Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Differentiating products?

Lately, a number of advertisements have included speech bubbles with catchy, yet banal statements like "Now that's different!" and extraneous adjectives such as "ultimate," "cool," and "amazing". Presumably these statements help the modern consumer make an informed choice; they provide the "skinny" for the shopper who does not wish to be burdened with details or draw any conclusions for themselves. Nevertheless, they're doing much more than the thinking for that shopper. They're blatantly informing them of their preferences; before, it has always been subtle, manipulative and conniving. Can't a reasonably informed shopper determine what is different or amazing? Given that I'm a techie I ignore these speech bubbles and focus on the features, but they still grate me the wrong way. They should read "good margin," "better margin," and "best margin". These statements do not shine like the newly waxed and elevated car at a dealership, rather they read with the intended simplicity of a children's book. Just give me the features, so that I'll know what I'm getting and, yes, so I can rattle them off to anyone that shows the slightest interest in my latest purchase. Come on advertisers, you've already duped us into double mortgages for flat screen TVs, do you have to add insult to injury by insulting our intelligence?

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