes as much effort to email one as it does a million, why wouldn’t you go for the bigger pool?  And honestly, you have the side benefit of any one of those people spreading the word for you.  It sounds like a no-lose proposition.

So where is the downside?  Well, for me, this isn’t the only case of employment-services stupidity I’ve had.  I’ve had multiple solicitations even calling me at my desk at my current employer.  I don’t forget this.  When the time comes that I need their services, they will not be on the list of companies I deal with.

Ok, so they’ve lost the business of one person.  No big deal, I’m just collateral damage.

Upgrade Your Misery Today!

Posted by on December 29, 2011 1 comment

Here’s the banner for an email I recently got:

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Quicken and WillMaker.  Two products that go so well together.  One makes you want to die and the other helps you be prepared for that moment.  It all works together: Customer Service (I want to kill myself), “put your life on hold”, 2012, Quicken.

You couldn’t ask for a more cohesive piece of marketing.

And this is pretty good as well.  The point of the email is “Improved Customer Service is Now FREE2”, with the footnote “Valid for 2012 Quicken customers only and available for a limited time; subject to change without notice.”  So, what I gather from this is: Quicken used to charge for good customer service, but now they are doing what they should always have been doing. They won’t do it forever, though.  They won’t tell you when they’re going to go back to the same old crappy customer service (it’ll just kinda start happening), and you still have to pay for it by buying the 2012 version.  In other words, business has dropped off and no one is calling our support lines because they either have left us or have learned to deal with the existing bugs in Quicken.  That means our support staff can help you better until enough people buy the 2012 version and swamp us with new bug reports.

And they are still pretty much the only game in town.

Going Above and Beyond

Posted by on April 21, 2010 No comments

A couple of days ago I bought a piece of jewelry to extend a bracelet, since my wrist was between link sizes – one link either made the bracelet spin freely or cut off circulation.  So I purchased a small extender, $8 after shipping.  It arrived today.

This is how it was packaged:

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Nice and fancy.  That kind of stuff is lost on me.  But that’s not the end of it.

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So, a bracelet link in a poly bag, in a mesh bag, in a poly bag, in a shipping box, wrapped in the shipping invoice, wrapped in tissue paper and shredded packing paper, in a plastic shipping envelope.

Now that’s how it’s done.  That’s http://chainextenders.com for everyone that insists in having their jewelry treated like gold – even if it’s not.

Cannibal Toast Crunch

Posted by on June 29, 2009 No comments

And this past weekend I’m having lunch at a restaurant and see a commercial for Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  A couple of pieces floating in the milk, then a third piece swims around like a shark fin.  The first piece gets sucked under the surface, then the second piece frantically tries to swim away and gets pulled below.  The third piece surfaces and licks his lips.

I think I get it.  The message is that the cereal is so good it eats itself.  Cute.  Then my imagination kicked in, which never ends well.  I only wish I had the artistic skills to realize my visions.  That really would not end well.

So, cue the eerie music on a scene of a gingerbread house in the woods.  As it slowly pans in, you hear frantic, gasping breaths and some struggling.  Cut to a close scene of a Teddy Grahams bear tied to a decrepit examination table.  Pull back to see another Teddy Graham bear standing aside wearing a dirty, stained smock.  A makeshift nametag crookedly hanging on the smock reads “Dr. Ted”.

0b211a5b93b04d0eea3ad740ea927ac8Dr. Ted passes his hand over an assortment of sharp and pointy implements and settles on what seems to be a bone saw.  He takes the tool, places it at the wrist of the restrained bear and slowly begins sawing.  The victim screams and struggles in vain.  No blood.  They’re cookies, for god’s sake!  Ok, maybe a close-up scene of some crumbs falling to the floor and the screaming and sawing continues.

The paw has now been separated and Dr. Ted holds it up.  The victim is in shock, staring at his own sawn-off paw.  He (or she.  A female would be so much more dramatic.) musters enough strength to scream “Why are you doing this?”

Dr. Ted pauses for a second and stares blankly – as only Teddy Grahams can do.  Then a distorted smile stretches his face and he replies softly, “Because you taste…so…good.”  At which point he takes a savoring bite of the amputated cookie.  “Mmmm.”

Fade to black, then flip on a weak hanging light, flickering, showing an excessively shadowed box of Teddy Grahams seemingly trapped in a corner.  Maybe the box will shiver a little.  I don’t know.

