Guerilla Marketing

Posted on December 8, 2012 by

I’m old enough to remember when shopping was a relaxing pastime.  I can remember trips to the local hardware store with my dad – checking out the bikes, pedal cars, and Radio Flyer wagons while he got a quart of paint or a pound of nails.  “Marketing” in those days was pretty much limited to window banners, in-store displays, and little things designed to catch your attention.  I recall a display on the counter of the hardware store for some sort of super-epoxy adhesive – it was a little man made out of golf balls, bolts, nuts, glass marbles, and other odds and ends all glued together with this wonder putty.  I suppose the fact that I can’t remember the name of the stuff proves what a marketing fail that was.

I imagine today that same epoxy would be hawked by someone of the likes of Billy Mays (only slightly more living) – loudly extolling the virtues of this space-age polymer, while in the background, paid actors would demonstrate scenes of epic fail using inferior products. (In black-and-white, of course.  All back-breaking or frustrating scenes in infomercials are depicted in black-and-white.)  But wait!  Act impulsively and overpay for this thing you don’t need – NOW – and we’ll double the order!  You just pay twice as much for shipping and processing!!

This is what I feel like now, every time I enter a store.  No longer can one simply browse – waiting for an idea for a gift or a home improvement project to jump out and inspire.  No, now I must be helped, guided, cross-sold, pressured, concierged, coerced, and/or guilted into buying something.  I am plied with samples, trial subscriptions, email alerts, Facebook ‘Like’ requests, surveys, credit card applications, and – in the case of the hopefully-soon-to-be-departed Best Buy – a dogged attempt to get me to switch cable providers.

JUST STOP IT!

I turn down the aisle in the grocery store, and there’s a little TV screen telling me how great Hormel chili is.  Sometimes they even sense when I pass by and disgorge a coupon.  “Here, take one. Take it.  TAKE IT!!!”  This sort of tactic makes me wonder what’s so wrong with this chili that they have to take these steps to get it off the shelves.  Maybe we’ve become so desensitized to TV and print ads, or our collective attention span is so short that we need these immediate, impulsive tactics?

I know that salespeople and cashiers are only doing what they’re told to do by their management, but it has led to my creation of a Little Voice that’s not a very nice person.  I’ve been able to keep it to myself so far, but I’m afraid one of these days, the words that form in my head will spill out past the old oral firewall.  The Little Voice goes something like this:

“Can I help you find something?”  Yes.  Enough room to think for two seconds?

“Would you like to put this on your Blundermart credit card today?”  No.  Can we put it on yours?

“Did you find everything you were looking for?”  Where do you keep your self respect?

“How did you hear about us?”  There’s a 22-foot tall sign out front, plus you send me a circular every day, emails, TV ads, radio ads, and you sponsor a sports team.  How can I avoid hearing about you?

“And could I have your email address?”  OH, HELL NO!!

“Would you like to sign up for our Rewards card?”  Do I look like I want to come back?

“If you go online and fill out this short survey, you could win a $1000 gift card!”  Yeah, and monkeys could fly out of my butt.  Not gonna happen.

And you know what, retailers?  I don’t want to listen to commercials about your store – in your store!  You won – I’m there.  Now just keep pumping that secret poor-decision gas into the ventilation system and let me make my purchases and get out.  I’m not interested in no interest until 2087, or free delivery, or the in-home service plan.  I already know you put the milk at the back of the grocery store so I have to pass everything else to get it.  I am not going to impulse-purchase lip balm, Martha Stewart Living, or 48 D-cell batteries.

Since you retailers all seem to have the need to get in my face, let me break it down into terms you can understand:

shut up

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Have You Ever Had The Feeling You Were Being… Watched?

Posted on December 1, 2012 by

I’m the sort of guy who tries to play by the rules.  I pay my taxes, I recycle, I use my turn signals, heck – I even thought about paying for WinZip once.  (I didn’t pay, but I thought about it, and I think that’s at least honorable.)  Kids, you might want to pause here and ask your grandparents about shareware.

