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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:I misread this for a second and imagined the grossest tree in the world. Ah yes, Tom Green's favorite plant.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:37
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Specifically companies like Safeway will have up to 3 store brands, one super discount one, one normal store brand, and one upscale. But usually all those hot dogs will taste the same and come from the same plant. Sometimes the products are in fact far beyond "basically the same" and are in fact "literally the same." A fair amount of Great Value stuff at Walmart is actually exactly the same stuff as the name brand but put in a less fancy box. It's similar to how you'll find hordes of people who adamantly refuse to shop at Aldi because "that's where the poor people shop." You can very often get stuff just as good as, and often rather better than, the more expensive supermarket's stuff for way less but some people care so much about avoiding that stigma.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:45
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I can't remember who now but some store's generic cola brand couldn't be bothered to come up with different names for the coke and pepsi knockoffs, so you would just have to go by the bottle color.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:49
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ToxicSlurpee posted:It's similar to how you'll find hordes of people who adamantly refuse to shop at Aldi because "that's where the poor people shop." You can very often get stuff just as good as, and often rather better than, the more expensive supermarket's stuff for way less but some people care so much about avoiding that stigma. Aldi rules though. I got two pounds of corn flakes for $1.67 there the other day. Chumps don't know what they're missing.
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Apr 7, 2015 06:02
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I've just never liked stores like Aldi and Lidls because there's always an overwhelming smell about them. The air is always very thick so I find them uncomfortable to stay in for long.
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Apr 7, 2015 06:31
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BioEnchanted posted:I've just never liked stores like Aldi and Lidls because there's always an overwhelming smell about them. The air is always very thick so I find them uncomfortable to stay in for long. Lidl is great, their bakeries tend to be way better than tesco/sainsbury. Plus I like grabbing all the euro food.
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Apr 7, 2015 08:56
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Yeah they'll sell a premium and an economy version of the exact same product to cover more sections of the market. Interestingly this is how the Canadian cellphone market works too. Each of the big three has their own budget/"discount" brand - Telus/Koodo, Bell/Virgin, Rogers/Fido. You'll see advertising claims all the time touting things like "Telus! Best signal available!" when (here at least) they use literally the exact same towers as Bell/Virgin/Koodo. The funny thing is if I price out my plan which runs roughly $60/mo taxes in with Virgin (or exactly the same price with the other budget carriers, Canadian telco collusion is a whole 'nother rant), the exact same service on the exact same tower with Bell (the exact same company) will run 20-40% more expensive. It never ceases to hurt my brain when I see a friend sign a contract with Telus when they could have had literally everything exactly the same but for $20-30/month less. It's not even like the budget brands are perceived as inferior, I guess they are marketed a little more heavily to younger demographics than business types, but jesus christ nobody can tell what provider you use. Then again, some people also buy monster cables..
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Apr 7, 2015 18:19
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PhantomZero posted:So why all the stories of companies just changing labels on things? Do you make more money selling the "premium" label? Or is this established companies being their own "generic" version and selling more of the same product for slightly cheaper and less margins? Packaging design and colors have a brain priming effect. People won't just say the same soda in two different bottles tastes different. The same signals from taste buds get processed into different things by the brain. For all intents and purposes they are different.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:34
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Visa's using Smashing Pumpkins' Today. Yeah, a song about committing suicide and cutting yourself is a real good motivator for using a Visa. Maybe you can cut yourself with a Visa card!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0xRtI64yKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yud1Di_Vid8
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Apr 7, 2015 19:01
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An Angry Bug posted:Packaging design and colors have a brain priming effect. People won't just say the same soda in two different bottles tastes different. The same signals from taste buds get processed into different things by the brain. For all intents and purposes they are different. I work in a grocery bakery and we have "scratch" made French bread and used to sell Italian bread as well. Literally the only difference between the two was how we cut the top and what we packaged it in. Yet every time we ran out of Italian people would insist it tasted different from the French and get angry when I would offer it. It wasn't a cost issue either cause the price was the same they just would just swear it was different and swear at us for ruining their dinner.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:42
