Email just in from Mr Peter Rose, of the Australian Book Review. It beginneth:
"We want to make it super-attractive for you to subscribe to Australian Book Review because you are exactly the sort of sophisticated reader who will enjoy and benefit from ABR."
Moi? Sophisticated reader?
Why isn't every product advertised like this?
"We want to make it super-attractive for you to eat Tim Tams because you are exactly the sort of sophisticated glutton who will enjoy and benefit from eating Tim Tams."
"We want to make it super-attractive for you to wear socks because you are exactly the sort of sophisticated pedestrian who will enjoy and benefit from wearing socks."
"We want to make it super-attractive for you to invest in our pyramid scheme because you are exactly the sort of sophisticated geometer who will enjoy and benefit from our symmetrical financial arrangements."
Sign me up already, why don't you.
4 comments:
Slightly deviating from your sophisticated blog, and on to kids and marketing, I was in Borders recently and listening to a young girl marketing a DVD to her grandma. Or rather, expounding the virtues of a DVD in an attempt to persuade Grandma to let her purchase said DVD:
"There's a book and a DVD grandma, the book is $30, but the DVD is so much cheaper, it's closer to $20, and you know, I much prefer the DVD, and it's so much better value, and I'll pay you back out of my own moneeeeeey!"
"How much is the DVD?"
"$28 ... so you can really say ... like $20"
"I think you can say $30 dear. You only get $2 back from $30 when you pay $28."
"But I'll pay you back with my own moneeeeeeeeey!"
"What money do you have dear?"
"From chores! Mum gives me money if I do chores, lots of 'em, so I've saved up heaps, like $20."
"I think your mother is being a bit excessive. $20!"
"Can I have it?"
"No."
"But I'll pay you back, back, back!"
[repeat the chorus and verse 1 several times over]
Other examples of children's entrepreneurism I've heard of is when a child attempted to convince his father that the Tooth Fairy was now leaving $10 per tooth, and another child who found a stone that looked like a tooth and left ti behind for a Fairy (His father found some fake plastic money and left it behind in exchange). Another child managed to wiggle his tooth out on Christmas Day and passed it around on a platter to all his relatives and did a "Tooth Collection" with all relatives so amused they threw in coins, with the result one tooth yielded $23, and didn't even get collected.
Boy, do these kids know how to market.
And these children are our future.
You deserve a salary for a comment like that. If you pretend those children are your own, and send the stories in to That's Life, they'll give you $200.
In a more altruistically motivated minor marketing moment ... I recently heard a youngster trying to persuade her grandmother to buy the shoes she was trying on. "It's ok, grandma, you'll grow into them", she explained. Perhaps she would have been more successful if she'd mentioned the sophistication of granny's feet.
Aw. Cutesy.
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