Advertising!

Being unemployed, and actively job hunting means spending loads of time on my own in the house. Why? Because I have broadband access to the one place where most jobs are now advertised -- the internet. And as we are having to watch our expenditure and make the money go as far as we can, it’s cheaper to sit at home than to be constantly out and about. But, it gets lonely and I miss the human contact element of life that we take for granted during our working lives. So I often have the television on in the background for company, which brings me to my rant….

Advertising!

Like many of my generation I have lived through the development of advertising from it’s early years to what we see today. In the early days of television, advertising was seen as the media used by reputable companies to raise public awareness of their products. But as use of the media became accepted and as more channels became available, the emphasis shifted to those companies that wanted to be seen as competitors to the “establishment”, those original big name brand advertisers. But that’s not the case today. Advertising today can be broken down into a number of categories:-

The “we aren’t doing very well” category – advertisers in this group are constantly thrusting sales at us. Sales that are “ending soon”. Offers of BOGOF (pronounced Bog Off, when we all know it should be Bog Of) meaning – buy one get one free. Currently included in this category are car manufacturers with supposedly tempting offers of large cash back returns and/or 0% finance if you buy one of their fuel inefficient, old technology, high running cost and tax bracket vehicles provided you agree to pay the full “recommended retail price” (i.e. THEIR full price). Also in this category are the supermarkets who are all trying to outdo each other by appearing to be offering the lowest possible prices to us the consumer in our weekly/monthly shopping trolley. None of these are in our best interest, it’s all about shifting stock that’s not selling at prices that advantage them, not us the consumer.

Then there’s the “change your career” category – these advertisers try to tempt us to pay them to provide training for the career opportunity that you never knew you always wanted with aspirational earnings which very few people will ever attain. Some even guarantee a job placement at the end of the training or the opportunity to join their “fastest growing UK business” implying that by doing so you will attain those aspirational earnings levels. There’s an old saying “it pays to advertise” and it will be a fair bet that these advertisers are seeing good returns on their advertising costs at the expense of those gullible enough to fall for their spiel.

Next up is the “we can save you money on your insurance” category – money saving on an expense that we make just in case we are involved in an event that would result in a cost we couldn’t meet is always attractive (i.e. car accident while driving, fire or flood in the home, injury or sickness while on holiday/travelling, leaving debts to our kin on our death, etc…). So we now have price comparison sites imploring us to “get the best deal” and those that “won’t be found on any price comparison web site”. The former sires work off commission and advertising revenue while the latter are just trying to cut out the middleman and take a greater chunk of profit out of the premium they charge. And they prey on our fears of being hit by an “un-insured driver” and offer NCD (No Claims Discount) protection for life, which you will think means your insurance costs won’t go up if you make a claim – think again, your renewal will go up because the way the premium is calculated will start by taking into account your claim, but, at the end they will calculate the same NCD so you WILL pay more (example:- original premium £400, with 50% NCD meant you paid £200, on renewal will become £750 with 50% NCD leaving you a renewal of £375, or an increase of 187.5%).

Then there’s the “no win, no fee” brigade of advertisers, mainly from the legal professions. Have you “had a slip, a trip, or, an accident at work in the last 3 years” or “been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault”. If you have, why would you want to place your case with people who have enormous advertising costs to cover? Wouldn’t you be better off placing your case with a reputable local firm who will quite happily work on a “no win, no fee” basis IF you have a genuine case that they can legitimately pursue on your behalf?

Last category for this rant, those adverts that are directed at the aging population. Cosmetics to make you look younger, furniture to make you more comfortable and “ease your aches and pains”, mobility aids to help you get upstairs, round the community, health aids and cleansing products to make sure you are always fit and healthy and that your home is germ free.

There are many more examples that I could highlight but what I’m trying to communicate is that advertising today is all about one simple thing…. Separating us from our money, taking it out of our pockets and putting into their corporate coffers so that they can pay the fat cats at the top of the business bigger bonuses and their shareholders bigger dividends. I don’t know about you dear reader, but, I now work on the principle that I steer clear of those firms that fork out for (expensive) television advertising, with the exception of supermarkets where I go and buy only those items that have been reduced in price, and then only if I NEED those products – it keeps my costs down and reduces their profit margins. If we all did the same (which just will not happen) then all sellers would work on smaller mark-ups and reasonable profit margins instead of their current margins that are fuelled by greed.