Marketing bullshit WORDS DON'T HAVE TO MEAN ANYMORE!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    WorstBuy isn't the only company to pull this asinine bullshit, but they're the first website I pulled up for the screenshot.

    http://i.imgur.com/r6WrUWh.png

    This is as bad as "personal, off-line, centralized Cloud Backup"


  • kills Dumbledore

    In the UK we've had "Black Friday Week" running for about 8 days so far between various retailers. All the news seems to be suggesting that we're handling Black Friday in a very British manner this year: i.e. queuing and being polite


  • BINNED

    Everyone in their stores stands in line, which is same as on-line for a line of width greater than 1.



  • How to black friday in BR:

    1. double all your prices 2 months before it
    2. claim 50% off at black friday
    3. profit!

    Stores are trying hard to push this here, but:

    • it doesn't make sense because thanksgiving isn't a thing here.
    • it was mostly unknown here a few years ago

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Jaloopa said:

    "Black Friday Week"

    That's a whole other cowfull of bullshit going on. It's basically become:

    • Pre-Black Friday savings week!
    • Black Friday week!
    • Black Friday (four days only because FRIDAY MEANS WORDS NOW)
    • Extended Black Friday Shopping Week Event
    • Black Friday in July

    @fbmac said:

    double all your prices 2 months before it
    claim 50% off at black friday
    profit!

    Yes. Not even joking, yes. Anyone who watches flyers will see the prices go up, then go on "sale" for more than retail on Black Friday. There are literally no savings to be had-- all what is to be had is you.

    @fbmac said:

    it was mostly unknown here a few years ago

    I'm sure there's a term for it. Marketing cargo cult, except it's the consumers doing the cargo culting and the marketing people taking advantage of it.

    🐑 "Americans have Black Friday, and get deals"
    🐑 "If we had a Black Friday, we'd have deals too"
    :sociopath: THEN I WILL PRINT AD WITH WORDS BLACK FRIDAY AND YOU SPEND
    🐑 🐑 yay we spend!

    Black Friday exists because of a unique set of circumstances that don't even apply anymore:

    • American Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of the month
    • Because it's Thursday, they get Friday off
    • Because it was so close to Christmas, people took their day off to go shopping
    • Stores noticed the increase of sales, and starting having sales to attract that shopping crowd
    • The competition for the customers was fierce, and some stores starting offering limited, crazy sales to get people in line. Once people were in line, they were more likely to do ALL their shopping there
    • Consumers starting expecting crazier and crazier sales, and started getting crazier themselves to compete for them
    • A culture grew up around this-- be in line as early as possible, and be the BEST shopper possible and you WIN (your sad, pathetic existence where saving $50 on a DVD player is winning)
    • This positive feedback look spiraled further and further out of control-- stores opened early. Then on midnight. Then the day before. The (extremely limited but highly advertised) doorcrashers got crazier and crazier
    • Media started covering this feeding frenzy, which just made people go "hmm, if people are THAT crazy for the deals, there must be some good deals"
    • The consumers made this self-perpetuating. People went to the stores because people were going to the stores because people were going to the stores.
    • Business started noticing this; people would come no matter what. They didn't need the price drops. So the deals became fewer and fewer-- but the MARKETING got bigger and bigger. People were reminded over and over that BLACK FRIDAY IS HERE SHOP SHOP SHOP!
    • Heck, businesses could INCREASE prices, and the feeding frenzy still occured

    Peak media coverage started to hit-- shoppings going nuts, murdering each other, apparently getting "crazy deals". The international business culture saw this occurring-- but the main thing they saw was consumers responding to marketing, and huge profits. So:

    • International businesses starting advertising BLACK FRIDAY deals. Some may have had a token discount-- or like mentioned above a "sale" on a previously inflated price.
    • ALL the effort went into marketing
    • Media played along, shouting "AMERICAN BLACK FRIDAY IS FINALLY HERE! OMG DID YOU HEAR SOMEONE SAVED $50 ON A DVD PLAYER ONCE?" every chance they can get
    • Feeding frenzy whipped up, and people poured out in droves-- on a day that wasn't a holiday, to get non-existent savings on products that'll NEVER be that low in price anyways because International Markets.

