I haven't gotten enough sleep and I'm way too tired as evidenced by:
The fact that I saw an odd flickery shadow and had to get up and chase the dog around to monitor the effects on said shadow, just to make sure I didn't have a vashta nerada infestation.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Dispatches from Marketer World: Part 2— Brands
What better way to emphasise the regularness of this feature than to include two in a row?
If I'm to make a habit of highlighting how marketers think (as gleaned from the types of questions they ask or fail to ask in market research surveys), I suppose it's best to start by addressing the biggest concern: Brands.
What is a brand? I'm sure you already know that. A brand is a name, a logo, a design, a slogan; a bit of intellectual property too small or simple to be eligible for copyright protection (usually), but protected by trademark instead, and used by its owner to mark a product as having come from them.
Marketers, however, use the term "brand" to refer not only to the trademark, but to the product emblazoned with it, the company that owns it, and (in most cases), anything that can be identified as a cohesive entity. To us regular people, this is a brand. To a marketer, however, the physical can of sodypop with that logo upon it is also a brand, as is the Moxie Beverage Company that made it, and Cornucopia Beverages, the company that owns them. To a marketer, even a non-profit entity such as Oxfam or a semi-organised social movement such as Occupy Wall Street is also a brand.
This oddly expansive definition of the word "brand" means that most market research surveys are written in a comprehensible-but-awkward creole where I'm asked to evaluate a brand, provide opinions on a potential new brand, all so that an existing brand can better make decisions about which brands it should create in the future.
The over-reliance on the slightly misused word "brand" makes it a little bit difficult to comment on this next topic, but I'm fairly certain that marketers are overly concerned with brands above and beyond their obsession with the word itself.
Nearly every market research survey either assumes that which brand is emblazoned in a product must necessarily factor into my purchase decisions to a much greater extent than it actually does. It makes sense that they would think this way; they've almost certainly invested a lot of time and money in the idea that the key to success is to advertise a brand and assume people will buy products based on their resulting familiarity with the sight of the logo. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case.
Not all products are created equal, and because a brand connects a product to its manufacturer, a brand can serve as a proxy for distinguishing quality manufacturers from those best avoided. However, brands are a limited and flawed proxy at best, for several reasons.
First, the vast majority of our purchases are for small everyday things like toothpaste and napkins. These items are called parity products, meaning that all the choices on offer are the same in every respect (except, potentially, price). Many of the market research surveys I've taken asked me to evaluate a new sales pitch or piece of ad copy for one of these products, and then asked me to what extent it made me more likely to purchase the product made by the advertising manufacturer; those marketers were fooling themselves because price is the only consideration on these products.
Second, even when there are distinct differences between manufacturers, brands don't correlate to manufacturers directly. In many cases, a heavily advertised brand and a less advertised brand will both be placed on the same product; the former will be more expensive than the latter despite being exactly the same thing. It's generally a safe bet that any product endorsed by a celebrity can be found much cheaper by looking for one without the celebrity-endorsed brand slapped on it; unless you want to pay money to a celebrity who doesn't need it or deserve it, you can probably find a non-endorsed version of the same product cheaper.
Third, even when a brand directly correlates to a specific manufacturer, brands can be bought, sold, traded, and licensed like any other form of intellectual property. Many years back, my family would make a point of obtaining Stella D'oro cookies whenever we could find them. The Stella D'oro brand was owned by the Stella D'oro Biscuit Company, so any product with that brand was made by that company. The Stella D'oro Biscuit Company produced all of its delicious biscuits at a plant on West 237th Street in the Bronx, employed union workers and paid fair wages, and used high quality ingredients. If you saw the Stella D'oro brand on the package, you knew it was quality stuff.
Problem is, then the company got sold, first to Nabisco, then to Kraft Foods, then to Brynwood Partners, then to Snyder's-Lance, Inc. Snyder's-Lance and the various intermediate owners closed the Bronx facility and demolished it, fired the union workers and moved production to a state that banned unions so that they could pay insufficient wages to their employees, and cut back on manufacturing costs by switching to lower-quality ingredients. Any product with the Stella D'oro brand on it today is low-quality garbage churned out by a conglomerate, made by underpaid workers in a state you'd normally fly over.