Anyway, it’s a bit of an obsession for me.  I hate seeing things miscategorized on craigslist.  I hate people who cut in line.  The misuse of the word ‘everyday’ seriously ticks me off on a daily basis.  Every day, a helpful noun phrase.  Not everyday, which is an adjective.  In fact, it’s only my honest nature that prevents me from committing felony property damage on a commercial sign I drive past each morning (every day) that says “Low Prices Everyday!” as if that were a new day of the week between Saturday and Sunday.  I won’t get pedantic and further state that if they’d just re-arrange the sign to read “Everyday Low Prices!” we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Or maybe I will.

That does, however, allow me to segue back into my original premise – that of minding the rules.  It so happens that I am forced by economics to shop at a local SuperWonderMart® that operates under the principle of Everyday Low Prices, or Always Low Prices, or Underpaid Workers Everyday, or something like that, accompanied by an insipid smiley face – which is ironic because that’s exactly the opposite of what I’m feeling when I shop there.  I wonder if there’s a little sticker with an image of one’s soul being sucked out that they could give out to adults when they enter the store?

Anyway… rather than fight the surging throngs of the Great Unwashed as they clamor for parking spaces within convenient waddling distance of the doors, I prefer to choose a parking space that favors my timely egress from the parking lot.  I am looking forward to my escape before I even get there, so I plan accordingly.  If possible, I park next to one of the cart corrals, with the hope that at least one side of my car will be spared from the careless damage inflicted by crumb-critter encumbered redneck mouth-breathers who figure all cars are as worthless as their own.

I was lucky this night and scored a spot right next to the corral, at least a hundred yards from the door, but only one lane from the parking lot exit.  I entered the store for my weekly dose of depression, economic disbelief over the cost of breakfast cereal, and abject horror at the general state of humanity.  The sights, sounds, and smells are generally enough to last me the entire week – and thankfully these are commodities I don’t have to pay for.

Having completed the assault on my senses and my wallet, I escaped the store as quickly as possible, weaving through the crowd of cars parked right at the entrance to facilitate the loading of large quantities of Bud Light.  As I approached my car, I saw that something wasn’t quite right.

There was a note under my windshield wiper.

I feared the worst – that the note would say “I backed into your car and somebody saw me, so I’m leaving this note. Ha Ha!” – which would be pretty typical for around here.  Before even looking at the note, I took a walk around the car, checking for damage.  Strangely there was none that I could see.  Curiosity got the better of me, and I took the piece of paper out from under the wiper and unfolded it.  It was not what I expected.

It was, in fact, the bathroom cleaning log from the ladies’ room at SuperWonderMart®, dated that very day.  On it were the times and initials from when the assigned associate (I love the use of that word instead of peon) checked the ladies’ room for “cleanliness” (those would be great big air quotes if you could see me).  I was perplexed.  Why would someone go to the trouble of taking the log sheet from the bathroom and putting under my windshield wiper all the way out in the parking lot?  It finally occurred to me to turn the sheet of paper over.

On the back was a neatly hand-written note.  Here is what it said:

Handicap slots are for people who need them.

And, much more ominously:

MANAGEMENT KNOWS.

I was both shocked and confused.  Had I somehow taken a handicapped space without realizing it?  I checked.  No blue sign, no wheelchair icon on the pavement – in fact I was three rows away from the nearest handicapped parking space in the lot.  Still, the accusation that I had broken the rules was like a slap to the face.  Worse, that MANAGEMENT had been informed of my heinous transgression.  What would happen?  Would I be blacklisted from SuperWonderMart®?  Would my money no longer be welcome there?  Would people who needed handicap slots look at me with contempt?  I checked for security cameras, saw none, then got in my car and left.  I considered going back in and pleading my case with management, but I decided against it.

I contemplated the note for my entire ride home.  Did the author confuse shopping carts with wheelchairs?  Was the blue of the cart corral confusing?  Was I in the Twilight Zone? (The one with Rod Serling, not the one with sparkly vampires.)  I had been accused of breaking a rule, and the motivation of my accuser bothered me.  It took the better part of the evening to accept that I was probably the victim of a prank or a nutcase.

