What are some marketing tactics that you dislike ?
What are some marketing tactics that you dislike ?
For me it is when companies/services market themselves as donating to XYZ cause if I buy their product. If they want to donate, they should have already done that with the money they have. Asking me to give them profit so that they can donate is so obviously pretentious.
All of them
Even free samples?
Yep, I want marketing to not exist. If your product or service is good then its reputation will stand on its own and spread via word of mouth. Billboards and ads should be criminal as they ruin our scenery and waste our time
To me it's sending me e-mails I have not explicitly signed up for. I have had once or twice, when I had filled out a form to order something and without pressing submit, they had already registered my e-mail address and signed me up for all kinds of spam, starting with 'weren't you about to order something'.
Especially when they sign me up for a bunch of different emails lists I need to unsubscribe from each one individually and eventually just spam everything from them. Then they sell my email.
Use a different email alias for each site. Duckduckgo with their duck.com, or Apple’s Hide My Email makes that easy; let your password manager keep track of the alias. If they start to spam me, I know not to use that site again, and I can delete the alias so that the spam goes into a black hole.
Aheeem excuse me buddy, where the hell do you think you're going? You left some ITEMS in your CART. You get back here right now and complete your purchase. Don't make me tell you twice!
But sometimes there's a good coupon in that email. The weed companies are good at that!
That's very illegal in the UK and EU, oh my.
Yep this was Canal Digital in the Netherlands. I sent them an e-mail that they should really stop doing this or I would mention it to the AP (Dutch privacy guard dog).
I mentioned it to the AP regardless.
GDPR. Honestly, one of the greatest laws ever passed by anyone, anywhere. No hyperbole, it's so simple and pro-dignity. It also offers a simple litmus test: if you oppose GDPR, I oppose you.
I’ve started signing them all up for each other’s mailing lists.
You sound like someone who would enjoy that adblocker that clicks on every ad in the background.
Edit: called adnauseam.io
I had to order something from aliexpress, because I couldn't find it anywhere else (except even worse chinese websites). I got mails for months, literally. I would block that adress and they'd just send me mail from a different random generated adress. They're the worst. I don't even want to know what they're doing with my data.
The ones that say re: your order
Top 5 marketing tactics EVERYONE hates. You won’t BELIEVE number three.
Number three ONLY available for 2:31:10 read it NOW.
Stealing my time for nothing in return. Watching an ad to get content is a transaction. The door to door guy, or the guy who interrupts my shopping with “I’m not selling anything just asking you some questions” is annoying and I’m never going to use their product. The ones that persist after being told “not interested” can jump off a cliff.
I found a real easy approach to any undesired solicitation - zero contact, no reaction. Works on telemarketers, panhandlers, salespeople etc.
I have no shame about ghosting you publicly when the only thing you’re after is my money. If I’m in the home generator store, sure thing bro talk to me about my home power needs. If I’m walking out the supermarket and you slide around a booth to “help me keep my home safe during unrest” nah fam you can fuck yourself.
Cold open sales is parallel to pick-up “artists” imo. You want the transactional outcome for yourself, and my consent is the only thing you’re concerned about taking care of.
I fucking cannot stand when salespeople use basic human decency as an opening for a conversation. We made eye contact, I nodded and acknowledged your existence, I do not want to talk to you about how quickly you can remodel my bathroom. I can see your display, if I was interested, I would have asked you about it. Yes, I'm going to be rude to you because you abused my being polite to you. Fuck all the way off.
There's a pest control salesman who goes door to door every year, who I can't stand. Not only does he say outright incorrect things, but he can't take no for an answer. Every polite refusal turns into, "You know what, we can knock 80 bucks off that right now" or "How about we just make the first month free."
Next time he comes knocking, I'm going to be immediately upfront. I'm not interested in paying money to spray poison, that will end up in the canal and the river, to kill bugs that birds and frogs and bats could be eating.
One time a guy convinced us to spray for spiders. My wife hates spiders, and ants, and bugs in general. So the guy came and sprayed for bugs, and sure enough, all the bugs in our yard were gone. And so were the birds, the bats, and the squirrels and the bunnies. It took a long time for them all to come back, but now my wife tolerates bugs as long as they stay outside.
Next one that comes to the door, I'm telling him he can have $20 if he humanely escorts the Latrodectus Hesperus living in our cupboard out. Let's see if he has any tricks up his sleeve other than poison.
All of them. Make "banning advertising" an election platform, I'll vote for you. Ban billboards and other forms of commercial advertising everywhere. Advertising works, nobody denies that. If you see enough ads, on average, your mind will be changed. By allowing advertising to exist, we are sanctioning widespread mind control. It sounds crazy when you say it that way, but it's true. Advertising does not benefit the average person, it makes them buy stuff they have no native desire for. Advertising only benefits advertising agencies and their clients.
Let word-of-mouth and genuine desire for a good or service drive purchases of that good or service, not advertising, and you'll end up with a more efficient economy where our consumer choices better invest in our shared prosperity and future.
My vote too. It's crazy, nothing can be trusted when it relies on ads. Everyone likes to think it doesn't work on them or is worth the free content but they are wrong and it isn't.
