Woke up early
Sunday morning...steaming cuppa coffee sweetened with honey and flavored with a
squirt of chocolate syrup...flipped on the TV just to see what's on while my
mind adjusted to the inescapable task of shoveling a new batch of snow, sleet and freezing
rain...dropped into an old, over-stuffed recliner...and groaned! as my
longstanding belief that advertising and marketing in the "civilized"
world is utterly and completely out of control was strengthened.
Nearly every
channel: "Nothing beats my vacuum cleaner" (half-hour
infomercial); "Lose [x number of] pounds of ugly fat with this (pill)
without dieting or exercising" (half-hour infomercial); "Our
complete line of supplements will make you healthy, fit and free from [among
other similar maladies, flatulence and constipation]!" (half-hour infomercial); "You can earn a
six-figure income with only a small investment in our success program!" (half-hour
infomercial); "Our makeup and beauty products will erase decades of
damage and aging from your face!" (half-hour infomercial); "My
amazing invention will turn your time in the kitchen from drudgery to pure
joy! It's as easy as 1-2-3!" (yet it took a half-hour infomercial to
get the point across). "This incredible exercising
machine will give you amazing abs and robust health and vigor in just days!" (half-hour
infomercial).
"But
wait! If you call with your credit card number within the next four-and-a-half
minutes, we'll (double your order; include a free set of knives valued at $100
absolutely free; ship your order for free; include [this or that] free gift! include 30
days of absolutely free counseling from our team of experts)."
"But
wait! If you call with your credit card number in the next 15 minutes, we'll
deduct the first payment!"
"But
wait! If you call with your credit card number during the next four-and-a-half
minutes, we'll include this set of valuable CDs worth [some unbelievable
amount]!"
"And
don't worry, if you don't like our [vacuum cleaner, vitamins, beauty
products, gym equipment, success plan, etc., (ad nauseam)], just send it back
and keep the free gift!"
Un-n-n-n-believable!
Finally,
I found something worth watching, but even that 30-minute agriculture-based
program was broken into about six or seven disjointed fragments of legitimate information
by clusters of annoying commercials. Buy this; buy that; join this or
that group and save the world; buy this car; buy that sofa or bedroom suite;
tell your doctor you want this or that new [disgracefully expensive and
plagued-with-side-effects] new drug; switch to this investment managing
outfit; our burgers are better than their burgers; call this or that law firm...
we'll get you money for your injury or your friend or neighbor's perceived transgression; and
this particularly annoying lie: people have trusted this or that insurance
"company" [which no one has ever heard of before] for years!
Why? IT'S
ALL ABOUT GREED AND PROFIT.
But
it's not just the half-hour, purely-profit-motivated grabs for the
contents of our wallets, credit card balances and bank accounts that're totally
out of control. Virtually every bit of programming on TV is fragmented and
clogged with inordinately large numbers of advertising intrusions that are far
too often rude, deceptive, painfully annoying or utterly inappropriate.
It gets really
bad the closer one gets to huge metropolitan areas, but we've got a few bad (that means: far below average in quality or performance)
ones here in Maine, too...screaming idiots in ridiculous costumes and makeup who
think that playing the insane clown (that means: afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement)
will sell their product. Or bait-and-switch con artists who will do virtually
anything to get you into their store. They don't mention that they've buried the
damaged or discontinued "sale" rubbish way back at the other end of
the showroom or sales floor, and will then try to shame you into selecting the more expensive
"quality" products out front. And the law firms with their hired
actors and their emotional and/or intimidating sketches makes me hope and pray
I'll never experience the need to visit a lawyer's office again....ever!
Why? IT'S
ALL ABOUT GREED AND PROFIT.
Even so-called
"public" television has whacked its founding standards off at the
knees with ever-lengthening commercials and exhausting repetitious promos
between programs for, more often than not, ad nauseam rerun after rerun after
rerun. At least they haven't stooped to promoting
pricey pharmaceuticals,
bargain furniture and used cars...yet. I'll save the endless
program-busting membership campaigns for another time. And cable or satellite? Not much
better, really.
But it isn't just TV
that's irredeemably contaminated with marketing rubbish. Nearly every day my mail box bulges
near to the point of bursting its seams and popping its rivets with opportunities to spend
hard-come-by cash. Most of it useless trash hardly fit to put in the
compost pile! Some of it can only be pure bogus!
Insurance
companies, especially, desperately want me to sign into their plans and send them monthly or annual payments for
a policy that, in the end, will probably be neutralized by "legal" fine
print...or totally ignored when a claim is filed. Insurance companies, you see, are
not—and
never will be—in the business of freely and liberally tossing out payments
on claims without first seeking every possible "legal"
reason for denying those claims). Why? Because they're
in business for the sole purpose of making a profit! Making money off of the
masses. Us. Nothing else matters....because that's what CEOs and shareholders demand. Think
they have any thoughts of philanthropy or concern for the people from whom they
profit? Highly unlikely! Think they'd be willing to take a cut in salary
and forego their millions in annual bonuses so costs at the consumer
level could be reduced?
File THAT under never!