    And that's where we are now. Idiots shoveling over money because of marketing. Except everything about the Black Friday no longer holds true:

    • People shop for Christmas on days other than Black Friday
    • Online has completely destroyed the very idea of "you will shop when and how the brick and mortar store wants you to"
    • The economy has tanked enough that profit margins are already fairly thin-- businesses don't survive on deep discounts anymore
    • Everything can be found cheaper online anyways
    • Speaking of online, you now have a massive amount of people who are "smart shoppers", running blogs and forums about finding and sharing deals, and doing long term price watching. The jig is up-- they can clearly see items with inflated prices, or that had better sales outside of Black Friday, or are always cheaper on Amazon
    • People are being absolutely over saturated with the idea of Black Friday that it's lost all meaning. The "special shine" is gone. It isn't a fun adventure anymore. It isn't even unique to the US.
    • You get dumass shit like I posted in the OP

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Oh, and that isn't even touching the COMPLETE DUMBFUCKERY that comes from letting marketing people near accounting terminology.

    Black Friday comes from, supposedly, that massive glut in spending pushing businesses from the RED (not making a yearly profit) to BLACK (making a yearly profit), based on the color of ink accountants use to differentiate negative and positive numbers.

    In Canada, the maple leaf on our flag is red 🍁. So our culture to show patriotism is to prepend things with the modifier "red" to denote Canadian. So every year, at least one dumbfuck marketer goes:

    :drooling_idiot_talking_head: Duhhh-- black friday is black, but red is canada, so RED FRIDAY!

    Which would translate into "this is the day when a business loses all profits and goes bankrupt".

    Brillant.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    Pre-Black Friday savings week!
    Black Friday week!
    Black Friday Savings Begin Early!
    Black Friday Doorbuster Deals on Thanksgiving Evening

    Black Friday (four days only because FRIDAY MEANS WORDS NOW)
    Extended Black Friday Shopping Week Event
    Black Friday Leftover Blowout Weekend Sale
    Early Cyber Monday Weekend Deals
    Cyber Monday
    Extended Cyber Monday Clearance Sales
    (four days later)Return of the Black Friday

    Black Friday in July

    FTFY


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    ALSO:

    Corporations don't just decide on a whim to "extend" or "hold over" an event. Nor do they decide at the last minute to have a "sale". Every single pricing decision is made VERY deliberately, after analysis, vetting and being run through analytics algorithms. This happens over the course of WEEKS or MONTHS, and involves hundreds of people from accounting, marketing, distribution, and management-- plus several partners. Advertising campaigns are drawn up months in advance, and a pre-scheduled.

    "Held over" and "surprise sale" are bullshit designed to make you feel like something special is happening. That "surprise sale" was planned months ago. The "Black Friday" flyer was put together based on pricing from weeks ago. You are not, and never will, get a special deal because the corporation likes making less money to make you happy. Never.

    And since pricing is known well in advance, the "Black Friday" sale can be translated as "The sale we were going to have this week anyways, just called 'Black Friday'"



  • It's starting to look like the Black Friday bullshit is beginning to implode. Some news reports are saying in-store spending on Friday was down $1 Billion compared to last year -- mostly due to increased online spending, and people getting wise to the fact that there aren't really all that many "deals" out there. And even fewer deals that are worth getting trampled for. Little by the little, the idea of one special shopping day is become more and more meaningless.

    And, of course, a lot of the Black Friday bullshit is now also being applied to "Cyber Monday" with stores advertising Cyber Monday specials on Saturday and Sunday.

    Personally, I never left the house Thursday through Sunday. Fuck 'em all.



  • When I was a kid, my father had a saying, every time some store advertised a big sale.

    If you can afford to lower your prices 20% it just means your prices were 20% too high in the first place.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    :drooling_idiot_talking_head: Duhhh-- black friday is black, but red is canada, so RED FRIDAY!

    Which would translate into "this is the day when a business loses all profits and goes bankrupt".

    They could call it Красный Oктябрь instead.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    :sociopath:

    :doing_it_wrong:



  • It's the same thing with Boxing Day. It used to be the day after Christmas, then it turned into Boxing Week. In the past few years, I noticed that Boxing "Week" now stretches well into January.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @hungrier said:

    It's the same thing with Boxing Day. It used to be the day after Christmas, then it turned into Boxing Week. In the past few years, I noticed that Boxing "Week" now stretches well into January.