But the brand hasn't changed. Snyder's-Lance, Inc, may be the antithesis of the family business which made the stuff I used to love and their products may be poor imitations of my beloved biscuits, but the brand is exactly the same, because they bought the rights to use it. This isn't the only case where a company bought the rights to a brand associated with quality goods in order to use that association to peddle crap but it's the one case I always think of because of how thorough the reversal was.
Maybe I'm unique in this respect - an extreme outlier on a chart of the advertising-molded opinions of sheep - but I refuse to believe that the advertising industry's obsession with brands actually has any meaningful effect on consumers' purchase decisions.
As far as I've always been able to figure, advertising is what corporations do because they're not physically capable of masturbating.
If I'm to make a habit of highlighting how marketers think (as gleaned from the types of questions they ask or fail to ask in market research surveys), I suppose it's best to start by addressing the biggest concern: Brands.
What is a brand? I'm sure you already know that. A brand is a name, a logo, a design, a slogan; a bit of intellectual property too small or simple to be eligible for copyright protection (usually), but protected by trademark instead, and used by its owner to mark a product as having come from them.
Marketers, however, use the term "brand" to refer not only to the trademark, but to the product emblazoned with it, the company that owns it, and (in most cases), anything that can be identified as a cohesive entity. To us regular people, this is a brand. To a marketer, however, the physical can of sodypop with that logo upon it is also a brand, as is the Moxie Beverage Company that made it, and Cornucopia Beverages, the company that owns them. To a marketer, even a non-profit entity such as Oxfam or a semi-organised social movement such as Occupy Wall Street is also a brand.
This oddly expansive definition of the word "brand" means that most market research surveys are written in a comprehensible-but-awkward creole where I'm asked to evaluate a brand, provide opinions on a potential new brand, all so that an existing brand can better make decisions about which brands it should create in the future.
The over-reliance on the slightly misused word "brand" makes it a little bit difficult to comment on this next topic, but I'm fairly certain that marketers are overly concerned with brands above and beyond their obsession with the word itself.
Nearly every market research survey either assumes that which brand is emblazoned in a product must necessarily factor into my purchase decisions to a much greater extent than it actually does. It makes sense that they would think this way; they've almost certainly invested a lot of time and money in the idea that the key to success is to advertise a brand and assume people will buy products based on their resulting familiarity with the sight of the logo. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case.
Not all products are created equal, and because a brand connects a product to its manufacturer, a brand can serve as a proxy for distinguishing quality manufacturers from those best avoided. However, brands are a limited and flawed proxy at best, for several reasons.
First, the vast majority of our purchases are for small everyday things like toothpaste and napkins. These items are called parity products, meaning that all the choices on offer are the same in every respect (except, potentially, price). Many of the market research surveys I've taken asked me to evaluate a new sales pitch or piece of ad copy for one of these products, and then asked me to what extent it made me more likely to purchase the product made by the advertising manufacturer; those marketers were fooling themselves because price is the only consideration on these products.
Second, even when there are distinct differences between manufacturers, brands don't correlate to manufacturers directly. In many cases, a heavily advertised brand and a less advertised brand will both be placed on the same product; the former will be more expensive than the latter despite being exactly the same thing. It's generally a safe bet that any product endorsed by a celebrity can be found much cheaper by looking for one without the celebrity-endorsed brand slapped on it; unless you want to pay money to a celebrity who doesn't need it or deserve it, you can probably find a non-endorsed version of the same product cheaper.
Third, even when a brand directly correlates to a specific manufacturer, brands can be bought, sold, traded, and licensed like any other form of intellectual property. Many years back, my family would make a point of obtaining Stella D'oro cookies whenever we could find them. The Stella D'oro brand was owned by the Stella D'oro Biscuit Company, so any product with that brand was made by that company. The Stella D'oro Biscuit Company produced all of its delicious biscuits at a plant on West 237th Street in the Bronx, employed union workers and paid fair wages, and used high quality ingredients. If you saw the Stella D'oro brand on the package, you knew it was quality stuff.
Problem is, then the company got sold, first to Nabisco, then to Kraft Foods, then to Brynwood Partners, then to Snyder's-Lance, Inc. Snyder's-Lance and the various intermediate owners closed the Bronx facility and demolished it, fired the union workers and moved production to a state that banned unions so that they could pay insufficient wages to their employees, and cut back on manufacturing costs by switching to lower-quality ingredients. Any product with the Stella D'oro brand on it today is low-quality garbage churned out by a conglomerate, made by underpaid workers in a state you'd normally fly over.
