BLOWING SMOKE….YOU KNOW WHERE
(marketing con-craft….developed into an art form)

It never ceases to amaze me at the devious means marketing types dream up ways to entice us to do their bidding, and fall for their ploys hook, line, and sinker. And the present generation of these clever characters would make any previous ones both envious and proud at the way this generation has sharpened its skills at marketing con-craft…. developing it into an art form.

One of my favorites at the moment is a particular bank’s recent promotion of its interest rates on savings deposits, as being the most rewarding of all such rates, well above the “national average.” Its marketing geniuses are plugging it with a full court press in print media, posters, and of course, television ads. All of that based on the premise that we are either mathematically challenged….or just plain dimwits of the most pathetic kind.

Well, given the way folks seem to stampede towards the slightest hint of a “bargain” somewhere, their premise may not be wrong. They may really be dealing with, and pitching to, a mass of both mathematically challenged and dimwitted types who have to take their shoes off to count to twenty.
The sad thing, of course, is almost all of us seem to belong to that mass. So perhaps the appended cartoon below might help us avoid suspending our capacity for critical analysis.

C’est la vie!

CENTURION