Dumb Marketing Moves: Tell me about Zoos

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Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

Interesting. Reminds me of how, after the federal government restricted how tobacco companies could advertise, the companies had better profits. People still want to smoke, and now they don't have to pay for expensive TV ads or product placement.

In that case it worked out well for them because their competitors couldn't advertise either. In the toothpaste example only one company stopped advertising.

Nuclear Pogostick posted:

That makes no sense to me. I buy pepsodent because I like how it tastes, I buy store-brand diet soda because it tastes pretty close to coke while being a few bucks cheaper, the only time I actually factor ads into my purchasing habits is when it's an ad that makes me aware of a sale or something new. Pretty much everyone I know is the same way, so... what the gently caress is the deal?

Ads work on everyone, but most people think they're the exception. Because ads don't work in a simple, straight-forward way it's hard to see how they're affecting you. You don't see a McDonald's ad and immediately go out and buy a burger, but the constant advertising makes sure that you know what McDonald's is, you know what they sell, you recognise them instantly when you see them, you know what to expect when you go there. When you're walking down the street and you see the golden arches you think "burgers", not "a big yellow M". When you're thinking "Where can I go for a quick meal?" one of the answers that instantly pops into your head is "McDonald's". And there are a lot of more subtle effects, like using particular words, colours, symbols, sounds, etc. to give certain impressions and fix certain associations in your mind. None of it translates directly from seeing the ad to buying the product, but in its totality it's hugely effective in making large numbers of people more likely to buy the product.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 05:14

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 06:35

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

WebDog posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZcNXe20dXI
For "glorifying gun violence."

Hey, that one's actually good.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 12:01

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Dropbear posted:

What is really loving hilarious to me is how bad YouTube advertisements are, at least here in Finland. Even if you don't use adblock you can usually skip the ad after 5 seconds, which is what most people do. So, logically, you should try to ram the important bits (your product / company name at the very least) into those first five seconds, right? Nope! Everyone puts the weirdest poo poo that has nothing to do with the advertised thing at the start!

I like to play a game of trying to work out what is being advertised within that five seconds. It's surprisingly hard. Most of them also seem to really fail at incentivising you to not skip. You've got to show something within those five seconds that tells me why I should listen to the rest of your ad, and most of them just don't. I don't get it.

mrkillboy posted:

I remember seeing a YouTube ad for the movie The Is The End that basically started with Franco, Rogen and co sitting on a couch yelling "DON'T SKIP DON'T SKIP DON'T SKIP". I thought that was pretty amusing.

I hated that ad so much, I made a special point of never letting it actually play.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 04:50

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Sentmassen posted:

The only marketing that has ever worked for me was the Tim and Eric old spice commercials.

I guarantee you that this is not even remotely close to true.

Sentmassen posted:

A friend also pointed out that a company that spends sooo much on advertising probably cant afford to give you a good deal.

That is complete nonsense. Companies spend money on advertising because it makes them more money overall. They're not just burning money, they're spending less on ads than they're making back because of the ads. If the advertising was costing them money rather than making them money, they wouldn't do it.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 05:09

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Sappo569 posted:

It's true, awhile ago they changed the way they take orders... any mcdonalds I goto now it's easily 10-15 min for an order, line or not

When I worked there in the mid 90's, we would have a holding bin of prepared food, that would stay there for 10 min max (either it would get thrown out, unlikely, or someone would order it).

I don't often go to McDonald's, but whenever I've been there at times they expect to be busy they've done this, but if I go in at three in the afternoon or whatever then they generally have to make it from scratch. I can't see why they would ever change that, it just makes sense. You don't waste food by having it prepared when no one wants it and you don't end up with a billion people hanging around waiting at busy times. :confused:

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 15:31

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

nucleicmaxid posted:

I wouldn't order it, but it doesn't look super gross, just kinda gross.