Advertising works, nobody denies that. If you see enough ads, on average, your mind will be changed.
Can you point to scientific literature that does prove this statement?
Not what you're asking for, but it's the same core principle as irony poisoning, I think. And, I know that shit is real, because it's happened to me. It was kind of a core life lesson to me to watch what I consume.
Short of answering any questions about a product I ask, all of them.
If I want or need something, I will come looking. Anything beyond that is the market trying to solicit demand where none need exist.
So much waste could be eliminated if that just... Stopped.
Yeah, but the shareholders....
They own us
This one needs to be illegal.
Apps that you need push notifications turned on for, but also serve ads.
For example, where I live the company that does riding sharing also does all kinds of deliveries. I get notifications about all kinds of restaurant deals.
The version of Amazon we have sends all kinds of unwanted messages from sellers if you add an item from their shop to your cart. It can be turned off, but it needs to be done one by one manually.
Even the mobile wallet apps that we use here send all kinds of ads.
Like, I need notifications about payments and that is it. Stop giving me full screen popup ads each time I open the app to make a payment. It just slows me down and frustrates me.
Some android phones have the ability to long press on a notification, click on settings, and alter what kinds of notifications you receive. I've had a few instances like you describe, but where I've been able to turn off "special deals" or whatever. I think implementation of this is done by the app developer though, because I'm sure I've had some apps that had no useful settings. Example screenshot of Gmail settings:
This is good advice but also heavily dependent on the app developer. I've had the misfortune of using banking apps that only have a general notification option and they lump together important banking notifications with adverts. PITA scumbag bank
That’s a cool feature. I doubt the app would offer this as they probably do not want to allow the notifications to be turned off.
There's this ad I keep seeing that I really despise. It's for teeth-whitening toothpaste. The actress is wearing a white coat then holds up a tissue to her teeth, lamenting that her sparkling white teeth are 'still yellow'
They cut away to teach you how toothpaste works, because surely you've never heard of this newfangled thing, and when they cut back she's no longer wearing her white coat and says how much whiter her teeth are.
It's transparently obvious that the wardrobe and tissue are just to give you something whiter to look at. But like... your teeth aren't supposed to be freakishly white. It's just something that Big Toothpaste wants you to feel bad about the way your body is. Also, using whitening toothpaste when you don't need it can damage your enamel and cause you long term problems.
PSA whitening toothpastes are just normal toothpastes with added abrasives. So they temporary whiten your teeth because you've removed the outer most enamel which gives your teeth its hardness. At the mere cost of tooth sensitivity and future staining, the deeper dentine layer is much softer and porous which is easily damaged by acidic foods but also more easily stained due to the porosity. So congratulations your teeth are now more stained.
Yes I hate teeth whitening in general. I really dislike that unnatural shade of white. What gets me of their advertising methods is that they usually prey on people's insecurities based on the myth that the whiter your teeth the healthier they must be.
This isn't complete bunk. The new indicator of wealth is healthy teeth. Poor kids don't get to go to the dentist regularly, so have more problems later on; rich kids get regular cleanings to prevent buildup, and have much healthier teeth.
The trick was making us equate white-white teeth with healthy teeth, even though there's a shade of 'white' that is just healthy, clean enamel with no plaque buildup but isn't true white.
I only retained this when I heard it as I was a poor kid and, wow, am I glad I have a good job as our dental care is still mercenary as fuck.
Unite against big toothpaste! I agree with those.
After my mom passed everyone on my cell plan began getting phone calls and text messages to buy her house.
Fucking soulless vultures. I'm sorry for your loss.
Thanks.
Hiding finished/already existing game content behind DLC. Day one patches. Pay 2 Win in General. I just want to play good, finished games :c.
Day one patches exist because the devs continued to work on the game after the physical editions went gold, so the data on disc versions will be behind. They'll stick around even if the industry goes entirely digital due to online stores offering encrypted preloads that won't have the patches either.
Day one DLC usually (fuck Capcom) exists for a similar reason - the art and asset pipelines finished their work months before launch, so rather than lay them off or pay them to do nothing, the studios have them work on DLC for the last few months before release.
No arguments about P2W. That and the death of persistent lobbies in favor of matchmaking destroyed my enjoyment of multiplayer games.
Yes.
Yes.
Happy cake day!
All of them.
Right? Like…”which parts about being manipulated in order to take the money from you that you didn’t even want to have to rely on in a system that doesn’t make sense and actively hates you and uses you and then chews you up and spits you out do you not like?”
Easier question: Which marketing tactics DO you like?
I like Steam's discovery queue, sometimes I find some pretty interesting stuff. It's entirely voluntary, and I can leave at any time, instead of holding my time ransom and demanding my attention with annoying cringe-inducing content like most marketing.
The thing is, if I want something I'll go looking for it. At the point where I'm looking for it or something like it, I am happy to consume ads even tangentially related to that thing. If analytics marketing worked this way (showing me relevant ads when I'm shopping for something, even if it's for something I am not actively looking for), things would be better. But ads have worked their way into the cracks of everything and that's my problem with them.
