Author Topic: Scammy banners on site  (Read 5924 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline WartexTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 411
  • Country: ca
    • http://headsplosive.com
Scammy banners on site
« on: September 25, 2011, 01:32:43 am »
Saelig ad says "Want a scope for free?" Then in small print "well, you have to pay for it". IMHO this stinks of used car dealer marketing. Someone decided to be clever and instead sounds like a dick. I'd accept the ad where if you spend X dollar you get a free scope, but when the ad says "yeah, this is not real" right on it - that's just lame.
 

Offline hacklordsniper

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 574
  • Country: hr
  • Don't turn it on, take it apart!
    • HackLordSniper
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2011, 04:51:42 am »
that is one of clever marketing methods, not a scam. They found a way to catch your eye and actually read the ad and they even managed you to talk about them. And sure somebody will go to see it and say "that scope is cheap and buy it"
Oh, the joy of sending various electronics to silicon heaven
 

Offline Bored@Work

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3932
  • Country: 00
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2011, 08:56:13 am »
that is one of clever marketing methods, not a scam. They found a way to catch your eye and actually read the ad and they even managed you to talk about them. And sure somebody will go to see it and say "that scope is cheap and buy it"

That is the old "there's no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they print the name correctly ..." argument. Even the thickest marketing weasel these days learns that this isn't true, although they don't hesitate to claim it is.

Bad news travels faster than good news. And while it might be that this advertising and the discussion about it will bring them a few customers, if it is bad it will lose them others. They can measure the additional customers, but they can't measure the potential customer loss.

I often judge marketing and advertising by asking myself the question How stupid to they think I am?. If the answer is they must think I am pretty stupid I typically don't give the product a second thought.
I delete PMs unread. If you have something to say, say it in public.
For all else: Profile->[Modify Profile]Buddies/Ignore List->Edit Ignore List
 

Offline WartexTopic starter

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 411
  • Country: ca
    • http://headsplosive.com
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2011, 03:52:31 pm »
that is one of clever marketing methods, not a scam. They found a way to catch your eye and actually read the ad and they even managed you to talk about them. And sure somebody will go to see it and say "that scope is cheap and buy it"

That is the old "there's no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they print the name correctly ..." argument. Even the thickest marketing weasel these days learns that this isn't true, although they don't hesitate to claim it is.

Bad news travels faster than good news. And while it might be that this advertising and the discussion about it will bring them a few customers, if it is bad it will lose them others. They can measure the additional customers, but they can't measure the potential customer loss.

I often judge marketing and advertising by asking myself the question How stupid to they think I am?. If the answer is they must think I am pretty stupid I typically don't give the product a second thought.

Pretty much, I was about to click on the banner to check out the specs but then didn't bother and I might even buy something of that manufacturer, but definitely not from that seller.
 

Offline hacklordsniper

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 574
  • Country: hr
  • Don't turn it on, take it apart!
    • HackLordSniper
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2011, 04:27:10 pm »
Its a clever marketing for low end, cheap oscilloscope. I dont see why there is a problem in it?

Recently i was searching ebay for some sine inverter and found an listing full of sexy half-naked girl photos holding an inverter in all poses, now that is stupid.
Oh, the joy of sending various electronics to silicon heaven
 

Offline reagle

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 554
  • Country: us
    • KuzyaTech
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2011, 07:23:53 pm »
Funny way to get attention for sure.  Saelig is local for me, and they are a pretty good company- dealt with them a few times before. No complaints there ;)

Offline baljemmett

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 665
  • Country: gb
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2011, 09:14:15 pm »
Recently i was searching ebay for some sine inverter and found an listing full of sexy half-naked girl photos holding an inverter in all poses, now that is stupid.

Couple of years ago I bought a replacement power supply for an old HP Unix workstation from an eBay seller who used that tactic.  It was the cheapest option, but I still felt like I'd fallen for the low-cut-top tactic instead :(

(What's worse is that it took an age to arrive -- I suspect the seller didn't notice the Buy-It-Now when he got back from the holiday the listing advertised -- and was somewhat mauled in the post.  Oh, and it didn't actually fix the problem.  One day I'll have to see if I can troubleshoot the machine properly.)
 

Uncle Vernon

  • Guest
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2011, 10:58:07 pm »
that is one of clever marketing methods, not a scam. They found a way to catch your eye and actually read the ad and they even managed you to talk about them. And sure somebody will go to see it and say "that scope is cheap and buy it"
I'm planning to email them asking for price breakups calculations on volume buys including shipping and extended warranty, When I get a reply, I can reply with, "I was hoping my price could have dropped to zero like in their add but that I was glad I had got their attention".
 

Offline EEVblog

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 37664
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #8 on: September 26, 2011, 01:40:03 am »
Well, I guess their job with an ad is to catch your attention right? It obviously worked!
Whilst I don't necessarily like the approach myself, I don't inherently see anything wrong with it, because it is very clear that the scope isn't free.
If you had to click through to the site to find out if it's really free or not, then I think that would be dodgy, and I'd be asking them to remove it.
It's actually rather a clever ad.

Dave.
 

Offline Bored@Work

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3932
  • Country: 00
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #9 on: September 26, 2011, 06:03:38 am »
Well, I guess their job with an ad is to catch your attention right?

No, that is not "their" job. "Their" job is to generate sales. Just like with tits and arse type of advertising, generating the wrong kind of attention doesn't help to generate sales.

For me it has come to the point that whenever I see the word "free" in advertising I start to look elsewhere.
I delete PMs unread. If you have something to say, say it in public.
For all else: Profile->[Modify Profile]Buddies/Ignore List->Edit Ignore List
 

Offline EEVblog

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 37664
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: Scammy banners on site
« Reply #10 on: September 26, 2011, 06:24:32 am »
Well, I guess their job with an ad is to catch your attention right?

No, that is not "their" job. "Their" job is to generate sales. Just like with tits and arse type of advertising, generating the wrong kind of attention doesn't help to generate sales.

Yes, the ultimate goal is to generate sales, but to do that an ad has to catch your attention and help sell the product, potentially against all the other ads.

Quote
For me it has come to the point that whenever I see the word "free" in advertising I start to look elsewhere.

Sure, your choice. People react to advertising differently, that's just the nature of the beast.
Companies have to weight up all advertising as to how effective it's going to be. Sometimes that includes pissing some people off, be it by "shouty" ads, titty ads, or whatever. And some of those ads do actually work.

Dave.
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf