Month: October 2010

Okay so it’s midterm season… most people are super stressed, and while I am also one of them, I’ve managed to kind of calm my self using an odd method. For honestly the past week, I’ve had a jingle stuck in my head and it just won’t go away. It’s a pretty happy jingle, and I honestly believe it has managed to calm me about midterms, because with this song stuck in my head life just seems happier for some reason. You’ve really got to give it up to the company that uses this jingle in their advertisements, because ever since I heard it I just can’t get it out of my head, therefore I can’t get that commercial out of my head… it’s pretty good marketing if you ask me. Anyways, I’ve posted the song for you to hear… but if you don’t want to have a song stuck in your head forever… you might not want to.

Enjoy! (maybe…)

So after cruising through some blogs, I stumbled upon this-a one, by my friend Josh in my marketing class. He talked about freebie marketing… and while I had never really thought about it, he’s totally right… and its pretty astounding how often this happens. For example, I got a new cell phone in the summer. It was brand new for “FREE, no strings attached, no hidden fees, no NOTHING” (as according to the sales person), needless to say I was pretty stoked on life. Then I find out that, oh no big deal, since I got this beautiful gift of a free phone from Telus, I was committed in a three year contract paying a ton of money for little minutes, paying $7.25 in taxes per month for “air fees” (who even knows what those are anyways?!), and not to mention I had to pay extra for any additional benefits such as caller ID and voicemail. BUT HEY… the phone was FREE! After hearing my outrage, you’d probably assume that I declined the free phone, and moved to a service provider a bit more to my liking, but actually I haven’t. I’ve been a Telus user since I was in grade 7, getting free phones all the while, and honestly I don’t think I’ll switch providers any time soon.

Freebies that companies offer seem so enticing and appealing at the time, that people don’t really realize what they’re getting sucked into. As mentioned by Josh in his blog, an excellent example is razors. Yeah, you buy the handle one time for a mere $5… but then you’re committed for life buying refills once a month in packs of 3 for an astounding $20.00. I think customers, once having gotten the initial bargain or freebie, the razor handle in this case, they feel as though they are committed to the product. How can they pass up the FREE handle! It would be a missed opportunity for them not to dish out $20.00 monthly to keep the free razor handle alive, and that would just be irresponsible of them right? Hrrmmm… not so sure.

Technically, I’m not one to talk, as I’ve taken my freebie phones with a smile on my face, then died every month when I get my phone bill…but hey, maybe when my contract runs out this time things will change…

although unlikely… I just love free phones.

SEEEEEEEya later gator!

Hola team,

So I came home from school the other day, and a bunch of my friends were crowded around a laptop, all of them looking pretty excited. I figured I’d check out what all the fuss was about so I pushed my way to the front and saw that they were on the BC Lottery online gambling website. Now, I never gamble period, let alone online cause I see it as a way of pretty much asking to lose money, but my friends explained that this was an opportunity I couldn’t really pass up. Basically, the website playnow.com had a promotion on that just recently ended on October 5th; They promised that if you created an account on their website, logged in and played their games betting at least $100 of your own money, they would give you a token worth $100 that you could use to bet with on their site. Sparing the tricky directions (which can be found here), there was a way that people could safely bet their own $100, ensuring they earned back every cent, and then do the same with the $100 token that the website gave them, and automatically win $100 all in 5 minutes. I thought this must be too good to be true, but sure enough, 2 days after me and my friends tried this promotion on playnow.com, we were rewarded with a $100 direct deposit into our bank accounts.

So now I’m wondering, the website must have figured this ploy out… no way they didn’t realize that if people play the right game the right way they were practically giving away literally hundreds of dollars. I think that play it now did this promotion on purpose, trying to win back customer appeal. Actually…a few years ago play it now was involved in a big scandal where the banking information of some of their users got released online, so I think they’re trying to save face almost, and regain the popularity amongst online gambling. Secondly, I bet they are expecting people to be so excited after winning $100 right on the spot, that they will keep using the website, and potentially lose the money, or end up getting addicted and bet more of their own money. I think it’s a really smart move on their part, because people are using their site again! Even if they lose a ton of money over this promotion, if they can capture a new audience of customers, they will make all the money back and more in the future.