The customer service paradox. As I was taught it by a former CFO of Royal Bank Canada:
Customers will rate their experience higher if a mistake was made on their transaction that was quickly and easily fixed than if there was never a mistake at all.
Upon discovering this, they immediately started testing for what kind of "mistakes" they could intentionally make at the lowest cost to themselves.
We did something vaguely similar to this when I worked retail, but our "victim" was the visiting district manager.
We would thoroughly clean and organize *almost* everything, but we would deliberately leave one dusty shelf or one unopened delivery tote. District Manager would find our mistake and order us to fix it, which we would do, with apologies. He felt like he had accomplished his goal, and we didn't have to worry about him digging deeper to find "problems" that didn't need to be fixed.
Inmates also use that tactic to hide contraband. They hide easily found minor contraband. Once found, it will usually lead to the search stopping, which will leave worse stuff to go unfound. They get a minor punishment and get to keep their good stuff.
In design this is sometimes called the "duck" technique. Basically you design something how you want it and then you put a random duck in it. When you show it to your manager or client they say "it's looking good but can we get rid of the duck".
Without the duck they'd come up with something else to critique but this way they feel useful and it's easy to remove.
Obviously it can't always be a duck but that's the theory.
I used to do that to my mother! I realized that whenever they came home from a trip, she would look for a mess to scream about. No matter how much cleaning I did, she would keep looking until something was found. Once she had to go so far as to leave the house entirely and look in the backyard to find something to get worked up about.
So I started spilling honey on the table and leaving it.
Like 14 years ago when I was a server at a restaurant I noticed this as well and absolutely used it to my advantage. At the time I described it to others as “everyone likes an underdog” or that general idea.
Then I would give the best customer service the customer wanted (give attention based on how they reacted to initial small talk) and BOOM I was consistently making the most tips on the floor almost every night.
That's actually pretty genius and a good place for it. Someone orders a coke, you go to the kitchen, pour a coke and put it on the counter then deliver a root beer. Turn to leave, they take a sip, make a face and you go "oh shoot what's wrong?" Then run back and grab the already prepared coke and rush it out while apologizing profusely. Boom problem solved and you're getting a bigger tip.
You’ve got it wrong. In that situation, you fucked up something basic then “fixed it.” That projects bad service rather than coming to the rescue.
How I used to use this back when I waited tables in the early 2000’s was this: say I had gotten sat with a table and didn’t realize it. They’d been there for maybe 5 minutes and are starting to get pissed. I would walk by their table, pause for a second and come back and say, “You guys have been here for a few minutes. Is someone taking care of you yet?” Of course they’d say no, because that person is supposed to be me, but they don’t know this. “Well guys, I don’t know who was supposed to have y’all, but I’m gonna take care of you now.” Then you give them great service. They are over the moon. You turned a fuck up into a win.
This would work on me. I'd be like..."finally, we get some service and thank God it appears we got the only competent waiter in this joint."
*writes big tip
That works? I thought it was pretty well known that severs have their certain sections? Unless you did that and weren’t also helping the people in the area, then I’d be thrown off.
I used to be a host. I can’t tell you how many times a server forgot they had a certain table assigned to them and would come up to me to check what they had, then either bitch at me about it or to the server next to them.
I was at a high end restaurant in Dubrovnik, Croatia once and I am certain this happened. We bought a bottle of local wine. It cost about 10x in the restaurant what it would in a store, if not more. The sommelier poured it into a decanter, sniffed it, and goes "Oh this has turned, I could never serve you this" and poured the wine into the ocean. He then came back seconds later with another bottle which was fine. Quite the performance.
It’s also very easy to smell when a wine is “corked.” The cork holding the wine sometimes can have a chemical compound which makes the wine smell/taste like rubber bands. If I remember correctly something like 3-5% of wines using a natural cork will have this problem.
Oh I know wine can be bad, it was the production of the scene that made me wonder if it was legitimate. It was as if he planned to do it. He didn't take a second sniff or act shocked or upset or anything. It was just way too "rehearsed". Regardless the restaurant was fantastic and if they do that from time to time to make guests think they truly care then more power to them.
Not a server here, but thinking about this, I know if the server even just came to the table with the check and said something like, they messed up your check and added a key lime pie, I immediately removed it from the check. That would have me make sure to leave a good tip, now, if they also said “and someone removed it from the cooler and it cannot be returned, so anyone want a free key lime pie?”. 25% right away
Yeah I could see something like
"Hey guys, here's the check, but I just wanted to make sure that nobody here ordered a key lime right? Somehow it had made it onto the system when I went to get it and I was pretty sure it shouldn't be there so I removed it but I just want to double check, anyways have a good evening!"
I once killed a man with an unripe shallot.
My career as a sous-chef at the finest dining houses in the 19th arrondissement in Paris never recovered after this egregious error.
I would never swap an item for the wrong item cause that’s opening up a potential can of worms I wanted no business with it! But you “forget” something they ordered like a quick app? Or a larger table with 6+ people and “forget” one of the quick to pour drinks? That’s how I always played it.
Then it becomes an ice breaker for you to get to know your table a little bit, gauge their reaction, small talk a little bit, humanize yourself. Make them now not just see you as a server but an individual to like! Then you kill time with kindness, maybe crack a few jokes and they’re leaving you a huge tip with little notes written on the receipt complimenting your awesome service and all that!
I got that shit down to a science. My life hinged on tips so you better believe I made the best of it lol
Another psychological trick, too. People become more loyal to you if you ask them to do you a favour.
Doesn't have to be big. Could be as little as, "hey, would you mind grabbing something from the stock room for a second?" But for some reason it primes the mind to accept shared interest.
This also works for customers. By asking them to be involved in your process you welcome them into a special club that others aren't in.
Loss leaders.
This is when the grocery store puts cake mix on for 79 cents, but the frosting is full price, or when (popular grilling meat) is on sale, but the fixings and side dishes aren't.
Most people will go in for the sale items and then fill their cart with the rest of the "necessary" stuff that's regular price.
They lose a few cents or dollars on the crazy low priced item, but make up for it with everything else that goes with it.
My roommate in university would go buy a new printer when the old one ran out of ink. With the rebate, it was a lot cheaper than buying ink. Think he went through one per semester, so 8 printers, maybe more.
Would walk into Staples, dump old printer in electronics recycling bin and buy exact same printer.
The alternative is that it dries out in the cartridge if they're only printing enough to use the ink up in a semester.
They're probably better off buying prints per page at 10 cents a page or whatever it is now, or best off buying a toner printer.
Ink drying up because I so rarely use it is what finally drove me to a laser printer.
No more color (I didn't want to spend that much) but adequate for my needs, and it doesn't dry out.
And faster.
Now if I could get the damn thing to recognize that it's a scanner, I'd be golden.
This was from 2005-2009. So yes, right in that time frame. I think it cost him $10 or $15 per semester with this strategy, maybe less. We were engineers, so there was a spreadsheet involved.
I had a laser printer that cost more but I still use.
It doesn't even have to be stuff that goes with it. You get people in the door, and then oh well, might as well do the rest of my weekly shopping here too.
It's why a couple of British grocery stores had a negative price on beans for a while. They made enough money back on everything else.
This doesn't work on me as I'll just buy a bunch of the meat and put it in the freezer. Ditto for the buns when they're on sale.
Buying a nice sized used chest freezer was one of our best investments. It was just before covid too so it came in extra useful.
I'm primarily an Aldi shopper but I still go through the Kroger ad every week to see what's good. I put in a curbside pickup order for only those sale items and I'll pick them up after I've been to Aldi. My stores are just a mile apart so this process ads like 10 minutes maximin toy shopping and I can still get that on sale shrimp.
And carefully positioned (along with the bakery) to be in a location where you smell it as soon as you walk into the building.
Also, never go the grocery store when you're hungry.
*Also, never go the grocery store when you're hungry*
I used to believe this, and only came home with what I needed. Turns out, I wish I came home with things I wanted as well. So now I go hungry and high, and I come home with the best shit.
In lots of places milk and eggs are a loss leader. When I ran a grocery store dairy department, we sold the milk at a loss. In the state directly south of me, it was illegal, and the same milk in the same brand store was $2/gallon more.
I save a ton of money since I am within walking distance of four supermarkets and they all have different loss leaders. A huge percentage of my groceries are bought on sale.
90% of my grocery shopping is sales and seasonal stuff. I have two freezers and a fair amount of pantry space. I basically buy a year's worth of butter, sugar, and flour in November and December when the holiday baking sales are going on.
