Last night I was on my way home when I noticed that my gas light was on. Being off in my own little world (as I usually am when driving), I had no idea how long the light had been on, so I pulled over to the nearest station I saw. It just so happened to be the Chevron right next to the apartment.

I’m not crazy about stopping, and this particular station didn’t have the greatest prices, but what was I going to do eh?

Annoying Marketing Tactics

So I stop, get out of my car, and get ready to put some gas in the tank. I’m minding my own business when out of nowhere I hear, “%lt;BEEP%gt; DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN DOUBLE YOUR POINTS WHEN YOU BUY…” Startled at first, I regained my thoughts quick enough to notice a little device with a speaker attached. I instinctively reached for the device to find the off button and rejoiced when I saw the word “Mute”, so I pressed it and everything was calm again.

While continuing to wait for a full tank of gas, I glanced around to see if anyone else had met this machine with the same enthusiasm. Most of the “savvy” looking people had turned it off. Anyone else who couldn’t figure it out, either waited in their car or just sat there with a look of contempt on their face.

I began to imagine the sort of people that come up with this sort of thing. I saw a board room of old men coming up with great ideas on “how to reach these people”. It’s the same group of people that think “email blasting” is a good thing. And what really gets me is that they probably paid millions of dollars to come up with this. Would it have been worth it if they knew it was just going to piss people off?! Maybe it’s a numbers game. “For every 100 people we piss off, 2 will want to listen!” While this strategy might be acceptable in rare cases, these are people already spending! They are pissing off people who have already willingly decided to give them money!

Today, most means of advertising are becoming less and less effective. People are getting used to it and becoming immune. So how does Corporate America respond? They push harder and become even more intrusive! They come up with audio advertisements and flashing banner ads on myspace.

Good products speak for themselves. I just wish bigger companies would realize this and put the millions of dollars into making a product better or reducing cost. Instead they are dying with ineffective, brute force tactics that only succeed in pissing people off.

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