I know we all like to think that we’re Super Geniuses and impervious to marketing schemes…but capitalizim is thriving so most of us MUST be getting taken in by good marketing.
Recently I have fallen hook, line and sinker for a local grocery store chain’s groceries -> gas discounts promo. For every $50 you spend at their store using your store card, you get 10 cents off per gallon at a specific gas station (owned by the store chain). This includes the pharmacy and the dry cleaners, and probably the video store and bank that are in the grocery store. So I switched my pharmacy to theirs from Walgreens. And now I pretty much do my shopping 100% exclusively at that store, and buy my gas 100% exclusively at that station. Heck, I got 13 gallons for $15 the other day. Sounds right to me
Another marketing scheme that I feel guilty about but have embraced wholly is coupons from my cigarette brand of choice. They come with a “user ID” stamped on them and when you use them, the cig company knows and sends you more. And I ALWAYS use them. I also used to buy packs but they decided they wanted me to buy cartons, so they stopped sending coupons for packs and now just send for cartons. They have me so trained it’s sort of pathetic…(ok not “sort of”)
One other I remember from when I was a kid…Cap’n Crunch baseball cards. We were giddy for baseball cards and giddy for Cap’n Crunch, so one summer we (my brother and I) ate about 1 box a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Just to get the baseball cards. I’m sure we told our friends all about it too!
So what marketing has roped you in? Don’t be shy - I won’t poke fun at you and say you’re weak!
My long distance phone company, Working Assets. Free Ben and Jerry’s for a year? Donations to nonprofit progressive groups? Vote to choose the nonprofit groups each year? Citizen Letters and free political calls? Heck yeah! If you need to call them, a cheerful and friendly operator will actually fix your problem! I totally gush about them at every opportunity. They optimized our long distance bill so that we often owe them only 1-2$ a month!!! Wow. So they have me for life. Og, I sound like an evangelist.
Discover Card cash back. I use my Discover Card for any purhcase conceivable. Any monthly bill that can go on a card, gas, food, etc, etc. I pay it off in full every month and have never paid a dime to Discover Card inc. Yet I get cash from them every month. Brilliant!
I was once walking through the West End of Dallas with a female friend of mine. We were platonic friends, not dating, but she still was damn cute. A flower vender ran up to her and told her she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and he’d brought over a bundle of flowers to give her for free if she’d just kiss him. Then he’d seen she was with me, and decided not to horn in. He told her she could still have the flowers for free if she gave ME a kiss.
So she gave me a peck on the cheek.
“No no,” said the flower vender “I mean a real, passionate kiss on the lips”
She was willing to play along - she grabbed my ears, pulled me towards her and gave me a long, passionate kiss on the lips.
The vender handed her the flowers “Thank you, these are yours for free!” He turned to me “But they’re going to cost you eight dollars.”
I paid the man. Best eight dollars I ever spent.
I don’t think this is exactly the kind of marketing the OP had in mind, but a good story nonetheless.
I was wondering around a jazz festival when I noticed a car company’s sponsored booth, I asked a couple questions and gave an e-mail address. Many months later, when the car I was somewhat interested in was about to be released, I got invited to this rather fancy launch party with a bigname artist, free booze etc and got to see the car for the first time.
I occasionally contribute to the alumni fund at the university where I graduated. Not because I’m particularly excited about it, but because of their telemarketing.
[ul]
[li]The callers are undergraduates who are just poor working stiffs (like I was), so they have my sympathy from the get-go.[/li][li]They are invariably polite.[/li][li]Whenever I’ve said, “No, thanks,” the response has always been “Thank you for your time,” and that’s it. No hard sell.[/li][/ul]
I figured I just had to reward that behavior a bit.
Amazon Prime. For an annual fee of about $70 (IIRC) you get “free” 2-day shipping on all orders sold directly by Amazon. Since I got it I started buying most of my electronics and all my books on Amazon. If you consider the annual fee a sunk cost, most things are cheaper on Amazon than local stores.
Oh, god. I’m far worse than anyone in this thread. Or maybe I just have more balls, to admit this…
I fell for the FlipFold. You know, that one on the infomercials - lay your t-shirt on this plastic hingey gadgety thing, and it’s folded perfectly?
:smack:
I don’t know what I was thinking. By the time you arrange your t-shirt just so and smooth out all the wrinkles, you could have folded four shirts. And really, it still requires folding, you just fold the plastic instead of the shirt.
Even worse, I don’t think I ever used it. I bought it, it sat in my car trunk for like a year, and then my husband threw it out.
WhyNot, I bought the flip fold thingie as well. Although I must shame-facedly confess that I love it. I am the sloppiest folder in the world, and this thing makes it a lot easier. Yeah, it’s time consuming, but I usually fold while I’m watching a movie anyway, so no big.
Border’s reward card. It’s free, you build up money in a fund for using it during the year, get a 10% off day every month, and the money that gets built up can be used during the holiday season.
I remember my friend telling me that between using his saved up money, the 10$ shopping day, an additional coupon he had, and a small gift certificate, he paid $10 out of pocket for a Star Wars Force FX lightsaber.
Every week or two, like clockwork, Bed, Bath, and Beyond sends me a 20% off coupon. I take it and go to find something I need there (or would like in general) and use it to get an upgraded version for less than I would pay ordinarily. I buy exactly one item and leave until they send me another one, but I do it anyways. It’s working out OK for me - mostly I get Shun knives from them, which for some bizarre reason is not on their “banned” list, but some distressingly large number of my things come from that.
I bought a lot of American Apparel clothes based off their made-in-America, no-sweatshop campaign (and their no-logos-or-prints aesthetic). I’m not really sure how much I like their softcore-porn ads, though, so I don’t know how much this will continue.
I changed banks largely because of the CitiBank ThankYou program (though also because I am sick of having to change my life to avoid being hit by bogus Wells Fargo charges). It was between them and BofA.
One of the people here in the office buys crates of candy from that Hershey/eBay promo and gives it away. Every week we have a dozen boxes of candy stacked up, with the points cut out.
The first is the Amazon Visa card. For every $2500 you spend, they send you a $25 gift certificate, and they give you credit in that program for balance transfers.
The second is that awesome Coinstar/Amazon promotion where your change is counted for free if you use to to buy an Amazon.com certificate. I started a thread about it, actually. It’s a great way to save up for book money-- just put all of the change in your pockets at the end of the day in a jar and a few months later, cash it in. “Free” books!
OK now, I liked BWP, BUT alas, I was snared by the ads to see THE OMEN remake on June 6 sigh
On the good side, Sam Goody’s frequent customer card program was pretty good to me up to when the local SG closed. It still works through their website tho.
When hubby and I purchased an LCD TV last week, thanks to Sony and their bouncing balls, I had Bravia on the mind. Such a pretty ad, serene, bouncing balls. Bravia TV. Pretty.
These coupons have an expiration date on them but they will take them at any time, so you can save them for as long as you want, FWIW.
As for myself, I am struggling against getting that automatic shower cleaner, because it probably doesn’t work but I want one. I want a shower full of maids to clean it for me!
I have a shark sweeper that works ok but not as well as I hoped. I am a sucker for new products but I can only name a few that did not disappoint.
