Well in this case it was done for good.....

[Green Aura]

......I always knew that marketing people were a bad lot but have a look at this!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/busin ... ing&st=cse

[baldybloke]

Personally I've never bought into marketing and the image business is all smoke and mirrors. You just have to look at at the advertisement for an automatic soap dispenser. The argument being that germs collect on the pump head so by being automatic you won't pick up any germs. Excuse me if I'm being thick but don't you wash your hands after dispensing the soap so neutralising the problem.

[MKG]

These techniques just don't work on me.


Ah damn - just spilled my Nescafe all over my Levis ...

Mike

[Big Al]

These techniques just don't work on me.


Ah damn - just spilled my Nescafe all over my Levis ...

Mike

...whilst erecting his B&Q plastic shed no doubt......

[oldjerry]

NO, and maybe I'm being a bit more candid than I'd rather be,but we don't choose where we are,it's a given,so I may well TAKE from AND use a system I can't support,and I'll do it ,cos my family need to get by,and if in the end game I can achieve what ,let's face it,we mostly agree on,so why not?

[Jessiebean]

Personally I've never bought into marketing and the image business is all smoke and mirrors. You just have to look at at the advertisement for an automatic soap dispenser. The argument being that germs collect on the pump head so by being automatic you won't pick up any germs. Excuse me if I'm being thick but don't you wash your hands after dispensing the soap so neutralising the problem.

Well we must be thick too, my OH and I sadly yell at the TV when those things are advertised. "Who cares what you have been touching? You are washing your hands now!!'' So far the ads do keep coming back no matter how much we yell but maybe that's because we have the telly on mute...

[greenorelse]

If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits.

Well I don't go for any of those, except hand moisturiser, which I made myself. I suppose we eat 'health snacks' too, whatever these people think they are - do they mean things like fresh lettuce, organic apples and carrots?

Good advice: buy stuff in inverse proportion to its advertising budget.

[boboff]

I am so glad that I am not the only one who finds the hands free pump a stupid idea.

Its the insinuation that if you touch soap or its container you are "dirty"

[Millymollymandy]

My husband knows all about marketing and advertising and he readily admits that I am not the kind of person they are aiming for as either I can't figure out what is being advertised (he always can), I ignore them or I just find them very irritating.

By the way it was hard to read that article cos so many ads kept popping up and flashing and jiggling all over the place!

Interesting though.

[mrsflibble]

Good advice: buy stuff in inverse proportion to its advertising budget.

also, I want to shake dettol by the throat. they're convincing impressionable (nice way of saying stupid) people that everything dirty will kill them, yet producing a generation of people who, when confronted by mud or dust, have all sorts of wierd reactions and allergies.

I call my house healthy lol.

[baldybloke]

Consumerism, I don't buy into it!!

[Green Aura]

MMM, do you have anti pop-up software? I didn't have any problem?

I found the part about them creating a market for Febreeze really disturbing. They created a whole "need" for people to spray the foul-smelling stuff on their freshly laundered things!

I, like others here, like to think I'm impervious to these strategies but you have to wonder how many things you buy have started from some insidious marketing campaign.

[Millymollymandy]

Yes I do have a pop up blocker but at one point I clicked on page 4 and just got a page of an advert! The other ads were small ones just above the text of the article, not pop up ads.

I have supermarket brand 'febreze' but I thought the point of it was to spray on stinky things to mask the stink with a new stink - there's nothing about the smell of it that reminds me of fresh outdoor air. But just shows how I'm not their typical target audience as I was the one who fell for the original campaign which flopped!

[gregorach]

... they're convincing impressionable (nice way of saying stupid) people ...

Hold up there... Everybody's impressionable, it's just a question of finding the right approach. Smart people (or at least people who think they're smart) are every bit as impressionable as everybody else, but they can actually be easier to sway because they think they're too smart to be swayed.

I'd actually be willing to wager that every single person in this thread who's proclaimed their immunity to advertising has been subconsciously influenced in many purchasing decisions without even realising it. Maybe not by major brands, maybe not by TV advertising, but by other factors which give the impression of "greenness". For example, there seem to be a lot of folks around here who buy into the "old-timey = green" fallacy... It's not always true, but it's a very effective marketing tool for a certain demographic.

Which is not to say that Bill Hicks wasn't right.

[Green Aura]

Yup, greenwashing is big business.