The closest I ever got to suing someone for false advertising was when I bought a snack pack of "apples and granola with almonds" last week. What really pissed me off is that they used the word "almonds" in the plural. there was LESS THAN ONE ALMOND in the package. I counted three shaves, together making up less than half of one almond! I still maintain that you can probably find demons in the 9th level of Dante's Inferno that are less evil than the guy who came up with this snack pack...
Another time I bought a block of "Swiss cheese" at Safeway, complete with the holes that you'd expect in authentic Swiss cheese. Once I unwrapped the plastic packaging at home, I found that the bastards sandwiched a block of solid cheese between two thin slices of hole-punched cheese.
My problem with marketing people is that they're not really interested in the truth, just in sales.
Which naturally leads to the following question: "What if the best way to make a sale doesn't involve telling the truth?" ask yourself that, and you might quickly arrive at the same conclusion as me.... marketing people need to be kept on a nice, tight leash!
I had talked about marketing gems before in an open letter to marketing guys... ever since, I have been living my life with an eye on marketing bullshit. And boy is there a lot of that around.
For those of you who enjoyed my last batch, I have worked out a whole new list. So, unless you're in marketing, enjoy!
Dear Mr. Marketing guy:
1. Whatever it is you're trying to sell me, if you repeat its name in a commercial more than 3 times, I'm not buying it!
If you want me to remember its name, call it something catchy, original, memorable! resorting to grade-6, "are we there yet?" tactics is just not going to work on me. I'm going to remember it alright, just be sure I'll NEVER buy it!
2. If you're going to tell me about an "award" your car won, consider wiping your butt with the cost of the ad campaign instead!
EVERY SINGLE model of EVERY SINGLE car ever had won some obscure award or another. I'm half convinced that there's a black market out there where mediocre magazines pawn off their crappy awards to the highest bidder. And I'm not even a conspiracy theorist! So if you're about to tell me how your 2010 Kia Sorento won the "Most Not Too Shabby Kia Sorento of 2010 Award", please, save me...
3. If you're planning to hire Shakeel O'neill to vouch for your wireless network coverage, refer to the paragraph above about alternative ad campaign money usage.
Just because he can DRIBBLE doesn't make him a wireless telephony wizard! I don't know what kind of demographic you're shooting for, but I doubt you'll find a significant audience who have their domains and domain experts mixed up that badly! I mean, Britney Spearce and perfume I can swallow. But if I wanted to go digital camera shopping, I wouldn't even take Ashton Kutcher along with me!
4. If you imply ANY sense of urgency in your deal what so ever, I'm out, NO MATTER HOW GOOD A DEAL you offer me.
Let's think about this one together shall we? Why would you try to rush me into a sale, unless if you know that as soon as I do my research, I'm heading out the door? This "Buy it now or else" strategy doesn't work on me. It's not about money, it's a matter of principle: I decide when is a good time for me to buy, not you. If it's now or never, it's never.
5. If you don't have money to buy those extra 10 seconds in a commercial, then the solution is to be brief, concise, and bullshit-free.
Jamming three paragraphs of text into 5 seconds of commercial time DOESN'T work. Do you really expect me to rush to the store and buy your hair shampoo when you announce it in a way that makes me think your pants are on fire? You're better off without a commercial in the first place, unless you're going to speak clearly, and at the regular pace of speech typical of a non-constipated human being.
6. If you're going to get all sophisticated and mention some stats in your commercial, you're treading on very thin ice!
In trying to appeal to the analytical mind, you need to treat it with scientific integrity. For example:
7. A sale of UP TO x% = I'm not going to even bother walking into your store!
In what universe is the MAX a good indicator of central tendency??? Is it that you're too stupid to calculate an average or too embarrassed to tell me how bad the average sale price is????
Speaking of sales and figures, and come to think of it, the only stat that makes any sense for describing a sale is:
S = the ratio of item price today to its average completed sale price over last year time window.
If you're promoting a sale over many items, then you need to show the average of S over ALL your inventory, including everything that's not on sale. Let's call this metric the "Marketing free" sale index.
In fact, since you're so sophisticated, it would be ideal if you paint a histogram of item prices over your shop's windows. I guarantee you it will attract more customers than your "SALE SALE HAIL MARY SALE SALE" you've got up there right now!
Aaaaaah I feel so much better now :)
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