    I was going to bring that up, but my RantOfMeter overheated and I had to spend a few turns cooling down.

    But fuck Boxing Week, too.

    • Early Boxing Day
    • Pre-Boxing Day Week sale (Dec 1 - Dec 18th)
    • Boxing Day On Now (starting Dec 24th)
    • Boxing Day, one weekend only!
    • Extended Boxing Day Week
    • Celebrate New Years with Boxing Day savings!
    • Greek Orthodox Boxing Day Week Weekend in January!


  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Black Friday in July

    You missed Black Friday month, which is what Amazon US did this year for the entire month of November.



  • The company that I get free cellular service from didn't have any Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales this year...

    I can't decide if that's fitting or ironic.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    This is as bad as "personal, off-line, centralized Cloud Backup"

    I run all my programs in private, single-machine clouds.

    My current cloud can dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu, but it's a little old and the paint's all faded so I might buy a new cloud some time soon.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @anonymous234 said:

    My current cloud can dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu, but it's a little old and the paint's all faded so I might buy a new cloud some time soon.

    My cloud is portable!
    Maybe if you left yours in the sun it could generate some rainbow to liven up the paint?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @fbmac said:

    - it doesn't make sense because thanksgiving isn't a thing here.

    Ditto UK. But we still have it. Disaster (riots) last year in Asda (Walmart subsidiary) to the point that they refused to do it this year.


    And the (possibly ass-pull) statistic I heard that over a third of the stuff bought on Black Friday gets returned.

    Why the fuck did you buy a coffee machine/bread maker/blue waffle toaster? We don't need it, take it back!



  • That's a lot of words to say "people are irrational and stupid and marketing consists entirely in taking as much advantage of them as possible".

    I'd just like to point out that Valve sells virtual rings (i.e. literally nothing) for $100 and I haven't seen anyone complain about that.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    (i.e. literally nothing)

    No, it's a $99 "send some text to everyone who plays TF2" button.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    Black Friday comes from, supposedly, that massive glut in spending pushing businesses from the RED (not making a yearly profit) to BLACK (making a yearly profit), based on the color of ink accountants use to differentiate negative and positive numbers.

    If you are losing money 10.75 months out of the year, and only turn a profit in the last ~5 weeks of the year, you are out of business.

    The term originally came from references to the Black Death in that worker absenteeism due to "illness" was of epic proportions on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I am sure that had nothing to do with people wanting a 4-day weekend...

    At least that is the earliest known reference to "Black Friday".


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I'm sure people are just ITCHING to bust down the online "door" for half-off yarn at Jo-Ann Fabrics.



  • The people who shop at Jo-Ann Fabrics would probably be interested.

    Also, you seem to have omitted something. That image doesn't say Jo-Ann Fabrics anywhere.



  • @Spanky587 said:

    If you can afford to lower your prices 20% it just means your prices were 20% too high in the first place.

    Pretty sure that's not how microeconomics works.



  • This is why I have Mouse 4 bound to "close message window" or whatever it's called.

    I don't even bother reading them any more.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @powerlord said:

    I don't even bother reading them any more.

    Speaking of, does anyone know how to prevent Steam from showing Event Starting message boxes from appearing while in Big Picture Mode? For some reason they keep popping up and for obvious reasons I have to plug in a mouse to activate and dismiss them.



  • "Too high" is relative and subjective.

    You're right, though. From the point of view of someone selling a product and wanting to get the maximum profit they can possibly get, the maximum profit point on Black Friday could very well be at a lower price than regular, for a number of different reasons.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    I'd just like to point out that Valve sells virtual rings (i.e. literally nothing) for $100 and I haven't seen anyone complain about that.

    I see people complaining about their selling of hats. I would complain, this is ridiculous.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @anotherusername said:

    The people who shop at Jo-Ann Fabrics would probably be interested.

    I shop there, as evidenced by the fact I got the circular. I'm not busting down any doors.



  • I'm pretty sure that's exactly how retail bullshit works.


  • Java Dev

    @Polygeekery said:

    worker absenteeism due to "illness" was of epic proportions on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

    With how US thanksgiving seems to be all about overindulging in food I wouldn't be surprised a lot of people were sick of overeating the next day...



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    I shop there, as evidenced by the fact I got the circular. I'm not busting down any doors.