The next day at work, I was sitting at my desk when I heard the sound of a low-flying helicopter outside.  I dropped my pen, sat upright in my chair and said “Oh, no.”  My co-workers asked what was wrong, and I could give them only one answer:

MANAGEMENT KNOWS.

Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

It’s That Time Again

Posted on August 23, 2012 by

I have not found many things to write about lately, but the current onslaught of political campaigning (i.e. finger-pointing, mud-slinging, and general third-grade playground behavior) has inspired me to think about what’s not being said – how one group of ideologues or the other is going to save our crumbling National Institutions and rebuild our infrastructure to make our country once again an example to the world.

This will not be a political post.  My personal conviction is that any person who truly wishes to hold high political office doesn’t deserve to do so.  They are narcissists, egotists, and political animals of the worst kind.  I don’t make distinctions between left and right with those comments, so please don’t peg me as a Conservative Racist Red State Teabagger or a Liberal Commie Pinko Hippie.  I am so middle-of-the-road you could probably paint a double yellow line down my back.  Nobody represents me – nobody electable, anyway.  I think the idea I present here could appeal to both parties on different levels.  I’m sure there would be sticking points, but since we’ve come to a bi-partisan consensus on tough issues like healthcare and the war in Afghanistan (sudden, inexplicable coughing fit), certainly my little plan will breeze right through Congress.  In fact, I’m surprised nobody has seen the solution before.  Maybe they have, it just hasn’t shown up where I’ve been looking.

Here goes:

It has become obvious in recent years that one of our oldest and greatest National Treasures and Institutions – The United States Postal Service – is in decline.  We can attribute that slow failure to the advent of e-mail, the bloated bureaucracy and unsustainable benefits and retirement packages offered to workers, or the slow but steady erosion of the American work ethic that once stood for service, courtesy, and integrity.  Those people still exist at the USPS, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think there are nearly as many as there used to be.

How do we fix this?  Why, I’m glad you asked!  I’ve been thinking about this for most of a day now, and I think I’ve got a pretty good solution.  Some of it may be a little shocking, but don’t let that stop you before you’ve heard me out.  I think we need a little shaking up, and this could just be the Hope and Change® we’ve been longing for.

Step One: Legalize Marijuana.

Wait.  Don’t judge me yet.  Let’s be honest here.  People smoke the stuff.  I do not.  I don’t really care if you do.  It is, however, an industry that could generate billions of dollars in revenue for the Federal Government.  If Americans want to buy pot, let’s sell it to them.  How?

At The Post Office.

Follow me here.  There’s one in every town.  They already have a house-to-house delivery network.  They already have a perfect slogan: “We Deliver (weed) For You.”  Even the acronym USPS works: United States Pot Supply.  I daresay if more of the employees partook, we might cut down on those unfortunate shootings, and “going postal” would have an entirely different meaning.  Total PR win! “Come chill at the Post Office. We have cookies!”

The Question of Supply.

In order to provide enough product to our consumer base, we must think about production and distribution on a grand scale.  I have this covered as well.  We’re already paying farmers a subsidy to grow nothing, so let’s get them going on a real cash crop – cannabis.  Forget about corn for ethanol – we’ll need to keep some corn to make Doritos of course, but I think we can figure the government will have some additional funding to explore alternative energy.  I’m predicting that energy consumption will go down anyway, since quite a few people won’t really want to go anywhere unless Burning Man is on.

National Distribution.

This is easy.  We already have a government-subsidized railroad network – Amtrak.  It runs right through Middle-America and it stops in most major cities.  Add a few freight cars and a smoking lounge and you’re all set.  Catching a red-eye to the coast will never be the same.  Subsidize fares with some of the cash we’ll be raking in and I’m sure ridership will go up.  We can start a resurgence in public transportation by ensuring that a suitable fraction of the population is too stoned to drive.  We can further subsidize costs by having corporate sponsors – say Taco Bell – open franchises on the trains and in the stations.  Imagine if you will a train station with drive-thru.

Branching Out.