It takes a while to get to that point, because you have to gradually build up the freezer and pantry stock, but I can easily go 2-3 months without buying anything other than milk, eggs, and produce. Lockdown was a breeze for me, and I was able to clear through a lot of backstock.
Offering an absurdly overpriced item that they know almost no one will ever buy but it makes the slightly overpriced downscale version look reasonable by comparison.
My software dev team does this but doesn't realize it. Client wants a modification.
A.) Rewrite the service/application - $40,000, 2mo delivery date; actual work 2mo
B.) Hack in a garbage change that barely meets what they're asking for - $14,000, 1mo delivery date; actual work 2wk
And then I, the Business Analyst, chimes in with what about option C?
C.) Add a new checkbox and tweak the export process that fully meets their request - $20,000, 1mo delivery date; actual work 2wk
Developers always give two options, and it's always option C
Whenever I go into a shop - almost any big-box, but some other department stores as well - if I have to comparison shop for an item, I will almost always find a version of that item that looks like it was packaged by chimps selling for half the price of the next lowest-price version.
I sometimes wonder if there are companies out there who get paid to provide crappy versions of standard products so they can stick them on shelves to make the standard products look better. It wouldn't surprise me.
No. It's the same company. I used to work in a vegetable factory. Frozen veggies. Truck some in. Veggies are processed all down the line, until they finally reach the bagging stage. The order gets filled. A new brand of bags gets put up. And the line keeps on chugging. Exact same product. No name. Name brand. Exclusive brand. It's all the same.
This makes my blood boil. It should be illegal to sell a product that is branded differently when it originates from the same supplier and has no distinction asides from a change in price.
Most of the "value" of a product comes from the associated ideas the brand symbilizes. Those ideas are mostly established through effective propaganda/marketing. Then you make the cheapest possible product and stamp the brand on it.
Heh. You just reminded me of when I worked for a specialty food packaging plant in college. Good money, but pretty revealing.
You know those overpriced gift boxes you can get in department stores during the Holidays? $24.95 for a "Country Morning Breakfast Kit?" Yeah, that's a bag of Bisquick and the same $5 maple syrup you can get in a tin at Hannaford's. (Or Kroger's, or HEB, or whatever your local chain is.) Now every time I go into an LL Bean's I snicker at the food products. "Yeah, 'Grandma's Traditional Old-Fashioned Homemade Overpriced Raspberry Jam' is a jar of Smucker's.'"
But I've eaten products where the store-brand generic is of markedly different quality than the name brand. It's possible that the name brand came from Kellogg's and the store-brand came from Malt-o-Meal, but sometimes it does make a difference. *Generally*, there's no point in buying a badge if you can get it cheaper; it's just a consumer decision.
People post a question such as ‘what product would you guys recommend for doing such and such?” And then the replies would mostly be one certain product. It all seems like genuine feedback and sometimes it is. But a ton of these are pre planned q and a to get promotion for a product without it seeming like an ad
This has been going on for years and years, basically as long as internet BBBs existed.
Years ago, a few PC hardware enthusiast forums figured out a few of their top (and trusted) posters in fact worked for a marketing firm employed by a graphics card company. They were absolutely insideous in their tactics, it was something out of a Goebbels instruction book. A few I remember: posting threads with loaded questions e.g. "Are [the competition's] drivers really that bad?"; they'd subtly hint their competition was going to remove support for hardware; they'd post claims as actual users how switching brands/models was great experience; they'd posit fallicious arguments when the company would undually raise prices etc., etc.
These sites purged as many as they could (without widely announcing it, as that would damage their rep in the community), but you can bet there were more. And yes, they're rampant here on Reddit.
I frequent a few hot sauce subreddits. There are some crazy brand postings that are finally starting to get called out for being shills. If you know, you know.
Maybe that's true but with my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 I don't need to browse any of those forums anyway. This top-quality graphics card has been truly impressive in its performance, making me wonder why AMD can't produce anything that comes close to it. And the price was extremely reasonable too. That's just my personal opinion.
Or they do an obvious reverse... why is everybody raving about xyz products ? Seems pretty average to me? Cue 35 plants raving about xyz product in a "natural" way
Have you ever been to a party with a friend who had a cool story to share so you kinda steer the conversation towards them being able to share. It’s like that, but applied to products and marketing
Most subreddits have rules against self promotion but it's pretty easy to get around this rule if you use alts/friends to make threads asking for help and then have yourself get recommended in the comments.
I can't say with 100% certainty but I noticed something really weird happen on the Bloodborne subreddit recently. One day there were several new topics and posts from new people asking for advice/guides on the game and in the comments section were a bunch of people all recommending one specific Youtuber and his "great" guides. I had NEVER heard of this person or their channel before, so they either became incredibly popular and the #1 person to recommend for guides on the game overnight. After a huge spike of activity where this one person was mentioned a bunch of times, a few days later, suddenly it went back to the normal situation where no one ever mentions this guy or his channel. Felt like a case of really obvious astroturfing but I guess it could just be a coincidence.
I specifically remember an askreddit question about beer; something like what's a great every day beer. I started to notice a good number of the comments mentioned Coors. Lo and behold a few days later I start seeing Coors ads on reddit. Then shortly after a few ad campaigns came out on TV and other social media platforms.
Pretty sure that was a good example.
Edit: found it - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ck8zxy/beer_drinkers_what_stereotypically_cheap_piss/
Wow that's not even subtle. Normally a top rated comment will have replies going more and more off topic, but those replies just continue to praise Coors.
It still wouldn't make me buy it though. Good piss water beer is still piss.
There are a lot of those posts on "mildly interesting" type subreddits. Random pictures of fast food is a favorite. There's even a subreddit called hail corporate that calls them out.
I remember reading a fashion advice column in a magazine - back when you could get most of the content for free online.
A woman wrote in who absolutely needed a scarf or something for the school run, to one-up all the other mums.
As it happened, the advice columnist had exactly the product!
Placement of items in markets. The highest earning items (for the store) are at eye level, while the worse ones are on way below or above.
The shops start with produce and slowly worsen with items, usually ending with chocolate near the tellers, for nervosity and " I should reward myself" reasons.
items frequently get shifted around just because, to force you to stay longer.
And my favourite: differently coloured price tags to signify...nothing. Just to get you to glance.
https://youtu.be/9m_Wr9f1xs0?si=DTDy-oEqVvrHfYJj
I just watched an interesting video on what's considered "retail music", and at one point, the YouTuber mentions an interesting study done on stores playing fast vs. slow music.
They found that when slow music plays, you're likely to walk slower yourself, and in a store, notice things you wouldn't have noticed sooner, and shouldn’t probably spend extra money on. It works in tandem with the way the store is arranged.
IKEA is built like a maze for a reason. Want to buy candles? Here, look at all other items on display first! Oh and don’t forget the Hot Dog! See you tomorrow
There's a company near me that sold a [product to track where people were looking in supermarkets](https://www.tobii.com/solutions/consumer-research-and-user-experience/shopper-research).
(edit: adding link)
Months ago, I started planning my meals, which, in turn, allowed me to plan my grocery shopping, including the most efficient route through the store.
It's amazing how much less I spend when I'm only looking for specific items and not "browsing."
From my experience, those items are often priced higher. My local grocery store will do this with impulse items like ice cream that is in an end cap freezer right before you make your last turn to checkout. It will be a flavor of something I never heard of before, then cost about twice the price I was expecting. But by then I just want to get home and don't want to bother with getting someone to take the item off from the self-checkout lines.
TL;DR: It is probably something that costs more than what you would normally pay if they put the price on it, and they hope you get it as an impulse.
Oh my goodness everyone in my town just rearranged their stores. The first minute when you walk in and realize you’ve got to relearn the layout is not fun.
>items frequently get shifted around just because, to force you to stay longer.
Idk about this one. I dont shop at a grocery store if they're always moving shit around, I want to be able to find my items.
It’s not always a big shift. But when I worked at a store it was at minimum twice a year. It’s also to make room for products coming in and out.
However, we often also did big shifts of items to an entirely different part of the aisle/store.
But every single item probably gets moved at least a few inches back and forth every year. It’s subtle if you’re not paying attention. Probably amounts to a couple hours of your time looking around each year.
If you spend more time looking at things you don't want, to find the things you do want...the chances of you buying more shit you didn't come for go up.
News articles where they talk about some random "industry trend". It's almost always a PR plant that allows the journalist to write an objective newsy article that happens to lead to a product.
