bad-faith marketing

Blog post

The weakness of the campaigning consumer

October 2013

road safety, marketing, capitalism, boycotts, bad-faith marketing, advertising

I wrote earlier this week about boycotts and the pervasive idea that they “don’t work”. I hope I’ve explained why that’s the wrong way to think about your choices; you can’t punish Nestle or Vodafone by withholding your custom, but where you spend your money should still matter to you.

Blog post

More on bad-faith marketing

September 2012

sales, marketing, bad-faith marketing

I’ve always felt that the best marketing leaves the (potential) customer feeling in control. You’ve set out your stall to look as attractive as possible, and it’s up to them to browse. Of course you’re working hard behind the scenes to encourage them to buy, but they don’t feel pushed into it. But if you ignore the customer’s need for that sense of control, you end up with a completely different dynamic.

Blog post

I'm not ready for a relationship

May 2012

website registration, shopping, online shopping, marketing, capitalism, bad-faith marketing

We’ve all been there. You’ve found something you want to buy online and you’re happy with the price, so you pop it in your virtual basket and head for the online checkout. It’s all going swimmingly... but you’re not going to be allowed to just buy the item. Oh, no no no. The site asks you to log in. Or perhaps it asks if you’re a new or returning customer. Or perhaps it asks you to register or create an account. Whatever the wording, it’s basically the same demand: before you can buy this item from us, you have to get into an artificial relationship with us.

Blog post

The grammar of telemarketing

October 2011

telemarketing, phone calls, outsourcing, capitalism, bad-faith marketing

The phone rings. You answer, and there’s a tell-tale pause, a pause in which you can often hear the call-centre buzz on the other end. The pause might be because the telemarketing phone system has auto-dialled you before the employee was ready, or it might be because they’re ringing from another continent, or it might be because they’ve got distracted waiting for you to answer. Whatever the reason, it tells you in a second or two, before anybody speaks, that this is probably a telemarketing call.

Blog post

In which I become part of the problem

October 2010

usability, SEO, robert dyas, real-life tales of usability fail, bad-faith marketing

I’ve just been looking at the Google Analytics report for this site and spotted that some visitors found me while searching for “robert dyas anti fungal paint”. Of course, those visitors will end up on this page, which is a blog post about how I couldn’t find any anti-fungal stuff in Robert Dyas. (I would advise caution before reading the blog post; the tale may be too thrilling for web users of a sensitive disposition.)