The possibilities here are nearly endless.   The Post Office will become a destination again.  Why not put in a coffee bar, offer wi-fi, sell munchies?  They could even offer accessories – from Bob Marley tie-dye t-shirts to glass pipes in the shape of former presidents.  Who wouldn’t want a Bill Clinton bong?  I’m sure the right marketing people could make a mint, considering the target clientele are likely to make unwise purchasing decisions.

After all that, if we can’t afford to give everybody healthcare, I think I might just move to Australia.  I thought about Canada, but I can’t take any more snow.

I am a manofewords. I am not running for office, and I have not approved this message.
Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Saint Who?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

Valentine? Oh, that guy. Patron Saint of Hallmark stores and the man single-handedly responsible for the senseless murder of countless innocent roses worldwide.

I don’t get it.

Love.  Sure, fine.  Love is great.  What I don’t get is why we need a specific day to celebrate it.  Shouldn’t it be an everyday thing? Why should I say “I love you” with overpriced chocolates and dying flowers? Why will those same chocolates and flowers be 50% off on February 15th? Does love no longer matter on that day?

What I’d like is a practical girl. A sensible girl. A girl who will appreciate me taking her out to dinner on Wednesday, when we can get free appetizers, instead of Tuesday, when a “Lovers’ Entree” is $39.00.  A girl who thinks ‘dressing up’ is me putting on a T-shirt without holes in it.  A girl who would appreciate a nice quality power tool as a gift, rather than a tiny piece of crystallized carbon some guy found in a hole in South Africa.

Where are the girls who would enjoy staying home tonight, ordering in, and playing a game of grown-up Scrabble, where any word is fair game and a Triple Word Score™ results in some very interesting scoring? How about one who would appreciate a card devoid of kittens, puppies, sparkly hearts, naked babies with primitive projectile weapons, and any other vestiges of this totally overblown “holiday”, and instead expressed love as a mathematical equation, complete with a graph?

Nerdy girls represent!

Sorry if I seem unromantic to many of you. I just don’t see the practicality of “Take her breath away with the diamond of her dreams”.  I’ll sure take her breath away when I tell her I can’t afford to go to the movies again until 2017.  How about an ice cream? How about a nice set of all-season radials?  I’d sure like you to not die in a car wreck – isn’t that love?  Doesn’t that say more than “Here’s some fudge. See, I love you.”??

I’m just confused.  How does promoting hyperglycemia indicate one’s desire for another person?  Does giving them fragrant flowers insinuate that they smell bad?  I’m not exactly the best with social conventions, but these things escape me.  Men get cologne as a gift, which says to me: “I don’t like the way you normally smell, so splash some of this on.”  Why would I want to smell like Calvin Klein anyway?  And frankly, that Old Spice guy scares me.

If I was dating a girl and she didn’t know how I felt about her without the timely application of flowers, chocolates, saccharine-sweet greeting cards, masked teddy bears, or mylar balloons on an arbitrary calendar day, then I’m either doing something terribly wrong on the other 364 days, or I’m with the wrong woman.

Happy February 14th.  Maybe it can serve as a reminder to say what you feel more often, but if it feels like an obligation to buy stuff, I think you might have to re-evaluate your priorities.

Don’t say you love her with flowers.  Give her some flowers, sure, but say it with your mouth.  Say it with your actions.  Do it tomorrow, too.  Mean it.

Posted in Pet Peeves | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

I Have a New Respect for My Auto Mechanic

Posted on December 1, 2011 by

Some of you may know that I fix things for a living. For those of you who don’t – I fix things for a living. What they do is not terribly important for the purposes of this particular rant, and the technical details would probably make your eyes glaze over before you got to the good part. Instead, I’m going to employ a literary device known as a simile.  It might even evolve into a metaphor, but I’m certainly not ambitious enough to make it an allegory.

What I’m going to do is compare the thing I work on – which none of you will be familiar with – to something most of you should be at least casually familiar with: The family car.

Let’s say that I worked on cars for a living. I didn’t really do it for the general public – I got the cars the other mechanics couldn’t figure out how to fix. They would drop them off at my shop, I would do my magic, and they would be happy. I would be remunerated for my services and they could go back to changing oil and replacing spark plugs. Sometimes it’s a time-consuming job they don’t want to tackle. Sometimes it’s a part they don’t stock.