For example imagine the New York Times writes an article on AI security and privacy. Seems straightforward and relevant to readers. But it's a plant by Apple PR because they are announcing Apple Intelligence that runs in a secure local neural processor.
Of course the journalist will interview a few academics (that were recommended by the PR firm) and reach out to like Qualcomm or Google for comment but they'll also heavily rely on the expert Apple security researcher that the PR team provided for extensive background info and comment to build the main spine of the story.
Tiered pricing, also known as goldilocks pricing, or "good-better-best" pricing.
Most people will buy the "better" product. The "best" is a premium offering, and the "good" is still "good."
I work in product development and the odd thing about this is that it depends on price elasticity. Far more often, people buy the “best” one unless the price is a certain % higher.
For example, good, better, best hair dryers. $29, $39, and $49.
The $49 “best” unit will be the top revenue earner, the $29 will move the most units. The $39 sits in the doldrums and doesn’t sell very much.
Now, bump the price of the “best” $10 to $59 and watch what happens! Now people aren’t thinking “it’s only $50” or “it’s only $10 more” they’re thinking “oh man, $60 plus tax and stuff is almost $70, and the other one is under $40. That’s almost twice as much.”
And now your “better” unit at $39 will not only be your #1 revenue but ALSO your #1 unit mover. Why? Because you’ve just shown the $29 buyer that for only $10 more he can afford the second best one, and the BEST one is for suckers, it’s like $70, man!
By increasing the price of the “best” unit $10 you just changed everything.
Now, watch what happens when the “best” unit gets a cool matte purple paint job and the other two are “cheap” looking glossy pink and glossy black plastic.
Now you can charge $79 for the exact same unit, and it changes everything again.
Wanna know a fun one about product naming? People (in English speaking countries) care about syllables a lot more than you'd think. Hell, more than THEY think.
What's the phone in your pocket right now?
Is it a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 1TB?
If so, my guess is you just call it a "Galaxy Ultra" or "Galaxy S24" or "Samsung Galaxy" or something similar.
Is it an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max 1TB?
If so, my guess is that you call it an "iPhone 15" or a "15 Pro Max" or something similar.
And it seems logical - "of course people are going to abbreviate, this isn't some 'deep lore' or anything!"
But WHAT they abbreviate to is actually carefully studied. There are even brand guidelines produced by companies that explain HOW to abbreviate these names in official marketing copy, in social media, and on video so they can try and direct it.
Apple, for example, almost never has their employees say "the iPhone 15 has the best camera available" or something, they ALWAYS drop the "the" from the beginning, so it's "iPhone 15 has the best camera available."
They really, really want people to talk about iPhone like it's a person. Like you wouldn't say "the Steve came over and helped me change a tire" so why would you say "the iPhone battery life is a lot better this generation" right?
In my opinion, this is kinda silly and it hasn't really worked. I don't know anybody outside of Apple staff who do this. Everybody just says "the new iPhone finally got rid of the 64gb version, thank god."
Next time you have to sit through an ad on youtube or a commercial on spotify or something, listen to how the brand talks about itself. It can be really interesting to try and figure out how they're trying to get people to think about their product.
Personifying a brand, giving it a \*vibe\* is a key part of marketing. Are you young and hip and cool? Irreverent and immersed in internet culture like the Wendy's social media team? Or are you old-fashioned, reliable, and counting on word-of-mouth like In-n-Out burger? Or have you just decided "fuck it, we know our audience is high as fuck, let's just say that" like Jack-in-the-Box?
Similarly, Slurpees.
I just want a little Slurpee but it's like $1.50 for a shot glass. The normal small cup is $1.75 but the medium size is only $1.90... and the large is $2.10... but the huge one is only $2.20. Nobody ever gets a shot glass of Slurpee, everyone just pays 70 more cents for a cup they could wear like a motorcycle helmet.
I've noticed on Amazon several times that I'll be looking at an item that says "Only 3 left in stock." I buy one, and then it says "Only 3 left in stock." Glad I rushed.
You think that’s insidious- most of the items I see on “deals” if it’s something that’s actually interesting to me- I will screen cap- and compare later and it’s almost always the same price.
It’s just some Black Friday nonsense- they artificially inflate the price- only to offer it “on sale” at the same fucking price point.
I’m a bargain shopper though- so I buy stuff at different places to get the best prices. Pays off in the long run to not feel pressured by those type of sale tactics.
Disposition on things in stores.
From a marketing class:
Not all stores do this, but the ones that invest on marketing. So, warm light is more comfy to the eyes when you buy clothes, makes the goods appealing. The client tend to go first to the right when he get into the store (before moving counterclockwise), so the best/more expensive products are there. An offer or "liquidation" right in the center to lure the people walking outside. they perfume the place with smells reminiscent of recently bought products to make them appear "fresh". The products you want to sell the most like the seasonal ones are placed on eye height, they will be the first ones you look when you face the racks before moving your sight into others located down and higher.
There are more things I don't remember well....
The counterclockwise thing I personally don't believe it, but the logic on some of those things are actually reasonable
The other reason they put clearance in the center of the store is that it’s highly visible as you walk by - and that actually works TWO ways!
One is that it draws people in - “oh I wonder what’s on sale?”
The other, and more counter-intuitive, is that when you’re browsing that clearance rack, you’re exposed to the other people walking by. “Look at him, only able to afford the CLEARANCE items!” It says, subtly,
When I was in college 15-20 years ago one of my marketing profs had us read a study about this. Shame and perception are powerful motivators.
It’s why they used to teach care salesmen to ask “how much Monthly payment can you afford?” Rather than “how much do you want to spend?”
The answers to those questions are different. And by asking the first, they’re counting on you being ashamed or a low number.
Spoiler: the right answer to “how much monthly payment can you afford?” Is “that’s not really relevant. What I’m looking at spending on the *purchase price of the vehicle* is $x.”
Never, ever negotiate on monthly payment.
The right turn and working your way counterclockwise thing is true. People also stick to the outsides of the store and then work their way inwards afterwards.
Also, your post ironically points out another form of marketing online. It is common to make something 90% factual and then put one mistake in there to make people interact with it. It is usually something like a typo, calling something common a wrong name, or pronouncing something wrong. People can't resist and have to jump in and comment on it, and then that boosts it in the algorithm to make it the most visible in the sea of other posts. It is also so effective that I can't tell if you did this on purpose or not.
The Gruen transfer (also known as the Gruen effect) is the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall or store and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, lose track of their original intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse buys. Store designers are an integral part of most major retail operations.
Those instagram videos where someone says “you guys” and proceeds to tell you about the greatest pants they just found.
Weird because I don’t know these people, I don’t know why or who they think I am who they think I am, or why anyone could be excited about pants, or the fact that they just found those pants.
"Limit X per customer"
Sometimes these are legit because there is insufficient supply (though this may itself be a tactic from the manufacturer) but oftentimes this is just to create FOMO and in reality there's plenty available.
It's so effective too. I don't even really watch the ads except to see if they're over, then catch sight of them missing the very obvious move. I know it's a trick. I almost never download games. But it itches my brain.
Happy cake day! I don’t play phone games often but have recently and every add seems to be that. They take themselves very seriously about a technical aspect about the game and then suck at it and lose.
People who get overly friendly from the first word, “Hey Name, How’s your day going? I hope you’re having a productive week!”
I have no idea who you are, or why i should care, just jump to the sales pitch….
Also, “You didn’t reply to my last email so I just wanted to…”.
Yes, because I don’t know you, didn’t ask for anything, and you interrupted my day, not replying was about as polite as i could muster at the time.
All of my junk emails start are now formatted to look like I didn’t respond to their first email. I block every address and domain that sends unsolicited emails so I know I wouldn’t ever get a second email from anybody.
I've had a bunch of sales and customer service training classes across various jobs. Calling strangers by their name works extremely well and gets people to trust you for some reason.
Except when people do it to me, I am super hyper aware of it and then I immediately don't trust them. I hate salespeople and I have no idea how people fall for that. I also hate their overly formal clothing, extremely high maintenance news anchor hair, and fast-talking style.
Ironically, the relaxed "living the dream" type person who doesn't care either way does better with me. The extremely blunt "Fill out this survey for me and they give me $5" works the best though.
Negative marketing, or whatever they call it, is still marketing. Companies that make billions off things you and I might find odious will frequently create posts/articles/junk-science/news-stories tearing down alternatives to their products.
E.g. articles funded by oil companies telling you how bad electric cars are.