Just looks like any other low to mid-tier pizza really. Looks better than most chains (eg. Pizza Hut or Domino's), just not up to the standard of a good local place. I guess if you like those artisanal gourmet wood-fired pizzas then that would have way too much toppings on it for you, but if you like real pizza then that looks pretty normal.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 06:28

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Present posted:

I'm pretty sure that it is in fact a Dominos Pizza pizza. I worked at one for years and that's what my dinner looked like when I made it (deluxe with cheese on top). Plus the chairs in the photo are of a particular shade of blue that used to be the shade used in the logo like 20 years ago.

From what I remember Domino's pizzas don't have nearly as much toppings and are much blander-looking than that. I must admit, I haven't seen a Domino's pizza in years though.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 08:12

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

nucleicmaxid posted:

Sorry I don't like crappy fast food pizza that much I guess? It looks super mediocre, and I like to cook so it looks 'kinda gross'. As in, edible but probably not very tasty.

I don't think you know what "gross" means.

Alouicious posted:

hahahahaha jesus christ that pizza looks like milky poo poo, saying it looks terrible totally means you've got autism yup

I don't think you know what "gross" means.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 18:01

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

nerdz posted:

Candy flavored Vodka? Who are you marketing this to? How about changing the name to Happy Vodka or Vodka Kids?

How is that any different from stuff like Cruisers or any other alcopop?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 03:03

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Total Meatlove posted:

The KFC advert in Australia that got pulled because of American backlash was a pretty good example of how multinationals have to work to some international (American) ideal of advertising.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaIhf41ctkM (With commentary)

I like how the host of the show actually refers to the West Indies fans as "African Americans".

# ¿ Jan 27, 2015 16:32

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Xander77 posted:

It's a modern take on Danse Macabre. Why are everyone PBFing so hard?

Why do you keep including links to unrelated YouTube videos in all your posts?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 18:37

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Postal Parcel posted:

this Taco Bell Commerical, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veZtXsUMmIA

That ad does the exact thing it's criticising. "You don't need anyone to tell you how to be a man! Now be a man and eat your cheese and meat!"

sitchensis posted:

Yo campbells

If you actually told me that I could use your soup to make things other than, you know, soup, I would probably be more inclined to buy it. Like throw some tuna, rice, veggies and condensed mushroom soup into a baking dish, stick it in the over, and you can have a TUNA CASSEROLE that is good for LEFTOVERS (though I'd probably switch out when I realize I could get the same results with the even-cheaper in-store brand soup).

Or, you know, not use condensed soup at all? :psyduck:

WickedHate posted:

I can't think of a single ad I've ever seen for an Apple product that made me want to buy them

That's because that's not how ads work. :rolleyes:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 04:35

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

I don't think there was ever a point where a large proportion of people knew much about how to use computers. Most people who use computers regularly just memorise the steps that are required to do the specific things they want to do, and that's been the case since computers became common enough that people who didn't go out of their way to use them had to start.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 08:52

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

I mean, it sort of depends on how you define computer skills. If you're just talking about making a computer do what you want it to do, then I think younger people are at a significant advantage.

I don't think that's true. The main difference is in what people want their computer to do. Most people, regardless of age group, can figure out how to use modern computers to do what they want them to do, because modern computers are generally pretty easy to use. But very few people of any age bother to understand why this is the way to make the computer to do that or how that relates to doing similar tasks or what to do if it's not working the way you expect it to. And most people once they have a way to do something will continue to do it that way, even if the software changes and makes that method obsolete or introduces a more efficient way to do things, because if you're not thinking about why you do it that way then it's essentially just a meaningless set of steps that results in the thing you want to happen happening. To do it another way would mean memorising a new set of arbitrary steps.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 12:33

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

I doubt, though, if we took a hundred people in their sixties, and a hundred people in their twenties, sat them in front of a computer, and told them to go to a given website, you'd bet on the group in their sixties getting there first.

Of course not, but the reason for that is that members of the younger group are far more likely to have used the web a lot before. The difference isn't that older people have more trouble figuring computers out, it's that they're less likely to want to do the same things with them that young people do.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 07:54

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Len posted:

Do they not ask you when you get your photo id/license if you want to be a donor? All you have to do here is just go "sure" and they click a button making you an organ donor.

Weirdly, in Australia being an organ donor is totally meaningless. If you die in such a way as to make organ donation possible they'll ask your family for permission, whether you've registered as an organ donor or not. Since you're already dead at that point, it's no longer your decision.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2015 15:17

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

ThePlague-Daemon posted:

I guess it's not really dumb, since not everyone wants to pick out every ingredient in their sandwich

This is the exact reason I never go to Subway. I'll walk past Subway and buy a sandwich from the coffee shop a block over, because there I just pick the pre-assembled sandwich that looks good from the display instead of having to think about which things I want.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2015 14:33

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Anatharon posted:

Wait, what IS Sonic?

A hedgehog.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 10:36

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

InediblePenguin posted:

I'm also old enough (though only barely) to remember cigarette vending machines in the United States.

I saw one probably about two years ago (in Melbourne), and it may still be there. It was a really weird thing though, because it only took coins so you had to put in $15-$20 or whatever in $1 and $2 coins, and there was a 7-11 right across the street that would sell you cigarettes 24 hours a day. :shrug:

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 16:07

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

How Rude posted:

That's why packaging is irrelevant. You always look at the ounces/liters/pounds and divide it out of the price to get what the actual price of a sale item.

At large Australian supermarkets, the labels on the shelf give the price for the item and for a fixed quantity, so if one brand is selling 200g of cream cheese for $4.10 and another brand is selling 250g for $5.30 it will also tell you that the first one is $2.05/100g and the second is $2.12/100g so you can see at a glance which is cheaper, no maths needed. It's not required for every shop to do it, but it's really handy at the ones that do.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 16:54

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

JacquelineDempsey posted:

(Disclaimer/source: my boyfriend worked for TJ's for many years. It's not a "trend"; they hire outgoing people, and the company treats them well, so for the most part they are actually happy to be there and have a chat with you, if only to break up the monotony of swiping things over a scanner for hours.)

I hate when supermarket staff do this. Particularly when I buy something like a slab of beer and a couple of bottles of wine and they're like "Having a party, eh?" and I'm not. Obviously I'm not going to go home and drink all of that right now, but your friendly small-talk just turned into "Hey, that seems like too much alcohol for one person to buy all at once!"

# ¿ Mar 20, 2015 04:21

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Trent posted:

They do have a lovely song that they sing for people's birthdays, and that happens at least once every time I'm there. It's short, though. I really hate being in a place with cloth loving napkins and hearing a line of clapping, singing servers coming anywhere near me. It is upsetting to the digestion and feels pretty degrading to the staff. This is pretty much every restaurant now, though, sadly.

Every restaurant? Do you only go to child-friendly chains or is this actually something that real restaurants are doing?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 07:12

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Trent posted:

Pretty much every chain restaurant. Obviously not fine dining establishments with $50 pasta dishes and $80 steaks, but any place that average people go on an average week.

Are there no normal restaurants where you live? Is it a choice between Pizza Hut and paying $60?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 05:02

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Postal Parcel posted:

Like, the idea sounds pretty good, but I've never had fastfood-chain level pizza with a good sauce not white or red.

What, in the context of pizza, is white sauce?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2015 15:28

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

mind the walrus posted:

This explains so many childhood suspicions you don't even know.

Now find a guy who works in cereal production so that I can tell my mom with certainty that yes the store brand does taste different.

Compare the nutrition information.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 06:25

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Pastry of the Year posted:

"thank you for holding, we appreciate your patience!" and/or other verbal spam interrupting it every six god-damned seconds.

This is the most irritating thing. Why do they do this? The only purpose I can imagine is that they want you to get annoyed and hang up. Is that what it's for?

Sardonik posted:

There can only be one king of hold musics.

