Manipulative Marketing Under Attack

Manipulative Marketing Under Attack

Tough economic times have brought out the activists (although some
are calling them whiners) to protest manipulative marketing.
Wednesday, protestors visited such diverse companies as
CVS/Pharmacy, a drug store chain currently in a store building
contest with Walgreens, Mercedes Benz, maker of luxury cars, and
eBay, operator of the worlds biggest online flea market.

Interestingly, the complaints of manipulative marketing started
with eBay as the target and then spread to other companies when
bait and switch was added to the list of despised tactics.

The complaints started with eBay's "Best Match" feature which,
potential buyers soon discovered, didn't actually list the best
matches for their search terms. Instead, eBay cooks the results with a
secret recipe (it is suspected Harlan Sanders would not
approve) that alters the best match for buyer's search terms based
on seller ratings, seller sales volume, past sales of items, sales
type of item ("Buy It Now" or auction), and allegedly other yet to
be discovered forms of manipulation. Protestors claim ebay is
attempting to get buyers to buy what eBay wants them to buy, not
what their search terms say they want to buy.

Similar charges have been leveled against CVS/Pharmacy. All CVS
stores have the pharmacy located at the rear. Protestors claim
that, just like eBay, CVS is making customers look at things they
don't want while they're trying to find what the do want. "They
really make it tough" said a customer who declined to be
identified. "I didn't anticipate having such a hard time getting
my prescription for Viagra filled."

Joseph Camel of the Brand Research Institute observed that setting
up stores for suggestive sell was a long established practice.
"But at least a customer who wanders into a store can ask a clerk
for the specific item he wants, and the clerk will tell him where
it is" observed Mr. Camel. "I think CVS is on firm ground, but
under the eBay system, the customer asks, via search terms, and
eBay insists on showing him something else. That's almost bait
and switch."

Bait and switch is exactly the accusation against Mercedes. "Why,
I bought a C Class" said Mercedes owner Floyd Barker "and found out
its smaller than my neighbor's Honda Civic. When I complained to
the Mercedes dealer, they told me for only $20,000 more, I could
have a REAL Mercedes."

Mercedes spokesman Heinreich Tungensheek denied the accusations of
bait and switch. "We're merely following marketing model develped
by GM's Alfred P. Sloan. People may move up in our model range as
their success in life increases."

Mr. Camel concurred. "If they want the Tri Star, they can buy a C
Class. If they want an obsolete rear drive car designed by
Mercedes, and can live without The Tri Star, then they can buy a
Chrysler 300 or Dodge Charger for the same money."

 

Heck, ya go thru the drive-thru pharmacy and you don't even have to go
in the store at our Walgreens.

 

This was really a stupid thing to post to r.a.m.chrysler.

The argument that someone would equate a Chrysler 300 or Charger as
being on the same choice-scale as Mercedes is complete horse shit.

Most people never knew that Chrysler was, for most of the past 10 years,
a division of Daimler, and Daimler never positioned Chrysler as a
"low-cost" option to Mercedes. Unlike the CVS and Ebay examples in this
story, a potential customer would never see a Chrysler vehicle and a
Mercedes in the same show room.

But it was true that Daimler helped drive Chrysler into bankruptcy by
forcing Chrysler to engineer their LX-based cars to use a substantial
amount of older E-class suspension and drive train components, while
gutting Chrysler's product development staff resulting in Chrysler's
current product crisis (limited number of small-car choices and no
economical mid-size car models).

 

Talk to one of the many guys after better shelf placement of his baked
beans in a super market.
Buy him a couple of drinks and sit back and listen, then feel better
about your job..

 

Yea, I have to wonder about how much that feature has hurt in store
sales. Just like I wonder if the labor savings from "pay at the pump"
covers the lost sales from people coming inside the gas station to
pay.

I was amused last year when gas was $4 a gallon and people were
complaining about the cost, yet they continued to sit in lines at
drive up windows. The price was only high enough for them to
complain, not high enough for them to alter their behavior.

 

Rear drive is perfectly fine for these cars when they have the Hemi.
Its exactly what Mercedes should have done, rear wheel drive, when
putting a powerful engine in these cars. So rear drive is NOT
obsolete in the context of the Hemi.

But since most of them come with 2.7s or 3.5s Mercedes should have
gone for what was appropriate for those engines.. front wheel drive...
and just forgotten about the Hemi. Which begs the question of why
Mercedes is still building their own cars that have wimpy engines with
rear wheel drive.

 

Isn't the term "Manipulative Marketing" redundant? What is marketing
but the science of manipulating people to get them to buy your
products or services?

As for Pharmacies locating the pharmacy counter at the rear of the
store...I don't think I've ever seen a pharmacy that sells other stuff
arranged any other way. The little pharmacy in my very small home town
was arranged like that 50 years ago.

Ed

 

HUH?

All marketing, by definition and without exception, IS manipulative.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
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Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

 

Now you know why the printer at the pump is ALWAYS out of paper. Forces you
to go into the store, even if you're just there to buy gas. -Dave

 

Going INSIDE Walgreen's is faster than sitting at the drive-up...
with your engine running.

I hate drive-ups.

Kris

 

Good point. And as long as people keep buying, business will keep
doing it. Take the CVS (or any, "pharmacy," for that matter) -
obviously, the tactic of parading patrons past the other crap they are
pushing to get to the pills works, or they would have come up with
some other plan for their stores....

 

Hah! Actually that (or the paper towel dispenser for checking oil being
empty or a speaker booming advertisements at me that I have to hit a
mute button to stop or the pump nozzle latch being missing) consistently
happening causes me to find another gas station.

 

Dudes, this entire post was obviously a joke, I would have thought the
comment
about the customer having a "hard time" getting his Viagra prescription
filled would have given it away.

Sheesh, gullible people here....

Ted

 

I doubt very many people in the auto groups are fooled at all. I
think they know when they see poster's name what the post is.

Just because the guy is trying to be funny doesn't mean there's
nothing in the post to talk about.

 

Dudes, this entire post was obviously a joke, I would have thought the

Joe Camel and "Heinrich Tungensheek" were giveaways too.

Which doesn't mean it isn't a serious topic, that can validly draw
serious responses.

 

<snip>

Marketing is *product desire enhancement*.

 

Erections lasting more than four hours require immediate medical
attention.

 

Heh heh

Some people just don't understand....

 

I bought a Volvo S80 in 2001. Wimpy engine, FWD and all.

Most miserable car I ever owned.

My kids are grown so I don't need a super-sized car and I'm pretty happy
with my current '08 C300 Luxury. And here's one of the reasons why: The
RWD platform allows it to make a u-turn in about half the distance that that
stupid Volvo needed.

When I owned the dumbass Volvo and complained about the lack of
maneuverability I was told that with FWD it was impossible to engineer the
front steering geometry to do an adequate job.