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BioEnchanted posted:I've just never liked stores like Aldi and Lidls because there's always an overwhelming smell about them. The air is always very thick so I find them uncomfortable to stay in for long. Glad I'm not the only one that had noticed that before. I thought I was crazy.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:46
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Thin Privilege posted:Visa's using Smashing Pumpkins' Today.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:46
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Thin Privilege posted:Visa's using Smashing Pumpkins' Today. Most people don't know what Today is about. "Today is the greatest" is a pretty reasonable refrain to have in an ad.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:46
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BioEnchanted posted:I've just never liked stores like Aldi and Lidls because there's always an overwhelming smell about them. The air is always very thick so I find them uncomfortable to stay in for long. I've noticed this, too, in Aldi stores in Australia. It's this weird, gross smell that I can't place but definitely makes me not want to go into their stores. I also feel like the lighting in Aldi stores is really weird, they have these super harsh flurescent lights but they're also kind of dim at the same time? It feels like every Aldi store is in a basement even when they're on street level and have giant windows along the front of them.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:58
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Niven posted:Interestingly this is how the Canadian cellphone market works too. Each of the big three has their own budget/"discount" brand - Telus/Koodo, Bell/Virgin, Rogers/Fido. You'll see advertising claims all the time touting things like "Telus! Best signal available!" when (here at least) they use literally the exact same towers as Bell/Virgin/Koodo. No, Koodoo, Virgin, and Fido are tainted as "Pay as you go" brands, which are for poors. Yes, even when they offer post-pay options.
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Apr 7, 2015 22:26
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Thin Privilege posted:Visa's using Smashing Pumpkins' Today. To be fair I'm sure a few people have committed suicide over credit card debt
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Apr 7, 2015 23:23
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Watching subhuman and overpaid ad monkeys misappropriate Gen X songs is somehow even more amusing than when they did it to Boomer music
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Apr 8, 2015 08:01
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Avenging_Mikon posted:No, Koodoo, Virgin, and Fido are tainted as "Pay as you go" brands, which are for poors. Back in the days that I very rarely used a cellphone I had a Tracfone. There is so much stigma attached to that sort of thing that I always found perplexing. I got my cell phone service for 1/3 of what everybody else was paying at the time in the long run and I didn't text at all in those days. It's one thing that's always baffled me; why pay extra just to say "I paid more for this than you, pleb  " when you yourself are not much higher on the ladder.Well actually now that I think about it that's exactly it; people acting like they're higher up on the ladder than they are while desperately trying to look like they aren't cheap. Fortunately though along my time on this rock I've taught at least a dozen people the difference between "frugal" and "cheap."
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Apr 8, 2015 08:59
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Specifically companies like Safeway will have up to 3 store brands, one super discount one, one normal store brand, and one upscale. But usually all those hot dogs will taste the same and come from the same plant. I think sometimes this depends on the product, though. I live next to a pig processing factory which employs like 90% of people in the local community, and people who work there are generally much less likely to buy super-discount ham. The way it works here is like this - the meat is the same, but on the day they're processing "super discount" meat, they'll have a quota of (say) 1000kg to fill. When it's the "upscale" meat, they only need to process 700kg. If they hit the quota for the day, everybody gets a (small, but not insubstantial) bonus for their hard work. So obviously they hit the quota every day - not hitting the quota is more like getting your pay cut than anything else. That means that on the 'super discount' processing days, a good percentage of the meat which passes through isn't really good, because they're desperate to hit the large quota which means almost no wastage. There are some horror stores (which I believe, knowing the people who work there) about people dropping meat on the floor and still passing it as 'good' on super discount days. They'll scrape out meat which is stuck to the machines to make up weight. Meanwhile, on the upscale processing days, meat which looks dodgy or dirty can be thrown away without staff worrying about their pay. For this reason, I avoid the 'super discount' brands of fresh goods, even if they're from the same factory.
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Apr 8, 2015 09:48
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Elohssa Gib posted:I work in a grocery bakery and we have "scratch" made French bread and used to sell Italian bread as well. Literally the only difference between the two was how we cut the top and what we packaged it in. Yet every time we ran out of Italian people would insist it tasted different from the French and get angry when I would offer it. It wasn't a cost issue either cause the price was the same they just would just swear it was different and swear at us for ruining their dinner. Traditionally Italian bread doesn't contain salt and French bread does. If they hadn't tried your specific bread then they may have been correct based on previous experiences.
