Archive for the 'Shameless' Category

As viewers continue to tune out or fast forward through the TV commercials, network excecutives, desperate to keep the advertising dollars in house, are trying all manner of “creative” - by that we mean desperate - means to disguise the ads as something else. Ed Swindler (no seriously, that’s his name!), exec VP of ad sales at Universal NBC puts a friend-of-the-consumer spin on it: “No one on the creative side or the business side wants to make commercials intrusive, but we do need to commercialize efficiently so viewers can afford to get free television.”

A common ploy is to put original content into the breaks (the implication being that commercials cannot be described as such). For instance, next fall NBC Universal will be pepping up ad breaks with Jerry Seinfeld to keep the viewers watching (and to promote his new movie). And the kind folks at ABC are considering clever ways to hoodwink viewers into thinking they’re still watching their favorite show when the commercials have already started. For instance a TV set that Ugly Betty is watching might dissolve into the commercial break. (Maybe Betty will fast-forward through the real ads on the pretend show… No, probably not.)

Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, understands that what we really need to do is to make commercials that don’t suck as much: “A commercial has to be like a DVD extra. It has to be an added value, not an inconvenience.” Then Mr. Swindler and his friends wouldn’t need to find sneaky ways to trick the consumers into staying tuned.

Shopping at Sears is such a depressing experience. The decor is Dismal, the lighting Dull and the Displays dowdy. (Contrast this with Target stores, where you feel cool-as-shit just walking into the place.)

The only reason a consumer with any sense of style might be tempted to go to Sears is because of the prices on the boring stuff you just hafta buy - the vacuums, ovens and wotnot - otherwise you’d never make the trip. I went on one of those necessary-evil trips this weekend, to buy a stainless steel dishwasher. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot my heart sank. as I plodded through the store it somehow reminded me of an elderly person in a care facility just waiting to die.

But, beneath the dull exterior there are more sinister forces at play. Having picked a Bosch dishwasher as the one of my dreams and went to check out I was told the actual price was $200 more than the large sticker on the displayed model. Apparently the price shown was for the white model not the stainless steel. So, I wondered and asked, why put the cheaper price on the more expensive model? Eh? The shop assistant was sympathetic but unable to help. Apparently it is new company policy. Not something she agreed with, but there it was.

This practice that Sears head office has adopted in its wisdom is wilfuly misleasing. I think they expect people like me who are time poor to simply pay up. But, no, that would be succumbing to their wicked manipulative ways. I went home, found the same model online for way less than even the white model in Sears was being sold at and bought it there and then. (Shipping was free.)

So now I’ve been duped by Sears I won’t make the same mistake of thinking I have to suffer their stores to get a good deal again. I’ll order online instead and advise as many people I can to do the same.

Shame on you Sears.

A few weeks ago blogger, John Grant, seeking attention for his new marketing book criticized some online videos we’d created to promote Punk Marketing. Cool, no problem there. And what’s more he said he and his readers could do better. We said, great. In fact we said we’d even make any of the ideas people come up with that were better than ours. Fair enough, right? OK, so we waited. And waited. Nothing. Not a sausage. Tried to email him for an update. The email bounced back. Hmm. What’s up John? It’s fine to crticize - hell, we do it all the time - but if you say you can do better, do it. The offer still stands by the way. Thanks.

I was an issues reporter way back in the day (did Guerilla Consumer segments for Marketplace on Public Radio for seven years) so nothing gets me going as much as deception by major corporations.

Blockbuster Inc. takes the icing AND the cake, and in Punk we talk about their “end of late fees” debacle from a few years back after the micro-print (smallest disclaimers on consumer offerings) told us, well, you do get charged a restocking fee and etc. etc. They got sued by Attorneys General and the hoopla plus the offer came to a crashing end.

Now, however, they are getting away with a lot more, and the NY Times reports they even gained just shy of a million new members due their home-delivery service Total Access and the unearthed-till-now fact, ta da!, that they are lying again. Here’s the poop.

The whole NEVER BE WITHOUT A MOVIE campaign says you can rent a flick, have it sent to your home and with no due dates or no late fees, return it in the mail (free), or bring it to the store and return (no problem) for an exchange of your next chosen movie. Sounds cool. And a fantastically devised to stick it to Netflix, the killer competitor.

That’s not how it works, I found out harshly. During a conversation reminiscent of the time I asked the Starbucks counter person if she could “restart the modem for my Starbucks T-Mobile access” and I got stared down at my two heads….I tried the offer of free exchange at a Blockbuster on way home from a bar one night. I was carrying a copy of Take The Money and Run (vintage, hilarious Allen) in the BB sleeve it arrived in , and walked over to the Blockbuster to ask the man at the desk to take it back.

Oh no, he said, looking at me with the guile of a deer and his headlights. I can’t do that.

Oy, I decided. Here we go. And we did:

Turns out Blockbuster only allows us to return a movie in person if we have a separate “in store” account at that very locale. Now, how likely is that if you get discs in the mail? And if you should have an account, as was explained by the dude in the blue smock, you have to bring with you the postage-paid return envelope the DVD showed up in. Because, said he, the people at the store need to mail them back just like we do. Huh? Yes, he swore, they have no interoffice mail at Blockbuster.

Ok, sure, I brought the envelope it came with ….it’s right in my….

What the?

Anyway, a short while after the daily Times crowed about the new success in rental programs, Blockbuster’s CEO was profiled in the Sunday Times for his decision to advertise that offer proudly and loudly. Today I wonder why Netflix doesn’t just go all nuts proclaiming how easy it is to get a movie from them—with the added bonus of absolutely no free bullshit sold to their loyal customers.

Me, I’m doing nothing but Pay Per View now. At least I can hit the delete button without having to deal with a clerk whose actual job, I’m starting to imagine, is to disappoint me.

For more on this deception go to the following and especially the bottom where the asterisks are: Blockbuster’s been busted!