    Presumably, then, you gave them your email address at some point in the past and indicated that you'd be interested in receiving promotional advertisements exactly like the one you received.

    Even if it was in the fine print...



  • @PleegWat said:

    With how US thanksgiving seems to be all about overindulging in food I wouldn't be surprised a lot of people were sick of overeating the next day...

    Don't be ridiculous. It takes a lot more than one day of overindulging to make me sick of overeating!


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    ...yes?

    What's your point? I like getting their ads, they give me coupons. I just think this doorbuster bullshit is ridiculous.



  • My point is that if Jo-Ann Fabrics thought you would be interested in their coupons and sales, because you told them you would, then it's hardly a :WTF: that they sent you an email about a big sale. Your complaint is basically that their sale was too big, yes? But that's the whole point of a sale: get lots of people into the store and cover the lower profit per item with a larger increase in sales volume.

    Maybe they should've had a "[ ] check here if you don't want to be notified when we have a sale that will probably result in lots of people coming to buy our stuff" box on the form that you filled out. Every email you receive would start with the words "we're hoping this sale is very unpopular, so DON'T TELL ANYONE!"


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @anotherusername said:

    it's hardly a :wtf: that they sent you an email about a big sale

    Quote where I complained about them sending me an email.

    @anotherusername said:

    Your complaint is basically that their sale was too big, yes?

    No.

    Do you know what topic you're in? I'm taking the piss out of their use of the word "doorbuster" in reference to a 24/7 sale that lasts a week.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Yamikuronue said:

    @anotherusername said:
    The people who shop at Jo-Ann Fabrics would probably be interested.

    I shop there, as evidenced by the fact I got the circular. I'm not busting down any doors.

    KNIT ME A MOTHERFUCKING BATTERING RAM!



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    Quote where I complained about them sending me an email.

    Snarky comments about how many people would be interested in receiving a specific ad that you received qualify as complaining about them sending it to you, as far as I'm concerned.

    @Yamikuronue said:

    I'm taking the piss out of their use of the word "doorbuster" in reference to a 24/7 sale that lasts a week.

    Nothing on that image or what you posted indicates definitely that the sale lasted more than 3 days in their physical stores, which were open 6 days that week (closed on Thanksgiving Day), or what I'm assuming would be 4 days in the online store, which was open 24/7.

    If I knew that you thought it was absurd to call a 3-day sale a "doorbuster", then I probably would've understood your post from the outset. But it doesn't seem that absurd to me, and I'm not a mind reader.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @anotherusername said:

    Snarky comments about how many people would be interested in receiving a specific ad

    Quote me. My complaint was entirely about the word "doorbuster". I was amused by the image of people breaking down the door over yarn.



  • @fbmac said:

    double all your prices 2 months before it
    claim 50% off at black friday

    Could be worse. I bought something that actually was 50% off. This.

    It's a portable iPhone charger. All of the reviews say the same thing I experienced - it doesn't charge phones. I took mine back and tried all four they had in stock. None of them charge phones.

    Black Friday has become a dumping ground of inferior products. Stores like WalMart have inferior products specifically designed for them. Other stores simply push whatever they can't sell the rest of the year.


  • Garbage Person

    Unrelated to the topic at hand. I lost weight over thanksgiving. I'm awesome.



  • Me too. Three more pounds and I'll have lost 100.



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    My complaint was entirely about the word "doorbuster". I was amused by the image of people breaking down the door over yarn.

    Yeah, about that... it's kind of a figure of speech. No store wants their customers to literally break down their doors to get to one of their sales.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    I would probably have to call in for work on Black Friday for this very reason.


  • Garbage Person

    I've got 108 to go.

    That "small, achievable goals" thing everyone talks about? That ain't me.



  • @Weng said:

    I've got 108 to go.

    That's eight months if my case is a precedent. Good luck.


  • BINNED

    It takes more energy to digest a full turkey, but it enlarges the capacity and you will gain weight do not worry. 😁



  • @Jaloopa said:

    In the UK we've had "Black Friday Week" running for about 8 days so far between various retailers.

    My favourite was Screwfix who led with "Black Friday Sale! Ends Sunday!"


  • Dupa

    @anotherusername said:

    and I'm not a mind reader.

    At least you're aware that the whole misunderstanding was entirely your fault.


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