That one's pretty good, but there's also another one I used to hear all the time that I like better: https://soundcloud.com/che-carlitos-1/fabrice-lemercier-musicatel

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 11:11

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

It always annoys me when I'm looking at a game on Steam and the videos either don't show gameplay, or just show tiny flashes of it between bits of cutscene or whatever. I don't care about your epic story of heroism and whatever, I just want to see what playing the game is actually like.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 18:28

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

mrkillboy posted:

I like how her expression seems to say "You're not seriously buying this, are you?"

# ¿ Apr 24, 2015 17:50

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

artsy fartsy posted:

Why don't all companies everywhere just put cute animals in their ads and on packaging, it's completely safe and there's like 5 things I can see in my living room right now that I bought strictly because there was a cute dog.

On the other hand, I will never buy Cottonelle toilet paper specifically because of the dog on the ads/packs. I just find the association of a cute puppy with toilet paper subtly disgusting.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 09:15

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

mr. mephistopheles posted:

Motherfucker has dead button eyes and a muppet mouth but a normal human body and a regular human, non-cartoony voice. I don't know how that isn't unsettling. The cow is just some low budget Dreamworks character.

Do you think The Wizard of Oz is a horror movie?

# ¿ May 29, 2015 05:46

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

aerion111 posted:

It'd be a bit creepier if they showed some of the less... Survivable products.
I don't know if it's the same company, but around here, a meat-brand also had a talking cow as their mascot, advertising steak and the like in the usual overly-cheerful way - which seemed creepy to me, at least, in a 'meet the meat' kinda sense.

The burger chain Grill'd is even worse. These were all I could find on Google, but some of the cow and chicken cartoons they have on the walls are far weirder. Good burgers though.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 14:16

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:

Except I made it clear I don't watch the BBC. Tell me again how I'm a moocher.

I don't drive a car. My father doesn't use public transport. We both pay taxes that fund roads and trains. The licence fee is a weird and outdated concept, not because you shouldn't have to pay it if you don't watch the BBC but because everyone should just be paying it as part of their taxes rather than as a special separate thing.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2015 02:43

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:

The BBC is not an essential service for gently caress's sake. It's just entertainment, and a lot of it is of very questionable value.

Whether or not it's "essential" is not nearly as important as whether it's valuable or worthwhile. Taxes aren't just there to cover the very minimum of necessity, they're there to provide a whole range of services. If you want to argue that the BBC shouldn't be producing things that commercial stations would make anyway, fine, I'd even agree. But it's not like it's just another TV station, it does make TV that is valuable but not commercially viable, and that seems like something worth funding to me.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2015 12:37

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Phanatic posted:

But, during a point in time where there's an unprecedented number of seriously loving excellent shows in pretty much any genre you'd care to name, the notion that public funding for broadcasting is necessary to produce good television is somewhat tone-deaf. There are plenty of lovely movies being made, too, but nobody's clamoring that we should charge people license fees so a government agency can turn out some feature films.

No one said commercial television doesn't produce good stuff, it's just that government funded television can make stuff that isn't commercially viable but may still be valuable. And governments already do finance movies.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 04:21

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Their website is http://www.weteachboys.org/

It's accurate, I guess, it just seems a little unsavoury.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 14:32

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Ignite Memories posted:

Seriously. Marketers don't like talking about it, but Millenials are loving broke and saddled with huge amounts of debt. Maybe Gen Y'ers want expensive organic artisanal ingredients and poo poo, but Millenials just want more pizza than the other guy will give them for the same price.

Gen Y'ers are millennials. The biggest problem with trying to market to "millennials" is that the term basically means "anyone under 40" and that's not even close to a homogeneous group.

Huntersoninski posted:

I don't love it, but it's not the clerk's fault they're pressured to make sales or else, so I just say, "no thanks" until they stop. I don't shout at them and berate them about tech poo poo that's totally out of their control. That's what people with anger issues do.

When you get angry at someone in that situation, whether it's at a bank or shop or even a telemarketer, all you're doing is making life worse - for yourself, and for someone who already has a lovely job. Instead of calmly putting up with a minor irritation that takes a few seconds to deal with, now you're in a bad mood because you got angry, and the other person's in a bad mood because they just had to deal with an arsehole who yelled at them for doing their job. No one benefits from this.