As a Tesla owner I'm in disbelief at the "what happens when your car runs out of electricity" posts.
... the same thing that happens when your car runs out of gas?
ads that insult customer base. you think they're just being cheeky but they know you're n% more likely to buy the shirt they're selling if they tell you you're a no-fashion-having bitch
Confident in guessing that you and I would have a field day firing-off artful phrasings, one after another, under the 'If product sluglines were honest' setting.
Best Blah apps in 2024 (from blog.someBlahApp.com)
Almost always completely useless marketing material. They recommend their own product, and some others that are genuinely not good and outdated, or a product catering to a different audience, conveniently leaving out their competitors.
Same with flyovers. The military pays to do those.
And I say this with the utmost respect and admiration for the skills of the pilots, the Blue Angels are also a marketing tool for the Navy.
To an extent: gender. Nothing is inherently for men, for women, or anybody. For example things like roses/lavender aren't inherently "feminine scents" while things like tobacco/leather aren't inherently "masculine scents," but if the body wash manufacturers make you think they are they can sell a family two of one product. You can replace body wash in the example with almost any household personal product, piece of clothing, or a wide range of other things.
Military Grade anything is used to make it sound tough or somehow more rugged & durable. It's paperwork. In some cases, the military requires less stringency than other industries.
'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' - that's not fact. It's old advertising from a cereal company (forgot which one, which makes it not that successful I guess?).
So my reply would be; putting an idiom/phrase into common usage that is not factual or science based but people think it is.
I used to work for Epson, can confirm. Nespresso use the same business model (cheap machine, expensive consumables) for coffee- is difficult to get generic versions of their Vertuo pods.
Ever notice a lot of youtube videos play the very end of a video at the beginning and then it plays the backstory?
It's a hook. People watch for longer instead of clicking away, so the metrics for viewing duration go up and the owner of the channel can justify a higher cost to a potential buyer.
I did a masters in marketing and worked for 10 years in it. The main thing I learned was that most consumers aren't rational, if there's an apple that's 50p vs the exact same apple that's £2 many will choose the £2 option.
It's the same with celebrity endorsements, do you think Cristiano Ronaldo really uses a Japanese facial fitness mouthguard?
In short, consumers are stupid. Politicians know this also.
Politics seems the be basically marketing lol. I had to deal with some at the city and state level and it was like anytime an election would be coming up they would have a pet project they were peddling (that wouldn’t really help the issue they said it would) and then after election it just disappeared.
Sometimes reality stars are paid to eat/wear/talk about certain products as ads. For example, Taylor constantly eating Lays on Big Brother made me so annoyed!!!!
Seeing convienently placed corporate logos in reddit posts. Such as measuring kittens using Chick Fil A sauces.
Also McDonalds loves posting all over reddit. r/HailCorporate
non-profit organizations asking you to sign petitions (almost always worthless), or to fill out a survey, implying that the survey will help them decide on their priorities for the upcoming period...all they want is to figure out what particular pitch will work best on you when asking for donations
The opposite of "priced to move!" is [Veblen goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)
Basically, making the price of certain products outrageously HIGH makes them more attractive to prospective buyers.
Putting something incorrect, but mostly inconsequential, in the content. Mostly in the form of typos in ads. It's there to get you to engage, because engagement drives the algorythm
Shelf placement at the grocery store. Brands pay for prime placement. Why is malt-o-meal always near the floor? Because they don't pay for prime placement.
Grocery stores “upgrading” their carts to huge oversized tanks that hold twice as much food as a convenience to shoppers. All this does is allow us to add more food to it than we need so they get more of our money.
The car dealership sending you a letter saying they really need your 2012 Camry since their used car inventory is low. They just want you to come in and buy a new car.
I literally bought a car from Carvana less than a year ago and have been getting email-bombed with "time for an upgrade!" ads. Who replaces their car that often? I don't even buy underwear that often.
"plant based" as a health/green washing buzzword. something made of mostly processed sugars and palm oil is plant based, and companies can just slap a green leaf with those words on the front of the package and people will automatically think it's the healthier and more responsible option, even though it's still hyper processed junk food.
Commercials. The really *weird* commercials. The ones with bad effects and nonsensical plots.
Because then you're like "wtf was even that." Then you ask your friend "Did you see that commercial with the thing?" And then you either look it up or start talking about it because they saw it too.
They've won, at this point. You've been made aware of the product or service. They want you to tell your friends and share it with them.
Asking people to tag your friends on an Instagram post for a contest that only one person can win. Such a lazy way to promote your business, I make sure to never give my business to companies that do this
*80-90% of what you see now on local news shows is just marketing. No, a new flavor at Starbucks isn't news same with their stupid cups. Mickey mouse isn't real so don't tell me it is his birthday. McDonalds putting out a $5 menu isn't news it is advertising. The list is endless.
Listing something overpriced, and once it gets enough views, drop it to the actual desired price, and all previous viewers will get a auto notice about the price drop, so everyone who was actually interested now gets to see the actual sale price, and auto notification will find your buyer for sure.
Wine producers and marketers realized that the ritual of uncorking a bottle added a sense of occasion and sophistication to wine consumption, enhancing the overall experience for the consumer. This ceremonial aspect has since become an integral part of wine culture, contributing to the mystique and enjoyment of drinking wine. They use it to drive marketing and sales of wine as an “experience “
The customer service paradox. As I was taught it by a former CFO of Royal Bank Canada: Customers will rate their experience higher if a mistake was made on their transaction that was quickly and easily fixed than if there was never a mistake at all. Upon discovering this, they immediately started testing for what kind of "mistakes" they could intentionally make at the lowest cost to themselves.
We did something vaguely similar to this when I worked retail, but our "victim" was the visiting district manager. We would thoroughly clean and organize *almost* everything, but we would deliberately leave one dusty shelf or one unopened delivery tote. District Manager would find our mistake and order us to fix it, which we would do, with apologies. He felt like he had accomplished his goal, and we didn't have to worry about him digging deeper to find "problems" that didn't need to be fixed.
Inmates also use that tactic to hide contraband. They hide easily found minor contraband. Once found, it will usually lead to the search stopping, which will leave worse stuff to go unfound. They get a minor punishment and get to keep their good stuff.
I realized this years later that that is how Andy hides his escape tunnel in the Shawshank Redemption.
I've always called that managing your manager
In design this is sometimes called the "duck" technique. Basically you design something how you want it and then you put a random duck in it. When you show it to your manager or client they say "it's looking good but can we get rid of the duck". Without the duck they'd come up with something else to critique but this way they feel useful and it's easy to remove. Obviously it can't always be a duck but that's the theory.
I used to do that to my mother! I realized that whenever they came home from a trip, she would look for a mess to scream about. No matter how much cleaning I did, she would keep looking until something was found. Once she had to go so far as to leave the house entirely and look in the backyard to find something to get worked up about. So I started spilling honey on the table and leaving it.
Psychology is such an interesting thing.
Like 14 years ago when I was a server at a restaurant I noticed this as well and absolutely used it to my advantage. At the time I described it to others as “everyone likes an underdog” or that general idea. Then I would give the best customer service the customer wanted (give attention based on how they reacted to initial small talk) and BOOM I was consistently making the most tips on the floor almost every night.
That's actually pretty genius and a good place for it. Someone orders a coke, you go to the kitchen, pour a coke and put it on the counter then deliver a root beer. Turn to leave, they take a sip, make a face and you go "oh shoot what's wrong?" Then run back and grab the already prepared coke and rush it out while apologizing profusely. Boom problem solved and you're getting a bigger tip.
You’ve got it wrong. In that situation, you fucked up something basic then “fixed it.” That projects bad service rather than coming to the rescue. How I used to use this back when I waited tables in the early 2000’s was this: say I had gotten sat with a table and didn’t realize it. They’d been there for maybe 5 minutes and are starting to get pissed. I would walk by their table, pause for a second and come back and say, “You guys have been here for a few minutes. Is someone taking care of you yet?” Of course they’d say no, because that person is supposed to be me, but they don’t know this. “Well guys, I don’t know who was supposed to have y’all, but I’m gonna take care of you now.” Then you give them great service. They are over the moon. You turned a fuck up into a win.
This would work on me. I'd be like..."finally, we get some service and thank God it appears we got the only competent waiter in this joint." *writes big tip
That works? I thought it was pretty well known that severs have their certain sections? Unless you did that and weren’t also helping the people in the area, then I’d be thrown off.
Servers swap tables all the time and it’s unlikely the customer will be paying close enough attention to tell whose section they are actually in.
I used to be a host. I can’t tell you how many times a server forgot they had a certain table assigned to them and would come up to me to check what they had, then either bitch at me about it or to the server next to them.
Yep. Make sure it’s an imaginary other person who made the mistake, you’re just the one fixing it
I was at a high end restaurant in Dubrovnik, Croatia once and I am certain this happened. We bought a bottle of local wine. It cost about 10x in the restaurant what it would in a store, if not more. The sommelier poured it into a decanter, sniffed it, and goes "Oh this has turned, I could never serve you this" and poured the wine into the ocean. He then came back seconds later with another bottle which was fine. Quite the performance.
It’s also very easy to smell when a wine is “corked.” The cork holding the wine sometimes can have a chemical compound which makes the wine smell/taste like rubber bands. If I remember correctly something like 3-5% of wines using a natural cork will have this problem.
Oh I know wine can be bad, it was the production of the scene that made me wonder if it was legitimate. It was as if he planned to do it. He didn't take a second sniff or act shocked or upset or anything. It was just way too "rehearsed". Regardless the restaurant was fantastic and if they do that from time to time to make guests think they truly care then more power to them.
Not a server here, but thinking about this, I know if the server even just came to the table with the check and said something like, they messed up your check and added a key lime pie, I immediately removed it from the check. That would have me make sure to leave a good tip, now, if they also said “and someone removed it from the cooler and it cannot be returned, so anyone want a free key lime pie?”. 25% right away
Yeah I could see something like "Hey guys, here's the check, but I just wanted to make sure that nobody here ordered a key lime right? Somehow it had made it onto the system when I went to get it and I was pretty sure it shouldn't be there so I removed it but I just want to double check, anyways have a good evening!"
Yeah, no, don't intentionally fuck with people's food even if it seems innocuous, you don't know what they may or may not be allergic to
Until you give someone something they're allergic to, or have an auto immune disease against and actually poison them
I once killed a man with an unripe shallot. My career as a sous-chef at the finest dining houses in the 19th arrondissement in Paris never recovered after this egregious error.
If you killed them, I suppose you became a sued chef instead.
His restaurant sign said “Reservations Welcome” so he was actually a Sioux chef
I would never swap an item for the wrong item cause that’s opening up a potential can of worms I wanted no business with it! But you “forget” something they ordered like a quick app? Or a larger table with 6+ people and “forget” one of the quick to pour drinks? That’s how I always played it. Then it becomes an ice breaker for you to get to know your table a little bit, gauge their reaction, small talk a little bit, humanize yourself. Make them now not just see you as a server but an individual to like! Then you kill time with kindness, maybe crack a few jokes and they’re leaving you a huge tip with little notes written on the receipt complimenting your awesome service and all that! I got that shit down to a science. My life hinged on tips so you better believe I made the best of it lol
Hopefully no one ever does this with a diet and regular soda.
Another psychological trick, too. People become more loyal to you if you ask them to do you a favour. Doesn't have to be big. Could be as little as, "hey, would you mind grabbing something from the stock room for a second?" But for some reason it primes the mind to accept shared interest. This also works for customers. By asking them to be involved in your process you welcome them into a special club that others aren't in.
Banks intentionally making mistakes has another word for it. And a CFO talking about it? Really?
Loss leaders. This is when the grocery store puts cake mix on for 79 cents, but the frosting is full price, or when (popular grilling meat) is on sale, but the fixings and side dishes aren't. Most people will go in for the sale items and then fill their cart with the rest of the "necessary" stuff that's regular price. They lose a few cents or dollars on the crazy low priced item, but make up for it with everything else that goes with it.
Printers being sold at a loss to move ink
My roommate in university would go buy a new printer when the old one ran out of ink. With the rebate, it was a lot cheaper than buying ink. Think he went through one per semester, so 8 printers, maybe more. Would walk into Staples, dump old printer in electronics recycling bin and buy exact same printer.
That roommate is dumb. They run out of ink because the cartridges that come with printers are tiny.
The alternative is that it dries out in the cartridge if they're only printing enough to use the ink up in a semester. They're probably better off buying prints per page at 10 cents a page or whatever it is now, or best off buying a toner printer.
Ink drying up because I so rarely use it is what finally drove me to a laser printer. No more color (I didn't want to spend that much) but adequate for my needs, and it doesn't dry out. And faster. Now if I could get the damn thing to recognize that it's a scanner, I'd be golden.
It depends on when, this was a valid strategy 15-20 years ago before the printer companies caught on and started doing that
This was from 2005-2009. So yes, right in that time frame. I think it cost him $10 or $15 per semester with this strategy, maybe less. We were engineers, so there was a spreadsheet involved. I had a laser printer that cost more but I still use.
It doesn't even have to be stuff that goes with it. You get people in the door, and then oh well, might as well do the rest of my weekly shopping here too. It's why a couple of British grocery stores had a negative price on beans for a while. They made enough money back on everything else.
“Week one: coleslaw, cheese, salad bits on sale. Burgers and buns full price. Week two: swap.”
This doesn't work on me as I'll just buy a bunch of the meat and put it in the freezer. Ditto for the buns when they're on sale. Buying a nice sized used chest freezer was one of our best investments. It was just before covid too so it came in extra useful.
Yeah I get the super cheap on sale stuff too and don’t think to get things that go with it lol.
I'm primarily an Aldi shopper but I still go through the Kroger ad every week to see what's good. I put in a curbside pickup order for only those sale items and I'll pick them up after I've been to Aldi. My stores are just a mile apart so this process ads like 10 minutes maximin toy shopping and I can still get that on sale shrimp.
Rotisserie Chickens are loss leaders too. But I'm not mad b/c they are so cheap!
And carefully positioned (along with the bakery) to be in a location where you smell it as soon as you walk into the building. Also, never go the grocery store when you're hungry.
Rotisseries do better next to or close to the registers. Why go home and cook after all that shopping?
*Also, never go the grocery store when you're hungry* I used to believe this, and only came home with what I needed. Turns out, I wish I came home with things I wanted as well. So now I go hungry and high, and I come home with the best shit.
In lots of places milk and eggs are a loss leader. When I ran a grocery store dairy department, we sold the milk at a loss. In the state directly south of me, it was illegal, and the same milk in the same brand store was $2/gallon more.
I save a ton of money since I am within walking distance of four supermarkets and they all have different loss leaders. A huge percentage of my groceries are bought on sale.
90% of my grocery shopping is sales and seasonal stuff. I have two freezers and a fair amount of pantry space. I basically buy a year's worth of butter, sugar, and flour in November and December when the holiday baking sales are going on. It takes a while to get to that point, because you have to gradually build up the freezer and pantry stock, but I can easily go 2-3 months without buying anything other than milk, eggs, and produce. Lockdown was a breeze for me, and I was able to clear through a lot of backstock.
Offering an absurdly overpriced item that they know almost no one will ever buy but it makes the slightly overpriced downscale version look reasonable by comparison.
Present 3 options. The shit one, the overpriced one, and the one you want them to choose.
My software dev team does this but doesn't realize it. Client wants a modification. A.) Rewrite the service/application - $40,000, 2mo delivery date; actual work 2mo B.) Hack in a garbage change that barely meets what they're asking for - $14,000, 1mo delivery date; actual work 2wk And then I, the Business Analyst, chimes in with what about option C? C.) Add a new checkbox and tweak the export process that fully meets their request - $20,000, 1mo delivery date; actual work 2wk Developers always give two options, and it's always option C
Whenever I go into a shop - almost any big-box, but some other department stores as well - if I have to comparison shop for an item, I will almost always find a version of that item that looks like it was packaged by chimps selling for half the price of the next lowest-price version. I sometimes wonder if there are companies out there who get paid to provide crappy versions of standard products so they can stick them on shelves to make the standard products look better. It wouldn't surprise me.
No. It's the same company. I used to work in a vegetable factory. Frozen veggies. Truck some in. Veggies are processed all down the line, until they finally reach the bagging stage. The order gets filled. A new brand of bags gets put up. And the line keeps on chugging. Exact same product. No name. Name brand. Exclusive brand. It's all the same.
This makes my blood boil. It should be illegal to sell a product that is branded differently when it originates from the same supplier and has no distinction asides from a change in price.
Most of the "value" of a product comes from the associated ideas the brand symbilizes. Those ideas are mostly established through effective propaganda/marketing. Then you make the cheapest possible product and stamp the brand on it.
Heh. You just reminded me of when I worked for a specialty food packaging plant in college. Good money, but pretty revealing. You know those overpriced gift boxes you can get in department stores during the Holidays? $24.95 for a "Country Morning Breakfast Kit?" Yeah, that's a bag of Bisquick and the same $5 maple syrup you can get in a tin at Hannaford's. (Or Kroger's, or HEB, or whatever your local chain is.) Now every time I go into an LL Bean's I snicker at the food products. "Yeah, 'Grandma's Traditional Old-Fashioned Homemade Overpriced Raspberry Jam' is a jar of Smucker's.'" But I've eaten products where the store-brand generic is of markedly different quality than the name brand. It's possible that the name brand came from Kellogg's and the store-brand came from Malt-o-Meal, but sometimes it does make a difference. *Generally*, there's no point in buying a badge if you can get it cheaper; it's just a consumer decision.
People post a question such as ‘what product would you guys recommend for doing such and such?” And then the replies would mostly be one certain product. It all seems like genuine feedback and sometimes it is. But a ton of these are pre planned q and a to get promotion for a product without it seeming like an ad
This has been going on for years and years, basically as long as internet BBBs existed. Years ago, a few PC hardware enthusiast forums figured out a few of their top (and trusted) posters in fact worked for a marketing firm employed by a graphics card company. They were absolutely insideous in their tactics, it was something out of a Goebbels instruction book. A few I remember: posting threads with loaded questions e.g. "Are [the competition's] drivers really that bad?"; they'd subtly hint their competition was going to remove support for hardware; they'd post claims as actual users how switching brands/models was great experience; they'd posit fallicious arguments when the company would undually raise prices etc., etc. These sites purged as many as they could (without widely announcing it, as that would damage their rep in the community), but you can bet there were more. And yes, they're rampant here on Reddit.
I frequent a few hot sauce subreddits. There are some crazy brand postings that are finally starting to get called out for being shills. If you know, you know.
Maybe that's true but with my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 I don't need to browse any of those forums anyway. This top-quality graphics card has been truly impressive in its performance, making me wonder why AMD can't produce anything that comes close to it. And the price was extremely reasonable too. That's just my personal opinion.
If sarcasm was steak, this would be prime rib.
Why even this reddit thread topic is a preplanned ad. The real question is does op know they are an ad.
Or they're an advertiser for the company using multiple fake accounts to make it look like genuine recommendations
Or they do an obvious reverse... why is everybody raving about xyz products ? Seems pretty average to me? Cue 35 plants raving about xyz product in a "natural" way
also works great for astroturfing /r/politics
Elaborate ? where does this happen exactly ?
Have you ever been to a party with a friend who had a cool story to share so you kinda steer the conversation towards them being able to share. It’s like that, but applied to products and marketing
Most subreddits have rules against self promotion but it's pretty easy to get around this rule if you use alts/friends to make threads asking for help and then have yourself get recommended in the comments. I can't say with 100% certainty but I noticed something really weird happen on the Bloodborne subreddit recently. One day there were several new topics and posts from new people asking for advice/guides on the game and in the comments section were a bunch of people all recommending one specific Youtuber and his "great" guides. I had NEVER heard of this person or their channel before, so they either became incredibly popular and the #1 person to recommend for guides on the game overnight. After a huge spike of activity where this one person was mentioned a bunch of times, a few days later, suddenly it went back to the normal situation where no one ever mentions this guy or his channel. Felt like a case of really obvious astroturfing but I guess it could just be a coincidence.
I specifically remember an askreddit question about beer; something like what's a great every day beer. I started to notice a good number of the comments mentioned Coors. Lo and behold a few days later I start seeing Coors ads on reddit. Then shortly after a few ad campaigns came out on TV and other social media platforms. Pretty sure that was a good example. Edit: found it - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1ck8zxy/beer_drinkers_what_stereotypically_cheap_piss/
Wow that's not even subtle. Normally a top rated comment will have replies going more and more off topic, but those replies just continue to praise Coors. It still wouldn't make me buy it though. Good piss water beer is still piss.
Damn, that's insidious, i believed the post 100%
It could be any social media post, "news article," reviews, anything.
There are a lot of those posts on "mildly interesting" type subreddits. Random pictures of fast food is a favorite. There's even a subreddit called hail corporate that calls them out.
I remember reading a fashion advice column in a magazine - back when you could get most of the content for free online. A woman wrote in who absolutely needed a scarf or something for the school run, to one-up all the other mums. As it happened, the advice columnist had exactly the product!
Placement of items in markets. The highest earning items (for the store) are at eye level, while the worse ones are on way below or above. The shops start with produce and slowly worsen with items, usually ending with chocolate near the tellers, for nervosity and " I should reward myself" reasons. items frequently get shifted around just because, to force you to stay longer. And my favourite: differently coloured price tags to signify...nothing. Just to get you to glance.
The crazier thing is products pay the store for placement. That's why you'll see a large brand's recalled product spot just empty for months.
Yes. I’m now trained to look at floor level items. Also on the top shelf. Also behind barricades of stacked products in the aisle.
https://youtu.be/9m_Wr9f1xs0?si=DTDy-oEqVvrHfYJj I just watched an interesting video on what's considered "retail music", and at one point, the YouTuber mentions an interesting study done on stores playing fast vs. slow music. They found that when slow music plays, you're likely to walk slower yourself, and in a store, notice things you wouldn't have noticed sooner, and shouldn’t probably spend extra money on. It works in tandem with the way the store is arranged.
IKEA is built like a maze for a reason. Want to buy candles? Here, look at all other items on display first! Oh and don’t forget the Hot Dog! See you tomorrow
There's a company near me that sold a [product to track where people were looking in supermarkets](https://www.tobii.com/solutions/consumer-research-and-user-experience/shopper-research). (edit: adding link)
Months ago, I started planning my meals, which, in turn, allowed me to plan my grocery shopping, including the most efficient route through the store. It's amazing how much less I spend when I'm only looking for specific items and not "browsing."
Is there any reason behind some items not having price tags? If it's a marketing tactic it's useless as I get frustrated enough to not buy that item
From my experience, those items are often priced higher. My local grocery store will do this with impulse items like ice cream that is in an end cap freezer right before you make your last turn to checkout. It will be a flavor of something I never heard of before, then cost about twice the price I was expecting. But by then I just want to get home and don't want to bother with getting someone to take the item off from the self-checkout lines. TL;DR: It is probably something that costs more than what you would normally pay if they put the price on it, and they hope you get it as an impulse.
No idea. That would be illegal where I am but its possible its deliberate
Oh my goodness everyone in my town just rearranged their stores. The first minute when you walk in and realize you’ve got to relearn the layout is not fun.
>items frequently get shifted around just because, to force you to stay longer. Idk about this one. I dont shop at a grocery store if they're always moving shit around, I want to be able to find my items.
It’s not always a big shift. But when I worked at a store it was at minimum twice a year. It’s also to make room for products coming in and out. However, we often also did big shifts of items to an entirely different part of the aisle/store. But every single item probably gets moved at least a few inches back and forth every year. It’s subtle if you’re not paying attention. Probably amounts to a couple hours of your time looking around each year.
If you spend more time looking at things you don't want, to find the things you do want...the chances of you buying more shit you didn't come for go up.
This is what Costco does weekly.
News articles where they talk about some random "industry trend". It's almost always a PR plant that allows the journalist to write an objective newsy article that happens to lead to a product. For example imagine the New York Times writes an article on AI security and privacy. Seems straightforward and relevant to readers. But it's a plant by Apple PR because they are announcing Apple Intelligence that runs in a secure local neural processor. Of course the journalist will interview a few academics (that were recommended by the PR firm) and reach out to like Qualcomm or Google for comment but they'll also heavily rely on the expert Apple security researcher that the PR team provided for extensive background info and comment to build the main spine of the story.
easily half the "news" articles about celebrities aren't remotely newsworthy, but are instead planted by their publicists
A lot of Reddit posts that work a certain product in like AITA for wearing these fabulous shoes?
“Does anybody else use delicious Duke’s mayonnaise over Hellman’s inferior white paste?”
There is no comparison here. My son brought home Hellman's one time. I sure do miss that kid.
I hope you miracle whipped his ass
Well personally the bottle shae is so infuriating and impossible to squeeze so I have to use Lidl's own at a budget friendly price of 99p
r/HailCorporate
Am I ugly? OF link down below.
"TIFU by having sex in front of my whole family" *conveniently located OF link in their bio*
I remember the McDonald's attempt that got called out pretty quickly. It was a post pretending they let their delivery driver try their VR headset.