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Apr 8, 2015 10:45
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P&G South Africa decided to push this ad out to YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COttrTE1VQI It's worth noting that SA doesn't have a big pool of advertisers using YouTube so this is pretty much one of two ads that will play every time on monetized videos. The comments are a fun read, but this sums it up:  Listen to rap! AtomD has a new favorite as of 10:54 on Apr 8, 2015 |
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Apr 8, 2015 10:50
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Back in the days that I very rarely used a cellphone I had a Tracfone. There is so much stigma attached to that sort of thing that I always found perplexing. I got my cell phone service for 1/3 of what everybody else was paying at the time in the long run and I didn't text at all in those days. It's one thing that's always baffled me; why pay extra just to say "I paid more for this than you, pleb I believe one of the benefits of the contract carriers is that due to the billing, etc, it can help your credit score. But I've never been 100% sure on that.
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Apr 8, 2015 15:22
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Back in the days that I very rarely used a cellphone I had a Tracfone. There is so much stigma attached to that sort of thing that I always found perplexing. Fun facts: The guy that owns América Móvil (the company that owns Tracfone), Carlos Slim Helú, is the second richest person in the world, worth $76.5 billion. América Móvil and its subsidiaries are a loving powerhouse in Central and South America, controlling enormous portions of the market in most countries there. I bought a cheap-rear end Tracfone to use as my business line and ended up liking it so much I bought another one and ported my number to it. They were less than $15 at the time, service was cheap, and the phones themselves were rugged as poo poo. If it fell out of my pocket into a toilet or a can of concrete sealant (not that that's ever happened), no big; I'd just go up the street and grab a new one for next to nothing and be back in action in less than a half hour. Re: Store brand chat I actually had an opportunity to ask someone knowledgeable about store brands and pricing to explain how it worked. This is an extremely simplified explanation, but hopefully you'll get the idea. The prices are for demonstrative purposes only and do not in any way reflect current breakfast cereal market circumstances. You're a cereal company, and you make Best Crunch. Best Crunch is your flagship line, a premium breakfast cereal that benefits from national advertising, a cute mascot, etc. It costs you--after all your costs--$1.00 to produce a unit. Being well-established and popular in the market, you can charge grocers $2.00 per unit. The grocers then put it on the shelf for $3.00, and they're pretty happy because they're having trouble keeping it in stock. They allocate inventory space for 100 units per month of Best Crunch. A hundred units per month is great, but you'd like to sell more. The grocers aren't keen on the idea of allocating more inventory space for Best Crunch, though. So, you put some Best Crunch in a different box, brand it Better Crunch, and offer it to the grocers at $1.50 per unit. The grocers are cool with this, but as it's not a "premium" brand, they only allocate inventory space for 50 units per month. They put it on the shelves for $2.50, and it sells pretty well--customers say it tastes "pretty close to Best Crunch" and they like that it's less expensive. A hundred-fifty units per month is pretty good, but your facility can make more cereal than that. So, you get the idea to start a new line: "Good Crunch." Good Crunch is a value line, in a plain-ish box with a hilariously generic mascot and no advertising at all, and it's really just Best Crunch in a different box. You offer the grocers Good Crunch for $1.10 per unit, and they allocate space for 50 units per month. There's not a lot of overlap with the market segments for Best Crunch and Better Crunch, so the grocers are happy, and customers enjoy a bargain-brand cereal that "is close enough to Best Crunch." Remember, it only costs you $1.00 to produce each box of cereal, and by adding "store brand" lines, you're now selling 200 units per month over cost, where you'd only be selling half that if you stuck with your flagship line. It doesn't matter that the Better and Good lines aren't making as much money as Best, because all three are making money.
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Apr 8, 2015 16:01
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Choco1980 posted:I can't remember who now but some store's generic cola brand couldn't be bothered to come up with different names for the coke and pepsi knockoffs, so you would just have to go by the bottle color. Sounds like Meijer. They have two store brand colas, Red and Blue. Red kind of tastes like Coke and Blue tastes closer to Pepsi.
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Apr 8, 2015 17:11
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Aldi's can be a little touch and go on produce, and I hate doing the bagging if I've bought a lot, but most of their stuff is good and they get neat European chocolates.