But the brand hasn't changed. Snyder's-Lance, Inc, may be the antithesis of the family business which made the stuff I used to love and their products may be poor imitations of my beloved biscuits, but the brand is exactly the same, because they bought the rights to use it. This isn't the only case where a company bought the rights to a brand associated with quality goods in order to use that association to peddle crap but it's the one case I always think of because of how thorough the reversal was.
Maybe I'm unique in this respect - an extreme outlier on a chart of the advertising-molded opinions of sheep - but I refuse to believe that the advertising industry's obsession with brands actually has any meaningful effect on consumers' purchase decisions.
As far as I've always been able to figure, advertising is what corporations do because they're not physically capable of masturbating.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Dispatches from Marketer World: Part 1— Maple Syrup
I really wasn't intending to turn ITIHAB into "Why Marketers Suck" but these market research surveys contribute significantly to my disposable income and the more I take the more I become convinced that marketers just don't live on the same planet as we do. So I guess my only option is to turn this into a regular feature, in which I share the many ways product marketers just don't think the way us humans do.
Today's report comes from a recent survey I took that wanted to gauge my opinion to some new breakfast product or summat; I'm not actually sure what it was since I bounced from the survey a few questions in.
The survey asked me whether I ever ate pancakes or waffles, and upon my confirmation that I did, it asked me what I typically put on them.
Maple syrup was not one of the options.
The multiple choice question offered options for various combinations of fruits, ice cream, whipped cream, and so forth, with the top of the list offering two choices of syrup: Corn syrup with fenugreek (the typical formula for cheap knockoff imitation maple syrup) or corn syrup with other flavouring.
Seriously? I know maple syrup is a tad expensive, but it didn't even occur to them to list it? Why, when I was growing up, serving pancakes with anything that listed "glucose-fructose" on its ingredients panel was considered a faux pas on roughly the same level as screwing your sister at the table.
And the marketers didn't even think to list it. From what I could tell, they were marketing some form of pancake or waffle mix; you would think a product's marketers might have at least some knowledge as to its complementary products.
I have to confess, however, that I've discovered a fondness for putting cream and jam on pancakes, largely due to a meal I had on a train a few years ago.
Today's report comes from a recent survey I took that wanted to gauge my opinion to some new breakfast product or summat; I'm not actually sure what it was since I bounced from the survey a few questions in.
The survey asked me whether I ever ate pancakes or waffles, and upon my confirmation that I did, it asked me what I typically put on them.
Maple syrup was not one of the options.
The multiple choice question offered options for various combinations of fruits, ice cream, whipped cream, and so forth, with the top of the list offering two choices of syrup: Corn syrup with fenugreek (the typical formula for cheap knockoff imitation maple syrup) or corn syrup with other flavouring.
Seriously? I know maple syrup is a tad expensive, but it didn't even occur to them to list it? Why, when I was growing up, serving pancakes with anything that listed "glucose-fructose" on its ingredients panel was considered a faux pas on roughly the same level as screwing your sister at the table.
And the marketers didn't even think to list it. From what I could tell, they were marketing some form of pancake or waffle mix; you would think a product's marketers might have at least some knowledge as to its complementary products.
I have to confess, however, that I've discovered a fondness for putting cream and jam on pancakes, largely due to a meal I had on a train a few years ago.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
I Have A New Computer!
Yes, I have been using a decade-old computer I found for free in a bin, but no more! My local computer store offered me a deal too amazing to pass up! (By which I mean I found another computer for free in a bin.)
As of a few days ago, my local computer store (the bin two streets away) has furnished me with a five-year-old Macbook with nothing but a head crash separating it from a long(ish) career as my primary PC.
As of now, it has a brand new hard drive and is running quite happily. So a hearty thank you to whoever didn't realise that hard drives could be replaced or that a hard drive failure was the reason their magic box stopped working, and decided to chuck it where I could find it.
Now I get to experience the thrill of computing luxuries as yet unknown to me, such as a reasonably up to date version of Firefox and a flash player that's still reasonably serviceable! (The PowerPC maxed out at 10.1, while this happily runs Flash Player 11.3, a version that was still supported within some semblance of recent memory.)
