This morning, after a cup of my home-roasted coffee, I strolled out into the crisp morning air to grab my newspaper from the driveway. As usual, the Thanksgiving day newspaper had more advertising flyers enclosed then a cruise ship gift shop has Geritol.
After a quick peruse of the actual newspaper itself, which composed a very small part of the total 4lbs of wood pulp, I laid it aside and spread out the many ad papers over my desk for a photo op.After testing my new Nikon coolpix, I dug into the "ad-speak" that the many ads utilized to entice you to drop everything and get in line for their store early on Friday morning. As usual, whether you have requested them or not, I have comments....
"Doorbuster" appears to be the word of the hour. Now, if you actually do bust the door of the retail establishment they will roll out a large store security team member in an ill-fitting uniform to sit on you until the police arrive, so I do not recommend trying this. However, every ad-man or ad-woman in the big offices in NYC seems to have convinced the marketing departments of all the major retailers that if you do not have the word "doorbuster" in your ad, then you will be this year's FAO Schwartz.
Dell's ad happily exclaims at the top of the paper "Dell recommends Windows Vista(R) Home Premium." Personally, I think this is "adspeak" for "Please order computers with Vista loaded because we got software licenses coming out our ying-yang and Steve at Microsoft won't let us return any of them!!!"
Both JC Penny and Kohl's exclaim "STARTS 4AM FRIDAY". I am going to go out on a huge limb here and predict that the marketing geeks did not consult any of the sales associates or assistant managers who work in the actual stores when they came up with this lamb-brain idea. I don't think paying someone close to minimum wage is a great incentive when you have to say them "You need to be here at 3:45AM the day after Thanksgiving. No excuses, so set your alarm."
Old Navy managed to get the words "extravaganza", "humongous" and "honkin" directly below their name. And don't worry, right after that headline they got in the magic "doorbuster" word.
Wal-mart goes with their new favorite tag line "Save Money, Live Better". Is it just me or does this sound very Orwellian, like a marketing slogan right out of "1984". It creeps me out almost as much as the Burger King 'King', which strikes me more as a potential character for a new Stephen King novel rather than for selling whoppers...
The most original and my favor was software store Game Crazy. Someone finally did something creative here as they resurrected the ghost of Roy Lichtenstein with their "The Return of Black Friday" headline. Probably won't save them from eventual bankruptcy but kudos to the efforts.
2 comments:
Right on, Rich...excellent observations on this bizarre trend.
Looks like they really did have a "doorbuster" in New York City! They might have to rethink this sales strategy now that people are losing their lives over it...
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