The monsters behind modern marketing
November 24th 2008 03:24
You'll never catch me complaining about things, but are the people who run modern marketing programs morons?
Oh, okay, the word moron is ill-advised. That was just my need to let off steam. Modern marketing programs are too clever, in an insidious, intrusive, invasive, infuriating kind of way - to have been devised by morons.
I saw a survey recently which asked people to list what they consider the main irritations in daily life. Unless you have just arrived on Earth from a more caring time or place, you will not be surprised to learn that the things which irritate us most are telemarketing calls and bad drivers.
I have my own views on people who get infuriated at the driving habits, bad or otherwise, of other people. I think tirades, wild gesticulations and, most of all, profanity, against others from within the cocooned safety and anonymity of our private car space is an important way for people to let off steam. Confess now, you do it occasionally, right? And we are more likely to do it in times of greater stress.
It does have a downside: ramming someone with the aim of pushing them over a cliff will, ultimately, prove counter-productive; and all that hot air may be measurable in terms of carbon emission. Generally, however, I suggest a bit of a road rant is good for you. So next time someone goes off at you, the kindest thing you can do is help them de-stress by poking your tongue out or flipping a finger or presenting your bare arse for them to kiss (in the interests of road safety, please remember to keep both hands on the wheel when trying this).
As for telemarketing calls, I find them a short-term irritation. Hang up, take a deep breath, return to ... damn, what I was doing again?
My pet peeve (a euphemism which understates considerably the amount of smoke which comes out of my ears whenever I think about this subject), is modern marketing practices.
Once upon a time, the customer was queen and king. Consumer opinion was solicited and counted and categorised and acted upon.
Somewhere along the line, the science of marketing and profit relativity discovered that Joe and Josephine Public did not in fact know what was best for the collective corporate bottom line, and a new strategy came into being.
One way of describing this new strategy would be: bullshit.
The strategy is to repeat as many times as possible, in as many ways as possible, with the greatest sincerity possible, and the least concern possible about redundancies, that you really, really, really care about the customer.
The fact that you really, really, really don't care at all is beside the point. The point is the campaign of caring can be used as a smoke screen for the bullshit being rolled out behind it.
The big service providers are the worst. Our letter boxes, our email in-boxes and, yes, our telephones, are used to bombard us with the message this bank or telephone company or broadband provider cares more for you than the entire nursing staff of the critical care ward of a major hospital.
Bullshit.
I got an email today from my broadband provider. I thought it would be another message offering a miasma of options (another take-no-prisoners strategy which cares not one jot about consumer comfort) for doing something or other to help the company make more money, but instead I got the most infuriating message yet from the Big World of Bullshit.
The subject line of the email said "Read this important information about your account", and the body of the message told me, "Unfortunately, you've reached your maximum data allowance for this month."
A ha! Thanks for letting me know. Hey ... just a minute ... what maximum data allowance?
"So, what happens now? Because you've reached your data allowance, your account will be slowed to 64kbps until the start of your next billing month."
I remember 64kbps. In those days, pigeons were still a solid option.
"We do this so you won't have to pay any excess usage fees."
Bullshit.
They do this, as proven by the rest of the email, to try to get me to "upgrade" to a more expensive "plan". That way they get more money, and I no doubt get a brand new strategy to try to get me to upgrade even further.
The whole strategy is fundamentally bullshit because the plan I am on, the original plan I was offered, was marketed as a complete home broadband "solution". A "fast" (bullshit) broadband package offering everything the modern family needs.
Sign up now for this wonderful plan designed just for you because we care so deeply about you, and then we'll start sending you emails telling you how inadequate your plan is and how we will, because we love you, oh yes we do, slow your connection to the speed of a medium-paced glacier until you get annoyed enough to give us more money.
So next time I am contacted by a consumer survey asking what irks me most about the world I live in, I will say the modern marketing practice of bullshit. Devised not by morons, but by monsters who care about nothing except the brave new profitable world of corporate bloody-mindedness.
Either that or they really believe I will fall for their bullshit about caring about customers. In which case they are morons after all.
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Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
I now just have unlimited access. My computer is slow enough with that.
Oh - and the telemarketers - don't you just love it when you answer and there is no one at the other end because they are ringing five people at the one time. I usually just hang up before they come on the line.
Comment by Chris Champion
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And telemarketers ring five people at a time!
I'm such an innocent. I really am.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
If this has not happened to you before and all of a sudden does, query it. They will probably tell you the same. If figured my computer was slow enough so I gave in.
And the telemarketers - I think they use a computer and ring a whole bunch of people at once. Don't you ever answer and there is a long silence before the caller comes on the line?
Mind you, I try not to be rude because they are only doing their job - a job I would hate to have to do myself.