The PowerPC has been demoted to Computer I Can't Use Without Getting Out Of Bed status, but I'm keeping it anyway; turns out I'm not willing to abandon ShadowWraith and Diamonds 3D and other wonderful games just because they can't run on Intel hardware.
Vital stats:
Computer: Newer
Date: Today
Current Mood: Bouncy
Sleep Status: Not a wink
Word of the Day: Lurid
Platform: Macintel
Browser: Actual proper Firefox now.
RAM: 2 GB
No, the RAM on the table: That was the broken one from the old computer.
Why?: Well now it's my bookmark.
Oh: Yeah, it's not very useful as RAM anymore but it holds my place in books.
Redundancy: A bit.
Do you has?: Five bucks.
Boond you like?: No.
Favourite character: The Doctor
Doctor who?: I believe his name is Graben.
Sayan?: No, and the demonym is "Siana."
Rambling: Yes
More: No
As of a few days ago, my local computer store (the bin two streets away) has furnished me with a five-year-old Macbook with nothing but a head crash separating it from a long(ish) career as my primary PC.
As of now, it has a brand new hard drive and is running quite happily. So a hearty thank you to whoever didn't realise that hard drives could be replaced or that a hard drive failure was the reason their magic box stopped working, and decided to chuck it where I could find it.
Now I get to experience the thrill of computing luxuries as yet unknown to me, such as a reasonably up to date version of Firefox and a flash player that's still reasonably serviceable! (The PowerPC maxed out at 10.1, while this happily runs Flash Player 11.3, a version that was still supported within some semblance of recent memory.)
The PowerPC has been demoted to Computer I Can't Use Without Getting Out Of Bed status, but I'm keeping it anyway; turns out I'm not willing to abandon ShadowWraith and Diamonds 3D and other wonderful games just because they can't run on Intel hardware.
Vital stats:
Computer: Newer
Date: Today
Current Mood: Bouncy
Sleep Status: Not a wink
Word of the Day: Lurid
Platform: Macintel
Browser: Actual proper Firefox now.
RAM: 2 GB
No, the RAM on the table: That was the broken one from the old computer.
Why?: Well now it's my bookmark.
Oh: Yeah, it's not very useful as RAM anymore but it holds my place in books.
Redundancy: A bit.
Do you has?: Five bucks.
Boond you like?: No.
Favourite character: The Doctor
Doctor who?: I believe his name is Graben.
Sayan?: No, and the demonym is "Siana."
Rambling: Yes
More: No
Monday, January 28, 2013
Little Things That BUG Me #6
The companies that produce food for public consumption collectively expend approximately zero effort producing lactose-free dairy products (except for straight-up milk) and exactly zero effort making lactose-free dairy products that actually taste authentic (seriously, lactose-free milk is disgusting). Proper, good-tasting, real-tasting lactose-free milk, cheese, and ice cream just aren't priorities for the food industry; none of them bother trying.
And yet, they readily churn out gluten-free pasta and gluten-free bread and gluten-free versions of anything that may potentially be made from wheat, and although they may be more expensive, they usually make their gluten-free items taste like the real thing.
Gluten intolerance is a very rare condition, affecting less than 1% of the population.
Lactose intolerance is the default condition, with the mutation that causes lactose tolerance in adulthood present and effective in less than half the population.
And yet, they readily churn out gluten-free pasta and gluten-free bread and gluten-free versions of anything that may potentially be made from wheat, and although they may be more expensive, they usually make their gluten-free items taste like the real thing.
Gluten intolerance is a very rare condition, affecting less than 1% of the population.
Lactose intolerance is the default condition, with the mutation that causes lactose tolerance in adulthood present and effective in less than half the population.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Advice To Ad Agencies
In order to further transition ITIHAB into "Why Marketers Suck," here's a post containing some advice to them.
This will probably come as a surprise to absolutely no one who knows me in real life given that I'm perpetually broke, but I take market research surveys for money. This fact is also unsurprising to people who found my blog through some random Google search because they don't know or care about me, and it's not particularly surprising as far as facts go; if I had revealed I was secretly an alien, or the Queen, or that I had recently used the Book of Parallels that showed up in my postbox anonymously to retrieve a cure for cancer from an alternate universe, then that would be surprising but that I take market research surveys for money is generally more of a resident of the "meh" territory, like revealing I had a movie about aliens, or that I was a queen, or that I just made up the Book of Parallels and you shouldn't bother googling it because it's not a reference.