I suppose a lot of people wouldn’t appreciate my sense of humor.  Maybe it was because I was in a crappy mood because I got supremely drenched on the bike on the way to lunch.  Nothing catches people attention in a restaurant like a person soaked from head to toe (except I wear a helmet so my head was dry).  Ride bike=get wet.  I wonder if I should be renting myself out to some drought-stricken communities.  As long as I keep my mouth shut, I suppose I’d be fine.

Important Information Enclosed

Posted by on July 18, 2008 No comments

Got one of the common letters in the mail, "Important Information Enclosed: Privacy Notification".  Now why is it when I see one of these, the first thing I think of is "Important Information Enclosed: We are reducing your level of privacy".  Would I ever see a privacy policy change that is actually more restrictive?  Here’s a quick summary of the privacy policy I got:

  • Is my information shared within your family of companies?  YES.
  • Is my information shared with financial companies outside your family of companies? YES.
  • Is my information shared with non-financial companies outside your family of companies?  YES.

Well, that covers just about everyone.  I guess there’s no privileged information anymore.  Wait, there’s one more.

  • Is my information shared in any other ways?  YES.

Oh, ok.  The notice provides some examples of some ways they would share info, but the only thing that limits this is the phrase "as required or permitted by law".  Well, that covers just about everything.  In fact, this phrase is in the notice: "even if you tell us not to share, we may do so as required or permitted by law."  So technically, if law permits it, we’ll share your info regardless of what you tell us.  Another little twist is that your choice of what to exclude is limiting. Think "You are being attacked by three monsters and you have one bullet.  Which one do you want to shoot?  Remember, even if you kill one, it may reanimate and attack you again, as required or permitted by law."  That’s what you get.

I haven’t ever been a big privacy nut.  I don’t really do anything that I think anyone cares about.  And if I do things and am included in an aggregate, I care even less.  But this is about garbage.  Garbage sent to my home, garbage in my email (that’s a hopeless cause anyway), and uninvited phone calls.  My use of a company’s services makes my personal information their property that they can sell at will.  I wonder when this happened.

This kind of crap extends to virtual businesses.  How is an Internet site valued when it provides a free service?  By the number of users it has.  With a quick sale, a change of ownership and a flip of a switch, all those users can be bombarded with advertising.  The thought that we are being farmed, bred, or fed for eventual sale and slaughter is pretty sickening.

One last note.  The formal letter introducing the privacy policy has the incredulous statement: "Your privacy concerns are important to us, and protecting your personal information is one of our top priorities."  An absolute lie if I’ve ever seen one.

Random thoughts

Posted by on May 9, 2008 No comments

It’s a little late and I’m a little light-headed and headachy from primer fumes in the room getting painted next to mine, so I thought I’d type out a random grab bag of thoughts.

Capital One wants me to go paperless with my statements.  That would work for me since I do everything electronically in Money, but what about the people that would print out their statements each month from the online site?  That doesn’t help anything.  I think Capital One should reduce the paper ads they put in their statements and double-side their statements.  That would cut paper usage more than half right there.

I was thinking one day about a borderline neurosis I had growing up.  Thanks to my short attention span, it never really developed.  I used to anthropomorphize everything.  I used to imagine chairs clamoring to have me sit in them, and the rest would be disappointed.  Some items I owned would be proud that they have served me so well, and others would be sad that I don’t use them enough.  I’m sure some psychologist would say I had some disorder that I couldn’t accept the fact that it’s impossible to please everyone.  Then I would get drugs – that’s a given anymore.

One of the creepiest and most disturbing thoughts that I thought up in my youth and still have to force myself to not think about is:  No one really knows what happens when you die.  What if you are just trapped in your body?  Not so bad for humans – you die, you get put in a box and you rest until you decompose and you disappear.  But what about animals, specifically roadkill?  You get hit with a car and die.  Then someone else runs over you and you feel the impact again.  And again, and again.  Slowly, you start to disintegrate and the pain becomes less with each passing car.  Finally, you are not much more than a spot and you begin to decompose and disappear.  Physiologically, I guess that’s not possible since the nerves couldn’t transmit the sensations to the brain, still it’s a morbid thought.

I’m bugged by Circle K’s new ads with the line, "Gotta buck?  Get a snack."  I don’t have any problem at all with informal speech in ad copy, but if you’re going to do it, it needs to be correct.  "Gotta" is not short for "Have a", it’s short for "Have got to".  Idiots.

My previous complaint about Mercedes radio ads has been continued with a Lincoln ad.  I guess the dealerships are owned by the same person, or the marketing company got both as accounts.  More pompous people talking about how other people think their car (and I guess the owner by extension) is so great.  I really don’t think the customer testimonial idea is so great.  Maybe it is, though, and I’m just not their target market.  Thank god for that.