Sometimes it’s just stupid.

I don’t get to see these “cars” operating out on the streets, and I don’t talk directly to the owners to get an idea what the problem is. Instead, I have asked the people who send them to me to include a note outlining the problems they have observed. I thought the result would be obvious – I would get a cogent, detailed technical summary of what the problem was and what steps had already been tried. Nope. I got a large number of “cars” with notes that said “broken” or “not working”. Gee, thanks. Now, I can troubleshoot, but I might miss something if it’s not obvious. Let’s say your car stalls when you have the left blinker on and make a right turn – I’m not likely to test that particular scenario on a whim.

So, I asked for more detailed explanations on my repairs.

I will put what happened today into automotive terms. All names have been changed to protect the innocent.  I received a “car” along with a note that said, in effect, “please change all four tires”. I looked at the tires and they were in very bad shape. I hauled out my jack and my lug wrench, and I changed the tires. This seemed to me like something any ordinary mechanic could handle, but who am I to turn away business? Maybe he didn’t have any tires. Now, I like to be sure my work is done right, so I hop in to test drive the “car”. Huh. It won’t start. Looks like the battery is dead. So, I haul out a new battery and change that out, then try it again. It still won’t start. Several diagnostic steps later, I determine that the “car” has a blown engine. And a bad transmission. And there’s a hole in the radiator. And the lights don’t work.

I can only conclude from this that the prior troubleshooting went as follows: Car not go. Round things make car go. Round things must be bad. Need new round things.

Now I understand those faces my mechanic makes when I drop off my car. I’m a bit of a hobbyist auto mechanic, and I have a pretty good idea what I’m in for before I drop the car off. I might tell him: “It’s idling rough. I already replaced the IAC and tested the Mass Airflow sensor. I think it might be a vacuum leak.” He then scrunches up one side of his mouth and squints at me, as if saying “Yeah, sure, buddy. Why don’t you leave the car repairs to the grown-ups, OK?” To which I feel like screaming “Look, buddy, I’ve changed the oil cooler in a 2.8 liter SAAB V6, so don’t talk to me like I don’t know what I’m doing, OK?!” “I’ve seen the elephant. I’ve been there and done that. The reason I’m here is because you have a lift, it’s twenty degrees outside, and I don’t feel like busting my knuckles again to change out a stupid oxygen sensor.”

But I wouldn’t do that, because that would be snarky.

I think next time I drop off my car, I’ll just leave a note:

Dear Vinny,
My car is making a noise like this – Wooooooooommmmmmm…clunk. Please fix it.

Let him figure it out. That’s his job.

Posted in Pet Peeves | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Enviro-lemmings

Posted on October 7, 2011 by

Let me start by saying I care about the planet. I do. Really.

I recycle religiously, even though that means having to store up all of my plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, and whatever else qualifies and physically drive it to a collection point. You see, my town doesn’t have trash or recycling pickup – all trash has to be brought to the transfer station, where you pay an annual fee. Recycling can be dropped off there, or at several strategic locations around town. Food waste is composted at home – free fertilizer!

Almost all of the lights in the house have been switched to CFLs, because even though the bulbs cost more, the reduction in operating cost over the long haul is worth it. I even have some of the super-pricey dimmable ones.  I’ve added additional attic insulation, replaced drafty windows, and done all sorts of weather-proofing to maximize my heating dollars and to save energy. It makes sense – both economically and pragmatically – why waste energy and therefore dollars if you don’t have to?

Now we’re getting to my point: People who waste dollars to save pennies because it looks good. There’s a reason I drive a Honda Civic and not a Hummer. Actually, there are several reasons. I don’t need to compensate for anything, I’m not trying to impress anybody, and fuel economy in the single digits does not appeal to me. I bought the Honda because 40 MPG makes sense. It saves fuel, it saves me money, and I suppose it helps the planet in the long run by using fewer resources and emitting less pollution. Good.