I typically can't share any juicy (or gruesome) details about experimental products because of confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements and most surveys not actually having any. However, I can share my comments from these surveys because they're, you know, mine.
One survey asked, on its final page, if I had any advice I'd liked to give to ad agencies and the people who make adverts in general. As it turned out, I did have some advice, and so I answered thus:
Oh, and happy new year and stuff I completely forgot to blog about at the time. Cheers!
This will probably come as a surprise to absolutely no one who knows me in real life given that I'm perpetually broke, but I take market research surveys for money. This fact is also unsurprising to people who found my blog through some random Google search because they don't know or care about me, and it's not particularly surprising as far as facts go; if I had revealed I was secretly an alien, or the Queen, or that I had recently used the Book of Parallels that showed up in my postbox anonymously to retrieve a cure for cancer from an alternate universe, then that would be surprising but that I take market research surveys for money is generally more of a resident of the "meh" territory, like revealing I had a movie about aliens, or that I was a queen, or that I just made up the Book of Parallels and you shouldn't bother googling it because it's not a reference.
I typically can't share any juicy (or gruesome) details about experimental products because of confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements and most surveys not actually having any. However, I can share my comments from these surveys because they're, you know, mine.
One survey asked, on its final page, if I had any advice I'd liked to give to ad agencies and the people who make adverts in general. As it turned out, I did have some advice, and so I answered thus:
On balance, an ad is a BAD THING. By definition. If it supports content, then "ad + content" might total out to a positive, but "ad" is ALWAYS negative. Nobody *wants* to see ads, so stop trying to pretend that you can make your ads "better" so people will enjoy them. So basically, telling us that an invasion of privacy is justified because it means you can show "more relevant" ads doesn't just insult our intelligence; it makes you look like some freakish alien that's doing a really poor job of trying to imitate human behaviour.
As for what will make your ads "work" (in the sense of actually driving traffic/sales/etc), I can't help you. My browser has an adblock, and my mind has an adblock as well, so I can't remember ads once I'm no longer looking at them. If a company advertises, I will interpret this to mean that their products are inferior or overpriced since they obviously can't rely on quality or price to drive sales. I have never clicked an online ad unless I was (1) paid to click on it or (2) clicking on it repeatedly because it was offensive and I enjoyed the prospect of making them pay for a dozen-odd clickthroughs for zero conversions. I have responded to direct mail adverts by filling business reply envelopes with various items including (1) rocks, (2) direct mail adverts that didn't come with prepaid reply envelopes, or (3) the lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley and mailing them back at advertiser expense. And I don't watch TV so don't think you can advertise at me there either.
Oh, and happy new year and stuff I completely forgot to blog about at the time. Cheers!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Eat It, Bell!
You evil telecommunications monopoly!
I alluded previously to my problems with a Bell Mobility prepaid plan for my mobile, noting that by topping up my account, using the credit, and then charging back the top-up fee, I forced them to honour their agreed rate of 30¢/minute (more or less).
Well, it's a few months later and the chargeback stands; either Bell has declined to dispute the matter or they have failed to convince my credit card company that 50 = 30, so I have officially won. Yay me.
For my next trip, I'm going to consider renting a portable satellite uplink rather than muck about with local SIM cards and prepaid plans. Especially if I end up in third worldier destinations next time. (Here's hoping, at any rate.)
Speaking of which, plans to sail to/from Manila are on indefinite suspension on the grounds that cruise lines suck.
I alluded previously to my problems with a Bell Mobility prepaid plan for my mobile, noting that by topping up my account, using the credit, and then charging back the top-up fee, I forced them to honour their agreed rate of 30¢/minute (more or less).
Well, it's a few months later and the chargeback stands; either Bell has declined to dispute the matter or they have failed to convince my credit card company that 50 = 30, so I have officially won. Yay me.
For my next trip, I'm going to consider renting a portable satellite uplink rather than muck about with local SIM cards and prepaid plans. Especially if I end up in third worldier destinations next time. (Here's hoping, at any rate.)
Speaking of which, plans to sail to/from Manila are on indefinite suspension on the grounds that cruise lines suck.
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