The White Dragon posted:

Lucky, when I was growing up my dad was full Cop Mode "if you can't identify made and model and memorize the color at a glance then you're gonna get murdered."

How is recognising cars supposed to keep you safe?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2015 08:00

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Karma Monkey posted:

From what I can tell, "curated" just means someone else picks out a bunch of stuff for me because they think I'll like it, and it's really hit or miss, mostly miss. You know those bulk candy pick n mix things where you can just grab whatever you like and pay by the pound? To me, curated is when a complete stranger picks all the candy for me and charges more per pound and I only like half of the stuff in the bag.

My assumption would be that whatever you get is the stuff they want to get rid of or are being paid to promote. To use the pick and mix example, they might have a bunch of jelly beans on the shelf that have been there for a while, and Mars is running a promotion on M&M's, so you'll get a lot of those two things and not much else.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 02:21

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Mr. Flunchy posted:

How are they forcing people to do anything?!

See, if I go to the supermarket to get a bread roll for lunch, but they only sell them in packs of six, that's forcing me to buy five extra rolls I didn't want because I need a bread roll right now because I haven't eaten since breakfast and I don't want to eat any of the other foods I could buy instead.

Zaphod42 posted:

Its pretty hosed up.

Do you realise that you're talking about optional extra content in a video game?

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

They're definitely missing a huge opportunity not to give people an option to buy the extra crap for a ten spot though.

No they aren't. They'll sell as many extra copies of the whole, full-price thing as they can now, then they'll sell all the pieces individually at full price to get even more people to buy them, then they'll sell the whole thing bundled together again but at a discount to get more people to buy it, and then they'll sell the pieces separately at a discount to get the last few stragglers.

Boywhiz88 posted:

I'd call DLC a dumb move in marketing.

Only if it doesn't work (which it clearly does, very well).

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 08:20

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

CommissarMega posted:

I know, right? It seems GW really, really thinks it can make the majority of its money from the models.

Also, more rules (also includes the rules I posted earlier):

At this point, why even bother having rules? It seems like they're pretty much saying "play make-believe with your toys like children do".

Johnny Aztec posted:

The rules make me think of the joke sets Magic: The gathering put out. Cracked, and Unglued. These rules sound like it'd be fun if you were playing with people for fun, and not taking poo poo seriously, but considering the player base....

There are a few key difference with the joke MtG cards though, the main one being that they're the exception, not the entire game. But also they don't require you to do stuff like scream as loud as you can or whatever, and a lot of them are really only funny within the context of the game because they make you do stuff that you normally wouldn't, like move cards to non-existent zones or randomly exchange control of cards or whatever, which is fun because it messes with how the game normally works, but isn't obnoxious and annoying to everyone around you.

davidspackage posted:

People do realize you don't have to play a game the way its makers tell you, right? I mean, all of that sounds like an april fool's joke, but you don't have to do anything with them.

The difficulty is, if you're not using the official rules then everyone has to agree on some other set of rules to use, which basically means you can only play within your own small group and anyone who wants to join has to learn all your house rules.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 07:48

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 06:35

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Cleretic posted:

Isn't the big thing there that early MtG just wasn't designed with 'balance' in mind? Or perhaps more accurately they didn't know how to, since it was a whole new game, so cards like Black Lotus were absurdly overpowered just because the guys originally making it didn't know what, if anything, would be overpowered.

In a slightly more accessible metaphor, imagine if Missingno. was legal and viable in competitive Pokemon. That's the sort of thing on the Reserved List, to my understanding.

You're thinking of the banned/restricted lists, which are actually based on what cards are overpowered and either outright ban or limit the number of copies of a card you can have in your deck. The reserved list is just rare old cards that they promise never to reprint to make sure they keep their value for collectors. The fact that several of them are also actually useful in some tournaments is coincidental.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 16:06

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Dumb Marketing Moves: Tell me about Zoos

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