Without getting into too much detail, part of my work involves providing our customers with electronic equipment for retail locations. I learned a few days ago that some of these locations are to be LEED certified, meaning they have to meet strict codes and requirements for design, construction, and operation. Part of this requirement is that all electrical appliances be Energy Star certified. Now that the government is involved, things get stupid.

In order to get the happy little green “Energy Star” sticker on a particular refrigerator, the customer needs to cough up an additional $190.00 over the cost of a similar refrigerator that is not Energy Star compliant. I researched the two models in question and found that the annual energy consumption of the Energy Star unit was $39, while the non-certified one was $49. Ten dollars per year. It would take nineteen years of continuous operation for that refrigerator to pay back the cost difference in energy savings.

I suspect that the only real difference between the two refrigerators is the sticker. OK, maybe the Chinese manufacturer added an additional capacitor to the motor starting circuit to save a couple of watts, increasing the wholesale cost of the unit by $.04. They also are probably producing said circuit boards in a coal-burning plant, soldering with pure lead, and happily dumping PCBs into the stream out back while they do it. What planet are we saving, exactly? And who is pocketing that $190.00? It sure isn’t me.

I’m betting that whoever came up with this “green” certification scheme did so while sitting in their Prius waiting in the drive-through line at Dunkin Donuts because they were too lazy to park and walk into the store. Who knows, they might get their Birkenstocks dirty. They were also willing to pay $4.00 for a cup of bitter hot water they could have made for pennies without leaving the house at all if they had cared to consider the environmental impact of their trip. These are probably the same people who leave those styrofoam coffee cups on the shelves in my supermarket when they’re tired of slurping out of them. I’m also betting that these folks use more power than that refrigerator “saves” just by leaving their iPad chargers plugged in while they’re not in use. Can we say “hypocrite”?

I’m not for clear-cutting the rainforests.
Or clubbing baby seals.
Or whaling.
I’m not for dumping our garbage at sea.
I’m also not for Big Oil.
Or “Drill, baby, drill!”

I’m for common sense. For doing things not just because they are popular or they make you feel good about yourself, but because they do real good. Separating my trash makes sense. Using energy-saving lights makes sense. Buying an expensive hybrid today because they are politically popular, while ignoring the fact that in twenty years the toxic pile of expended lithium-ion batteries will far exceed any perceived energy savings is short-sighted in my book. So is spending an extra $190 on a refrigerator to save less than $.03 a day on your electric bill.

Take that $190 and do something useful with it. Donate it. Feed the Children. Help the Homeless. Save the Whales. Heck, buy ten cases of beer. Just be sure to recycle the cans.

If you really feel the need to be “green” and spend the extra money for that refrigerator, put those three cents a day to good use. Maybe turn on a light and read a book.

Posted in Pet Peeves | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hello, My Poor Blog

Posted on October 5, 2011 by

Alas, I have been absent for a while. Although my attention has been mostly elsewhere, I have not forgotten you.

Now that I have suffered the indignity of having my insides videotaped from both ends, and it has been confirmed that everything that should be in there is in there, and nothing that shouldn’t be there (like six-letter words that start with “C”, for example) can be found, maybe I can get back to some normalcy.

Of course, it is rather depressing when your doctor gives you an itemized list of the foods that will irritate your particularly nasty case of reflux, and it consists of all of the things you enjoy.  And the drugs make you dizzy. And give you abdominal cramps. And depression. And anxiety. And sleep disorders. And each office visit to the gastroenterologist is $390.oo. And it’s an hour away.

At least I can sleep better now, knowing that I don’t have any of the wonderful things my family doctor mentioned. Things like a hiatal hernia, Barrett’s Esophagus, esophageal cancer, colon cancer, ulcers, ciliac disease, or any of the myriad other disorders splashed in living color across glossy literature in the gastro suite.

This is what I get for telling my doctor I have heartburn more than twice a week – you know, like the commercials on TV tell you. “Be sure to consult your doctor if you suffer from heartburn more than twice a week.” Now I know. I have to admit I was a bit concerned, given my family history and an episode two years back involving the other end of the digestive highway.

So, my neglected blog, I will do my best to dust off the cobwebs and get back to some writing. I’m sure I have some things to say, and not just about my guts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments