Rich's Ramblings
by Rich Schinnell
"We will match or beat any price advertised
or we will refund double the difference!"
How often have you seen that in an advertisement in a paper or magazine? Anyone that believes all the hype in ads is only fooling themselves. Advertising is a game, and a really psychological game at that. The purpose of ads is to get you to part with some of your money, or all of it, if they can.
Even obnoxious or outlandish ads are valid. If you remember the company name or product for any reason, then the advertiser accomplished exactly what they started out to do. Product recognition is the name of the game, whether it be hardware, software, or whatever. How many of you remember those terrible ads for McDonald's where "Mac the Knife" was played? Those ads got on many a nerve. But as bad as the ads were, most remember that it was McDonald's. They achieved their goal: name recognition.
Ads that are so-so are usually just skimmed over. Gateway advertising with its spotted cow pattern on glossy paper is only one of the name or symbol recognition methods used. The same goes with Computer Connections and its cute animals. Whether you remember the name or product, for good or bad reasons, you still remember it. Take, for example, the Technology Advancement Group ads in the Washington Post and the Monitor. They are designed to sell their machines, and they seem to be doing a good job at it. Looking at the ads, you can see that they jump out of the page at you.
"486 Computers & VESA Local Bus are DEAD!
The BIG LIE: "Pentium Ready"
They are not lying, just stating what we all know: Eventually, the 486 will be like the 8088, when the 986 or Heptium chip is here, the 486 will be history. No one can blame the company for stating these facts, they will eventually be more true than you think. The part of the ad that says that the owner is a "US Naval Academy Graduate, Class of 76" is one more part of the picture to get you to remember the company and their products. Besides, the PC market in the Metropolitan Washington area is full of ex-Naval Officers who, when presented with a decision between two vendors, will most likely purchase from a "brother" than another unknown.
Birds of a feather stick together; that is a natural human reaction. Many ads use subtle words and phrases in their ads that would attract specific ethnic groups or other categories of people. Some ads use special words that mean something to a specific group. This is good advertising: get them to remember who you are. There are so many PC vendors in the area, that some have to do special things to get remembered and to get your business.
How many people remember the TAG ads? I bet that over 80 percent of the members who read the Monitor remember the ads. Not to be picking on TAG, but their ads are, in my opinion, well worth reading. Whether you believe them, react positively or negatively, is beside the point. You will remember them!
Remember the Joe Isuzu ads? He would make some outlandish claims, and while he was talking a caption "He's lying" was shown. David Leisure was a good representative, and more people mimicked those ads than any others. The "He's Lying" posters were all over. They were cute, and it was easy to see that they were spoofing us. Another ad that was memorable was the dog food ad that used little baby ducks eating out of a Great Dane's food dish. Many of the cat and dog food ads are in the cute category. Cal Worthington in Los Angeles had great automobile ads, with animals and ridiculous offers. They even offered a car "with a deleted heater." It was such a play on words that people remembered it. Keep that in mind when you encounter advertisements in print or otherwise.
What about the advertisers who keep harping that they will "beat any advertised price, or double the difference in cash?" Has anyone ever taken them up on this? I think not. Each business has what they call loss leaders; they make a minimum profit on these and hope that you come into their place of business and buy something else where they have a higher margin of profit. That is the norm in today's market. They have to have some different reason for you to shop in their store, as opposed to their competitors' stores. Giant, Safeway and SuperFresh all do it. Once they get you there, they hope you buy other things; that's where they will make up for the loss leaders.
Have you ever tried to get an automobile dealer to give you a written offer and let you get out the door to do comparison shopping? They will tell you the price but not usually give you a contract with all the prices attached to take to another dealer, even though they claim to beat any other dealer's price. Give it a try sometime. When I buy a car, I sometimes walk out on the salesman a couple of times to get them off balance and get down to the real price. The consensus of opinion of car dealers is that if you walk out of their office, there is an 85 percent chance that you will buy someplace else, if you are really in the buying mood.
Computers are nothing more than a commodity nowadays. There are, of course, "Bait and Switchers" as there are in all areas of consumer goods. Watch for them. If the salesman talks down the advertised item and tries to give you a good deal on another brand of the same thing, watch out! That's the classic start of the "Bait and Switch." They make a higher margin or commission on the item they are switching you to. As an example, if you shop around for a Sony television, you'll see that the advertised prices in the paper are very close to one another for the same models. The problem, for salesmen, is that the margin of profit on Sony TVs are much slimmer than those on other brands. Same goes for Hewlett-Packard LaserJets. If the salesman tries to switch you to another laser printer that "works better and is cheaper than HP," and you went to the store for the HP price advertised, that's "Bait and Switch" at work. The margins on HPs are not as good as some of the other brands.
Speaking of buying laser printers: If you're buying a laser printer, regardless of which one you pick, make sure that you can buy the cartridges or refills at the local stationery store, CompUSA, Micro Center, and at least five other places. Same with dot-matrix printers; don't buy one unless the ribbons are available at many different places. I remember a guy that was at a User Group meeting a few years ago, showing me a small portable printer that was so cheap that it was a temptation to buy one. Until I asked where the ribbons were available. He said you can buy them from the company, and they were about $20 each. I asked if they could be picked up at Staples or Office Depot, and he said not yet but they are working on it. Sure, I said, give me a call when they are.
Bottom line: This month's column and the subject was triggered by
a member who left a message on the MIX BBS regarding what he
opined were advertisements that he thought insulted his
intelligence. This is my idea of a public answer to that message.
As in all other areas, an educated consumer is a satisfied customer. (I think that's a Syms clothing store commercial slogan!) It is especially true in computers. Research what you are buying. Shop around. If you need handholding, buy from a local vendor. This will give you a warm fuzzy. It is a good idea to remember Rich's two rules for buying computers.
1. Make sure that the vendor has a large plate glass window* 2. Re-read rule 1.
* to be used for the ultimate return of defective products!
<G> (This is comm-speak short for grin)v
Rich Schinnell thinks that he is an educated consumer, but many times after purchasing a product, he discovers that he could have gotten a better price somewhere else. (Sound familiar?) His writings drive Grammatik wild! He is the president of Capital PC User Group, retired from the U.S. Navy and a Senior Programmer Analyst at Tracor in Rockville, MD. He can be emailed at schinnel@cpcug.org or you can talk to him in person at (301) 949-9292, evenings until 9PM ESDT.
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