I hate Billboards. I don't like circulars (waste of paper and generally too much trash), I hate junk mail and I think it's predatory. Popups (singing, flashing, scrolling when I scroll to stay on the page, tiny exit buttons, video, etc) are garbage.
I hate Billboards.
I don't just hate them, but I'd straight up make them illegal. At least next to roads. They are specifically meant to get the attention of drivers. How can that be allowed?
If we used billboards for something like missing children or traffic announcements etc I'd be okay with that. But pretty much no actual ads for products. Billboards are a driving distraction and I don't approve.
I am okay with some billboards that advertise services that are relevant to motorists, such as fuel, food or lodging near the road.
I think Washington state has outlawed them except for things like safety signs and I think that’s great.
This is from like 15 years ago, so maybe it’s not true anymore.
Product placements in television shows where the ad becomes part of the fiction.
I officially stopped watching Eureka when there was an episode about Degree For Men. I similarly gave up on Bones when the characters started delivering Toyota ads to each other.
I'm okay with there being a stick of Degree For Men label out in Sheriff Carter's bathroom, or if the cast of Bones drive Toyotas. But when they stop to talk about long lasting anti-wetness or zero percent APR financing I'm fucking done.
Asking me to give them profit so that they can donate is so obviously pretentious.
It's a way for them to have their cake and eat it too.
They use the desire of people to buy something they want and think they did a good thing at the same time, while the business will just take that money to donate to a non-profit (helping their public image) while writing off a part of it on their tax records (helping their bottom line).
They're not doing this from the bottom of their heart, it's just a cost of doing business for gaining some PR karma.
All of them...
For me it's branding something as "AI" as a buzzword. Almost all product marketing is full of AI hype these days.
Honestly, I'm fine with them putting the AI sticker on everything. What I have a problem with is if by AI they mean they scrape any and all data they can get their grubby little hands on.
I'm gonna go the other way. The only marketing I acknowledge is factual reporting of design features that make a product suitable for the intended task. Anything else is dishonest and manipulative.
Think of Chris Cooper's character from Interstate 50. Any marketing claim must be specific, measurable, verifiable, and accurate.
I dislike ads that don't indicate the functional benefits of the product and instead nake it about the product being aspirational or about my worth.
The "You're worth getting some deliciousness" for a chocolate bar would be an example.
I'd rather know if the chocolate was ethical, the price, and sweetness level.
The job of sales is the overpromise and write checks that their ass won't have to personally cash. Anything they say is to get you to sign on the line.
Fuck em all
On a related note, when shops let you "donate" stuff you buy at their store to a food bank.
"Pay us to not let the homeless starve."
Detaching basic features from an existing free product and making people pay a subscription for it.
Aka sso.tax
Paid streaming services that have ads in the UI (youtubetv). Amazon firesticks having ads on the UI. I actually complained to YTTV and they sent me an email explaining why there are commercial on live TV, pissed me off even more.
Honestly, sometimes when I can't sleep, watching eSports helps (especially Starcraft II). IDK why, but put on a super chill caster like Wardii and I'm out in 20 minutes.
Having some loud, disruptive ad punch through my ad blocker and try to tell me about Liberty Mutual when I've almost dozed off is close to the most rage inducing experience imaginable. With Youtube now working to inject adds directly into video streams, I'm actually anxious about the future of my best sleep aid.
Sending my work email a calendar invite as the first communication. Just because you want to sell it doesn't mean I want to buy it. Or even hear about it. If a calendar event is the first thing you send me, I will be the avatar of snark. My calendar is busy enough without you inserting yourself into it without my consent.
Double snark if you get upset that I didn't accept it and reach out to find out why.
All of them.
Cold calling. And other proactive forms of sales when they seek you out and actively keep trying to convince you that you need their product.
Bonus points if the sales person is unable to actually explain the product and keeps talking about "we don't sell products we sell solutions"
Most of them
Drive-by advertising. When someone joins a forum I'm active on just to let us know about their shiny new product and doesn't participate in any other way. Even if it's relevant, it's still pretty scummy.
Contacting me after I browse their website.
Has to be rubbishing the competition. Even if I've solicited the engagement, if you have to pull yourself up by putting your competitors down then you'll lose me. Tell me why you are good, not why they are bad.
Everything has deceptive language and other types of manipulation. I used to merchandise and learned a lot. Most ads make me angry because of this. Politics is similar but that just makes me sad.
Buy this thing! Its only $29.99!!!
Billboards
when movie trailers for bad movies either only show you the good reviews or stop showing up on TV once the movie is released.
Here's the thing.
I've been watching TV occasionally - she watches junk TV on this huge thing she got, and, nahhh. I usually do streaming - and every now and then an advert that comes on is actually for a product I've never heard of. It'll be something dumb like little Caesar's crazy French toast or some shit, but, to the ad's credit, I would never have known about it if I didn't see the ad.
But, 95% of ads are absolute junk. Payday loans, reverse mortgages, Dodge Rams; junk. I'd love to see the new products and Superbowl ads, and then nothing else.
@flyingsquid - this is your chance to shine!
Lowering the prices making you believe that is a great deal when in reality the thing was overpriced to begin with.