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Stretching Their Marketing Dollars. Honestly!?

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Volume One

Recently I’ve noticed a number of marketing campaigns and advertisements that tend to stretch the truth, or worse, don’t bother to mention it. As a business, there is a danger with trying to portray a product offer as better than it actually is. Namely, customers will remember you for trying to sell them a bill of goods. Here are some examples of marketing campaigns that you shouldn’t emulate, unless you want to see them posted on Opinion250.

Let’s start with an old favourite of mine, which will not only show that I don’t play favourites, but also shows that I loathe advertisements that are made to look like they are giving me a great deal. Let’s see if you remember this one.

“We are able to offer prices that are 70% off those found in Vancouver stores.” “Wow! Great deal,” you say. “How can this business do that? How can they offer prices so low?” Now, I remember visiting this store and wondering how they figured their prices were such a good deal. In many cases I could go over to the local hardware store and get the same, or better, price.

Of course the first question should be, “since when do the prices charged in Prince George and Vancouver have to be correlated?” Considering the amount of our products that don’t even come out of Vancouver (Edmonton and Eastern Canada come to mind), using this as a comparison is a little on the deceptive side.

Secondly, this Ex Prince George business specialized in buying insurance and bankruptcy claims. One might want to consider if there is a correlation between a Vancouver store going bankrupt and the fact that their prices were so high they didn’t sell any products.

Moving on we need go no further than our local booming real estate market and check out some of the housing and property listings.
One listing claimed to be 25 minutes from Prince George. I calculated 35 minutes plus, without adding extra time for winter driving conditions. That meant either the listing agent was talking about the City limits of Prince George or speed limits were not being observed.

Just to show that this person was likely time challenged, the listing said this house had been “Just Listed.” Obviously, my dictionary and the Real Estate agent’s dictionary come from different publishers. The Agent’s definition of just listed is anything in the last 6 months. I was thinking 2 weeks.

Then there’s the Agent who listed a property and proclaimed that it was the “best property they had ever listed in the area.” Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had purchased my house through this Agent, I would be a little upset knowing that my place was suddenly considered, at best, second rate.

My personal selection for the “Stretch” of the month award for August 2005 goes to the large automobile dealer who decided not to attend the Mega sale at the exhibition grounds. Now to their credit they decided not to attend so they could “pass those savings on to you, their valued customer.” However, they told us this every 15 minutes for every day of the mega sale. By my conservative calculations the cost to advertise their non-attendance was in the range of $2,000 dollars plus per day. Unless the media outlets in this fair city of ours have suddenly become non-profit organizations, that doesn’t exactly look like passing the savings on to me.

Of course, this doesn’t include the signs posted around their lot that proclaim “employee pricing, 28 days only.” Perhaps they use the same Ad agency as the Real Estate agent listed above. Either that, or time is standing still and I haven’t noticed.

Either way, I’m sure it won’t be long before we post Volume 2. Please feel free to share any other “stretches,” and I’ll share some of them with all the readers of Opinion250.

Enjoy your week! 

Myron Gordon owns TMSG Management Services Group, which provides management and financial services to growing businesses.
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