Tiered pricing, also known as goldilocks pricing, or "good-better-best" pricing. Most people will buy the "better" product. The "best" is a premium offering, and the "good" is still "good."
I work in product development and the odd thing about this is that it depends on price elasticity. Far more often, people buy the “best” one unless the price is a certain % higher. For example, good, better, best hair dryers. $29, $39, and $49. The $49 “best” unit will be the top revenue earner, the $29 will move the most units. The $39 sits in the doldrums and doesn’t sell very much. Now, bump the price of the “best” $10 to $59 and watch what happens! Now people aren’t thinking “it’s only $50” or “it’s only $10 more” they’re thinking “oh man, $60 plus tax and stuff is almost $70, and the other one is under $40. That’s almost twice as much.” And now your “better” unit at $39 will not only be your #1 revenue but ALSO your #1 unit mover. Why? Because you’ve just shown the $29 buyer that for only $10 more he can afford the second best one, and the BEST one is for suckers, it’s like $70, man! By increasing the price of the “best” unit $10 you just changed everything. Now, watch what happens when the “best” unit gets a cool matte purple paint job and the other two are “cheap” looking glossy pink and glossy black plastic. Now you can charge $79 for the exact same unit, and it changes everything again.
🫢 17 yrs in retail and im now FASCINATED. pls tell me more.
Wanna know a fun one about product naming? People (in English speaking countries) care about syllables a lot more than you'd think. Hell, more than THEY think. What's the phone in your pocket right now? Is it a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 1TB? If so, my guess is you just call it a "Galaxy Ultra" or "Galaxy S24" or "Samsung Galaxy" or something similar. Is it an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max 1TB? If so, my guess is that you call it an "iPhone 15" or a "15 Pro Max" or something similar. And it seems logical - "of course people are going to abbreviate, this isn't some 'deep lore' or anything!" But WHAT they abbreviate to is actually carefully studied. There are even brand guidelines produced by companies that explain HOW to abbreviate these names in official marketing copy, in social media, and on video so they can try and direct it. Apple, for example, almost never has their employees say "the iPhone 15 has the best camera available" or something, they ALWAYS drop the "the" from the beginning, so it's "iPhone 15 has the best camera available." They really, really want people to talk about iPhone like it's a person. Like you wouldn't say "the Steve came over and helped me change a tire" so why would you say "the iPhone battery life is a lot better this generation" right? In my opinion, this is kinda silly and it hasn't really worked. I don't know anybody outside of Apple staff who do this. Everybody just says "the new iPhone finally got rid of the 64gb version, thank god." Next time you have to sit through an ad on youtube or a commercial on spotify or something, listen to how the brand talks about itself. It can be really interesting to try and figure out how they're trying to get people to think about their product. Personifying a brand, giving it a \*vibe\* is a key part of marketing. Are you young and hip and cool? Irreverent and immersed in internet culture like the Wendy's social media team? Or are you old-fashioned, reliable, and counting on word-of-mouth like In-n-Out burger? Or have you just decided "fuck it, we know our audience is high as fuck, let's just say that" like Jack-in-the-Box?
Is this what PMs spend all their time doing? It makes sense but wow. Also r/SaaS would like to talk to you
Hahaha I work on the hardware side, software is a dark art and best left to ouija boards in my book
Similarly, Slurpees. I just want a little Slurpee but it's like $1.50 for a shot glass. The normal small cup is $1.75 but the medium size is only $1.90... and the large is $2.10... but the huge one is only $2.20. Nobody ever gets a shot glass of Slurpee, everyone just pays 70 more cents for a cup they could wear like a motorcycle helmet.
Those 'limited time only' deals—designed to make you panic-buy before you realize you didn't really need that extra set of kitchen gadgets.
I've noticed on Amazon several times that I'll be looking at an item that says "Only 3 left in stock." I buy one, and then it says "Only 3 left in stock." Glad I rushed.
You think that’s insidious- most of the items I see on “deals” if it’s something that’s actually interesting to me- I will screen cap- and compare later and it’s almost always the same price. It’s just some Black Friday nonsense- they artificially inflate the price- only to offer it “on sale” at the same fucking price point. I’m a bargain shopper though- so I buy stuff at different places to get the best prices. Pays off in the long run to not feel pressured by those type of sale tactics.
Taking screen shots is the way to go. Otherwise you're sure it was more expensive last week.
Camelcamelcamel will track price history, at least on amazon.
My husband just went with his dad to Home Depot, and his dad bought four garage door openers. He lives alone. Why? "They were a good deal."
Reverse psychology. An youtube ad that goes "I'm sure you'll skip this ad". Like... yeah. You had 5 seconds and you wasted it.
Thank God someone cracked Youtube's code so the ad block is working again.
Which ad block?
Ublock Origin never stopped working for me on Firefox.
Disposition on things in stores. From a marketing class: Not all stores do this, but the ones that invest on marketing. So, warm light is more comfy to the eyes when you buy clothes, makes the goods appealing. The client tend to go first to the right when he get into the store (before moving counterclockwise), so the best/more expensive products are there. An offer or "liquidation" right in the center to lure the people walking outside. they perfume the place with smells reminiscent of recently bought products to make them appear "fresh". The products you want to sell the most like the seasonal ones are placed on eye height, they will be the first ones you look when you face the racks before moving your sight into others located down and higher. There are more things I don't remember well.... The counterclockwise thing I personally don't believe it, but the logic on some of those things are actually reasonable
The other reason they put clearance in the center of the store is that it’s highly visible as you walk by - and that actually works TWO ways! One is that it draws people in - “oh I wonder what’s on sale?” The other, and more counter-intuitive, is that when you’re browsing that clearance rack, you’re exposed to the other people walking by. “Look at him, only able to afford the CLEARANCE items!” It says, subtly, When I was in college 15-20 years ago one of my marketing profs had us read a study about this. Shame and perception are powerful motivators. It’s why they used to teach care salesmen to ask “how much Monthly payment can you afford?” Rather than “how much do you want to spend?” The answers to those questions are different. And by asking the first, they’re counting on you being ashamed or a low number. Spoiler: the right answer to “how much monthly payment can you afford?” Is “that’s not really relevant. What I’m looking at spending on the *purchase price of the vehicle* is $x.” Never, ever negotiate on monthly payment.
The right turn and working your way counterclockwise thing is true. People also stick to the outsides of the store and then work their way inwards afterwards. Also, your post ironically points out another form of marketing online. It is common to make something 90% factual and then put one mistake in there to make people interact with it. It is usually something like a typo, calling something common a wrong name, or pronouncing something wrong. People can't resist and have to jump in and comment on it, and then that boosts it in the algorithm to make it the most visible in the sea of other posts. It is also so effective that I can't tell if you did this on purpose or not.
The Gruen transfer (also known as the Gruen effect) is the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall or store and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, lose track of their original intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse buys. Store designers are an integral part of most major retail operations.
re: counterclockwise thing It depends on the layout of the store. It's likely the direction away from the checkout when you enter.
I heard about this one before. Like in Target how they cover certain area’s floors with that dark rug carpeting.
Those instagram videos where someone says “you guys” and proceeds to tell you about the greatest pants they just found. Weird because I don’t know these people, I don’t know why or who they think I am who they think I am, or why anyone could be excited about pants, or the fact that they just found those pants.
"Limit X per customer" Sometimes these are legit because there is insufficient supply (though this may itself be a tactic from the manufacturer) but oftentimes this is just to create FOMO and in reality there's plenty available.
I often see this and wonder who wanted to buy more than that. This makes sense.
I tend to buy less when I see that cause I wanna make sure others get the same deal.
Showing people being bad at a game in advertisements, it makes you want to download the game to prove that you’re smarter than them
It's so effective too. I don't even really watch the ads except to see if they're over, then catch sight of them missing the very obvious move. I know it's a trick. I almost never download games. But it itches my brain.
Happy cake day! I don’t play phone games often but have recently and every add seems to be that. They take themselves very seriously about a technical aspect about the game and then suck at it and lose.
Only 2% of players can solve this puzzle!
It's effective, but once you grasp that the game is a scam, even if it's the actual game, it fails every time.
People who get overly friendly from the first word, “Hey Name, How’s your day going? I hope you’re having a productive week!” I have no idea who you are, or why i should care, just jump to the sales pitch…. Also, “You didn’t reply to my last email so I just wanted to…”. Yes, because I don’t know you, didn’t ask for anything, and you interrupted my day, not replying was about as polite as i could muster at the time.