Credit card marketeers
with their never-ending flood of bulk mailings with cleverly camouflaged
restrictive/penal fine print and interest rate traps have no other purpose in mind than to
drag as many people as is humanly possible into strangulating and unrecoverable
debt—and ultimate financial ruin—in the shortest period of time with the least possible
investment.
And speaking
of mail...my email inbox is constantly over-stuffing itself with advertising for
virtually everything from viagra and male performance to quick, overnight college degrees—and every
disgusting thing in between—just for sending in a credit card number. As
many as 300 a day, on average. Now THERE'S a marketing system that's out of
control! And the cyber-criminals labor with unlagging resolve to stay
ahead—and ultimately defeat—so-called spam filters and spam-prohibiters,
allowing some of the trash and filth to get through. "Oh," web
service providers say, "just tweak the filter numbers a little and
you'll block the bad stuff!" Yeah, right. The more you
"tweak" the more of the desirable emails get dumped into some
"grey" folder. Thank God ours has an accessible online file for
greymail so we can spend valuable time retrieving mis-directed email from
friends, family and legitimate contacts!
Another true
bugaboo are the sleazy, low-life and, in my mind, tech-criminals who
send undesirable and unsolicited emails and faxes (usually in the wee hours
long before dawn) with the fine print at the bottom that promises that, if I
dial this or that number or click on the link I can submit a request to
opt-out of further receipt of their spurious rubbish. I know you've seen this.
Our utterly helpless government is totally unable to put a stop to these
tech-invasions...and we are forced by their impuissance (that's: powerlessness revealed by an inability to act)
to jump through hoops to get off the lists.
Why? IT'S
ALL ABOUT GREED AND PROFIT.
Page after
miserable page of slick magazine and catalog advertising wastes valuable
thousands of tons of trees and inestimable postage, and overburdens mail delivery
employees. But it most certainly keeps mailing list companies and big-city advertising agencies
rolling in dough, and way-overpaid and way-overvalued corporate
executives continuing their rapid ascent up the ladder to outrageously lavish lifestyles and vast
fortunes....while the rest of us struggle to escape the common burden of runaway
inflation, government waste (and sometimes corruption), societal confusion and
the specter of advancing poverty. (Sorry...I'm getting a little off the track.
But only a little.)
Why? IT'S
ALL ABOUT GREED AND PROFIT.
So, ok, I turn
off the TV, toss out all the junk mail (after shredding imprinted mailing address
labels and inserted applications with my name, address and cryptic identifying numbers) and
head for the radio for entertainment and talk show insights into world
conditions...and, Boom!...there it is again. Four or five minutes of only
marginally useful and interesting talk interspersed with four or five minutes of seemingly
endless repetitions of phone numbers. Why is it that advertisers (of largely
questionable products or services) think that it's necessary to repeat
their wretched (and soon forgotten) toll-free numbers as many as six
times (!) each during an agonizing several minutes of useless and brain-rattling
prattle? Here's your answer: IT'S
ALL ABOUT GREED AND PROFIT.
Billions upon
billions of hard-earned dollars go into the mind-numbing black hole of
annoying, deceptive and expensively wasteful marketing and advertising of junk,
"services" and things most of us don't need or will never use...while
our educational system is in frightening decline, our health care system is on
the brink of either bankrupting the rest of us...or complete collapse, the Social Security system faces insolvency and ultimate
disaster, sickness and
diseases increase at alarming rates, and our moral and ethical systems continue
to fling themselves off the track at dizzying—but predictable—rates.
All of it so a
few can hugely profit...and so a few more can reap their precious stock
dividends.
The backlash?
You could do what I do—hit the TV "mute" button and enjoy the peace
and quiet until the few desired fragments of programming return. And make it a
practice to resist being influenced by all those shameless and rapidly-
escalating profit-seeking commercials....especially the loud, defamatory or crude
ones. Once the advertisers discover that their high-priced spots on radio
and TV aren't generating as many new clients and customers as they'd hoped,
they'll do one or more of three things—pull the ads, hire a new advertising
agency...or double their efforts to get into our wallets. God help us if they
choose the latter!
You
could refuse to reward unacceptable marketing and advertising practices with
your support (purchases). Oh, I can here it now: "You mean boycott
them?" That's exactly what I mean. Listen...one or two
people will have absolutely no impact. Thousands who might otherwise have
shopped in one of these out-of-control "businesses" or hired services
but, rather, stayed away and spent their dollars elsewhere...will either get
their attention and force change for the better...or eventually put them out of
business altogether. Radical? Well...if that's what it takes.
And you can
send all the junk mail that comes with a postage-paid return envelope back
to the originator. Yes, I know...more work for the mail people. Huge bags of
returned clutter that mail-marketers must pay postage on might eventually
get the attention of their advertising and public relations departments! I also
include a no-compromising written note demanding that I be removed from all
(all) mailing lists and databases. Judging by their continued persistence, they
probably ignore that because, after all, the sorely-underpaid incoming mailroom
employee likely just tosses the returned stuff in the trash....so any CEOs and their
equally-overpaid upper-management directors will never know. Sad.
None of which
options will ever alter the natural human longing for profit and
power—ill-gotten or otherwise.
What's worse: doing
something to encourage change for the better....or doing nothing at all?
There! Now
I feel better.