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Apr 8, 2015 17:44
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USPS releases a stamp featuring Maya Angelou and a quote attributed to Maya Angelou. Except the quote's from an author of children's books who is distinctly not Maya Angelou. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...fa9a_story.html
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Apr 8, 2015 18:10
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Geokinesis posted:Lidl is great, their bakeries tend to be way better than tesco/sainsbury. Plus I like grabbing all the euro food. They get their bread from literally the same bakery lines as Tesco. E: no wait, aldi use the same bakery as Tesco. Never can remember the difference.
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Apr 8, 2015 21:06
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All the Lidl stores I've known follow the "Moldovian operating room 1991" school of interior decorating. Harsh fluorescent lights, weird and impractical (check-out) furniture, constant security presence and pus-yellow tile floor for easy blood cleanup. I think they're knowingly leveraging the ">>>> HUDDLE HERE POORS <<<<" atmosphere.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:28
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Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G .
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Apr 9, 2015 13:30
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G . I actually like the off-brand Kenny G when I'm given a chance to actually listen to it without "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" and/or other verbal spam interrupting it every six god-damned seconds.
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Apr 9, 2015 13:38
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G . For my job, I have to frequently call Dell tech support. They have ONE single song that loops, it lasts all of one minute before restarting, and it's some terrible Kenny-G-lite muzak. And of course it's piped through the phone lines that don't have the bandwidth for music so it frequently has parts that are cut off, garbled, etc...
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Apr 9, 2015 13:42
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Lots of Aldi's in the Midwest have undergone major facelifts and are bright, cheery, and clean now. A decade ago, each one was a dim wasteland of chipped vinyl floor tiles and "that Aldi smell." This means that Kmart has officially taken back the title of "store with the worst atmosphere." Goddrat, Kmart, I know you're circling the loving drain but at least try to look nice during your final days 
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Apr 9, 2015 13:49
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G . The conference line I use at work does this. It's a neat way to market lesser-known bands who are looking for exposure. I've found some great music, too.
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Apr 9, 2015 14:08
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CzarChasm posted:Sounds like Meijer. They have two store brand colas, Red and Blue. Red kind of tastes like Coke and Blue tastes closer to Pepsi. Bubba Cola at Sav-a-Lot has red and blue as well, except they both taste awful.
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Apr 9, 2015 15:33
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G .
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Apr 9, 2015 15:54
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Part of it is VoIP is optimized for human vocal ranges and cuts out outside of that, so a lot of music gets all garbled and hosed up sounding. There are some people who do music or whatever that works over VoIP but that takes like, effort to find and use and stuff.
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Apr 9, 2015 17:02
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G . I'm pretty sure it comes with whatever call centre queueing software the company uses. It's quite jarring to hear an American accent telling me "You are called number... FOUR..." while the rest of the interstitial captive advertising its in the vernacular. The monopoly telecoms provider here has this muzak that sounds like it comes from the B-Roll of an Asylum version of Lord of the Rings as it pans over bad CG Hobbiton. It wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't a ten second jingle that immediately gets hijacked by somebody telling me how important my call is and all the wonderful (read: lovely) services they provide.
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Apr 9, 2015 17:06
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:Lots of Aldi's in the Midwest have undergone major facelifts and are bright, cheery, and clean now. A decade ago, each one was a dim wasteland of chipped vinyl floor tiles and "that Aldi smell." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzf5OL01Kpk
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Apr 9, 2015 19:07
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usbombshell posted:Bubba Cola at Sav-a-Lot has red and blue as well, except they both taste awful. It's funny because I've always thought the blue Bubba Cola tastes pretty similar to Pepsi and it's the only generic cola I can actually stand.
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Apr 9, 2015 19:42
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite marketing, but who the hell picks out the horrible Muzak + "thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" messages I've been listening to for 15 minutes now (and this is for a .gov line)? While I'm sitting here with the phone stuck to my head, it occurs to me that ClearChannel (or any paying ASCAP entity) could make a mint piping some quasi-popular songs, plus advertising, versus this endless loop of off-brand Kenny G . There can only be one king of hold musics. I don't know if Hertz still has the terrible hold music they did when I called them a few years back, but it barely qualified as music, just a slight collection of unarranged yet repeating tones, distorted by the bad quality of the connection. It was a cacophony I would never wish on anyone.
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