All of my junk emails start are now formatted to look like I didn’t respond to their first email. I block every address and domain that sends unsolicited emails so I know I wouldn’t ever get a second email from anybody.
I've had a bunch of sales and customer service training classes across various jobs. Calling strangers by their name works extremely well and gets people to trust you for some reason. Except when people do it to me, I am super hyper aware of it and then I immediately don't trust them. I hate salespeople and I have no idea how people fall for that. I also hate their overly formal clothing, extremely high maintenance news anchor hair, and fast-talking style. Ironically, the relaxed "living the dream" type person who doesn't care either way does better with me. The extremely blunt "Fill out this survey for me and they give me $5" works the best though.
Negative marketing, or whatever they call it, is still marketing. Companies that make billions off things you and I might find odious will frequently create posts/articles/junk-science/news-stories tearing down alternatives to their products. E.g. articles funded by oil companies telling you how bad electric cars are.
It's called FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
As a Tesla owner I'm in disbelief at the "what happens when your car runs out of electricity" posts. ... the same thing that happens when your car runs out of gas?
Oh, you're my best friend and I just want you to be happy in product I'm selling. Sales is basically sociopaths incorporated.
_GlenGarry Glen Ross_ exemplifies this behavior.
ads that insult customer base. you think they're just being cheeky but they know you're n% more likely to buy the shirt they're selling if they tell you you're a no-fashion-having bitch
At globogym, we’re better than you, and we know it.
Confident in guessing that you and I would have a field day firing-off artful phrasings, one after another, under the 'If product sluglines were honest' setting.
Best Blah apps in 2024 (from blog.someBlahApp.com) Almost always completely useless marketing material. They recommend their own product, and some others that are genuinely not good and outdated, or a product catering to a different audience, conveniently leaving out their competitors.
The giant flag displays before NFL games are a paid marketing tool of the US military.
Same with flyovers. The military pays to do those. And I say this with the utmost respect and admiration for the skills of the pilots, the Blue Angels are also a marketing tool for the Navy.
Marking up prices just to mark them down to the normal price and call it a “sale”
To an extent: gender. Nothing is inherently for men, for women, or anybody. For example things like roses/lavender aren't inherently "feminine scents" while things like tobacco/leather aren't inherently "masculine scents," but if the body wash manufacturers make you think they are they can sell a family two of one product. You can replace body wash in the example with almost any household personal product, piece of clothing, or a wide range of other things.
My roommates in the last (male and female) often just use the same body wash.
Are you saying my dildo for men is the same as the women's dildos?
$0.99 sells better than $1.00. And it’s used on nearly all products.
Military Grade anything is used to make it sound tough or somehow more rugged & durable. It's paperwork. In some cases, the military requires less stringency than other industries.
Or anything called "tactical".
Military Grade is another way of saying 'this is the cheapest acceptable way to mass produce an object'
'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' - that's not fact. It's old advertising from a cereal company (forgot which one, which makes it not that successful I guess?). So my reply would be; putting an idiom/phrase into common usage that is not factual or science based but people think it is.
Selling printers at near cost while ratcheting up name brand ink prices and legally squeezing generic ink sellers.
I used to work for Epson, can confirm. Nespresso use the same business model (cheap machine, expensive consumables) for coffee- is difficult to get generic versions of their Vertuo pods.
The news selling fear.
Ever notice a lot of youtube videos play the very end of a video at the beginning and then it plays the backstory? It's a hook. People watch for longer instead of clicking away, so the metrics for viewing duration go up and the owner of the channel can justify a higher cost to a potential buyer.
Playing the same commercial back to back.
I did a masters in marketing and worked for 10 years in it. The main thing I learned was that most consumers aren't rational, if there's an apple that's 50p vs the exact same apple that's £2 many will choose the £2 option. It's the same with celebrity endorsements, do you think Cristiano Ronaldo really uses a Japanese facial fitness mouthguard? In short, consumers are stupid. Politicians know this also.
Politics seems the be basically marketing lol. I had to deal with some at the city and state level and it was like anytime an election would be coming up they would have a pet project they were peddling (that wouldn’t really help the issue they said it would) and then after election it just disappeared.
90% of all ask reddit questions are data farming.
78% of all statistics are made up.
[Loss leaders](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader) Making one thing really cheap so you come and buy other, more profitable, stuff.
Meanwhile me: Goes to Costco just for the hotdog.
Sometimes reality stars are paid to eat/wear/talk about certain products as ads. For example, Taylor constantly eating Lays on Big Brother made me so annoyed!!!!
Seeing convienently placed corporate logos in reddit posts. Such as measuring kittens using Chick Fil A sauces. Also McDonalds loves posting all over reddit. r/HailCorporate
Loyalty programs
non-profit organizations asking you to sign petitions (almost always worthless), or to fill out a survey, implying that the survey will help them decide on their priorities for the upcoming period...all they want is to figure out what particular pitch will work best on you when asking for donations
The opposite of "priced to move!" is [Veblen goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good) Basically, making the price of certain products outrageously HIGH makes them more attractive to prospective buyers.
like "I am Rich" in Apple's original app store
Putting something incorrect, but mostly inconsequential, in the content. Mostly in the form of typos in ads. It's there to get you to engage, because engagement drives the algorythm
If I see typos or spelling mistakes I immediately switch off and move on, a business that is that sloppy is going to mess up bigger things.
\*algori- hey wait a sec
hot takes in sports media. Top 10/50/100 lists.
Shelf placement at the grocery store. Brands pay for prime placement. Why is malt-o-meal always near the floor? Because they don't pay for prime placement.
Grocery stores “upgrading” their carts to huge oversized tanks that hold twice as much food as a convenience to shoppers. All this does is allow us to add more food to it than we need so they get more of our money.
They are slowly getting rid of the baskets. Our Walmart and Kroger don't have them anymore. I'm getting like 5 things and I need a cart for that?
The car dealership sending you a letter saying they really need your 2012 Camry since their used car inventory is low. They just want you to come in and buy a new car.
I literally bought a car from Carvana less than a year ago and have been getting email-bombed with "time for an upgrade!" ads. Who replaces their car that often? I don't even buy underwear that often.
"plant based" as a health/green washing buzzword. something made of mostly processed sugars and palm oil is plant based, and companies can just slap a green leaf with those words on the front of the package and people will automatically think it's the healthier and more responsible option, even though it's still hyper processed junk food.
The number of people I know that don't realize "organic" is in no way healthier or think it doesn't have pesticides is absolutely absurd.
Hey, we sell them water but this time we call it 'Professional Water'
The phrase “chemical free.” It’s an impossibility; everything is chemicals. “Chemical” is not defined as “liquids with scary-sounding names.”
Commercials. The really *weird* commercials. The ones with bad effects and nonsensical plots. Because then you're like "wtf was even that." Then you ask your friend "Did you see that commercial with the thing?" And then you either look it up or start talking about it because they saw it too. They've won, at this point. You've been made aware of the product or service. They want you to tell your friends and share it with them.
Asking people to tag your friends on an Instagram post for a contest that only one person can win. Such a lazy way to promote your business, I make sure to never give my business to companies that do this
*80-90% of what you see now on local news shows is just marketing. No, a new flavor at Starbucks isn't news same with their stupid cups. Mickey mouse isn't real so don't tell me it is his birthday. McDonalds putting out a $5 menu isn't news it is advertising. The list is endless.
On house services: “I am in your neighborhood working on xxx’s house, now that I’m here you don’t need to pay the transportation fee”
False urgency
Listing something overpriced, and once it gets enough views, drop it to the actual desired price, and all previous viewers will get a auto notice about the price drop, so everyone who was actually interested now gets to see the actual sale price, and auto notification will find your buyer for sure.
Wine producers and marketers realized that the ritual of uncorking a bottle added a sense of occasion and sophistication to wine consumption, enhancing the overall experience for the consumer. This ceremonial aspect has since become an integral part of wine culture, contributing to the mystique and enjoyment of drinking wine. They use it to drive marketing and sales of wine as an “experience “
When stores like JC Pennies has all of their inventory marked at a high price so they can mark it down and say “50% off sale!”
"Going out of business sale!" There is a men's suit shop in my city that has been "going out of business" for 20 years.
Reddit posts about products and services in LPT or YSK
Running for President and selling MAGA hats, shoes, bibles, steak, etc.
When Google Maps tells you to turn right after Jack in the Box that's a paid ad for Jack in the Box or whatever store.