Marketing For Dummies

Without having set foot inside you know it’s going to be pricey by virtue of its location—smack dab in downtown Phoenix. Big, modern, high-rise of condominiums called The Summit; twenty floors of upwardly mobile luxury.

The Summit at street level

Back in 2004 these babies started at $300,000 for the smallest unit and went up to $1.2 million for the better-than-sex suites.

I don’t follow real estate close enough to have any idea how well this project turned out, but I know there is some kind of pending litigation on the property. But with lots of speculative investment back in 2004-2005 and Wall Street hitting the flush lever on the economy, things likely ain’t so sweet as they thought.

Chase Field — you can almost touch it from your balcony!

Nice enough building though, close to two major sports venues—US Airways Center, home to the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, and MLB’s Diamondbacks home Chase Field, restaurants, and downtown (if you happen to work near there). Our downtown isn’t exactly what I would call “vibrant” but it’s not completely derelict either.

Given all the eyeballs that might potentially be upon it you might think the marketing effort would be crisp and persuasive.

Eh . . . not entirely.

As I walked by on the east side of the building I noticed a large sign placed prominently in the window to entice the young and affluent to step inside and look around. Here’s the sign (lots of reflections in the glass so you you have give it a good looking at):

You can have it all — except spellcheck

Did you catch it?

It stands out like a booger on a white shirt. At once repugnant and mesmerizing in its sheer scope of dumbass.

The placard reads “Have it all in Downtown. An Urban lifestyle in the heart of Phoenix.” I’ll let you drink in the last line. It’s hard to see, but here’s a slightly enhanced selection of it:

"Were you can have it all"

F’n amazing!

You’d think, somebody in marketing would have proofed these before telling the printer to proceed.Then again, maybe they did.

My conclusion?

It would seem these folks perhaps suffer from few headaches. You know the saying . . . “No brains, no headache.”

Read Full Post »

One Side, Folks!

I can forego people not using their turn signal when sitting inside a marked left turn lane—I mean, their intentions are obvious, right? And as irritiating as it is, I can let pass people who won’t shut up at a ball game. You know the type, probably the same ones who talk through a movie. But at a ballgame, talking with the people you come with is to be expected. But for Christ’s sake, take a friggin’ breath!

What I’m about to complain about may remove me from a Christmas card list or two, but it must be said.

There are lots of little things in life we find annoying but willing to let slide, but some things are just flat out rude, inconsiderate, and nothing short of thoughtless. The beauty of this is that you, dear reader, won’t have to think long to recall a time it has happened to you: the grocery aisle hogger.

Yeah, you know the pinhead type. They blithely leave their cart smack dab in the middle of an aisle, thus cutting off all access to other shoppers. I’ve seen cases where they have their children in the seat and they’re two shelving units over checking out the best price on canned chick peas.

Tell me that doesn’t piss you off. If it doesn’t, then clearly you’ve never been taught any manners whatsoever. Anyone with an ounce of consideration for their surroundings knows you’re suppose to pull the cart over to one side or the other so others can freely move within the aisle, not block the aisle and brazenly display your tile-level IQ.

So yeah, it’s one of my slivers-under-the skin.

Now that I’ve bitched about it openly, and you’ve read it, you can’t say you weren’t warned if your cart is unceremoniously rammed out of the way. The more feminine name for this is cart kissing, while we guys like to think of it as a wire-frame version of demolition derby. One key rule though: No ramming when children are either in the cart or nearby. However, extra points are awarded for initiating cart contact with its separated owner. Double points if you get them to curse loudly at you or even throw something off the shelf at you.

You want to shop in peace, then keep your damn cart off to one side and we’ll all get along fine.

Oh yeah, and don’t pull your circus carnie van up on the sidewalk into the posted No Parking zone just so you don’t have to walk your lazy ass out to your car like the rest of us. I read about that on Joy Erickson’s blog a while back, and it’s kinda gnawed at me eve since.

If you don’t have the decency to be considerate of the rest of us out spending our hard earned cash, then do us all a favor and send a family member with a more well-furnished brain case than yourself.

I, and the rest of the shopping world, thank you.

Read Full Post »

Bad Sports-‘R-Us

A few nights ago one of the local WNBA stars, Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury, was cited for “extreme DUI” — she had almost twice the legal limit blood alcohol level. According to news reports she was cited, not arrested.

I admit, I’m not a WNBA fan . . . not an NBA fan. Don’t really watch football. The only sport I follow with any focus is baseball. Frankly, the sport doesn’t matter. I heard the above tidbit on local news, and the first thing that popped in my head was “What the *$#!?”

Goi ahead, say it with me.

These athletes are, in my common-man, non-athletic, fan-who-pays-good-money-for-his-seat opinion, well paid for their talents. I’m not posting this so I can re-hash the debate over athlete pay. My question is far simpler than that:

She could afford to pay for a taxi, right? Or at least pay someone to drive her home that night. Where the hell are the brains, people? I understand athletes, out of uniform, are people just like you and I. They have family problems, personal hangups, and bad habits. However, they are also in the public eye, and given the obscene sums of money they earn and amount of media exposure they get one might think they might cut loose a few bones to protect their reputation.

Ms. Taurasi told reporters after a practice last Friday that her DUI citation was “just something that’s embarrassing and unfortunate for my family and the organization,” adding “but personally, I’m going to have to do some things to make it straight.”

What really galls me is she was only cited. If you or I did that, you know, joe-or-sally-everday-schmoe, we’d have been hauled off to a cozy room with a cot, toilet, and lots of uninvited guests. We wouldn’t have been afforded the courtesy of a mere citation.

I’d like to hope we’d have the brains to fork over a few bucks to let someone else do the driving.

Maybe I’m just a bad sport.

Read Full Post »

Bad Owner . . . BAD!

Father’s Day started innocuously enough. I hopped online to see if Ikea was doing anything special for the occasion and sure enough, all dads were getting a free breakfast. Free food . . . are you kidding me? I am sooooooo there! So I get the boy up early (before noon is early at this stage in his life) and we hustled over to Ikea because I wasn’t about to miss out on a free meal. C’mon now, I’m not the only cheapskate!

We walked up towards the entrance and there was a couple walking a small dog in the direction of the entrance as well. I asked aloud “What the hell are they going to do with the dog while they’re eating? This isn’t Petsmart!” My son seemed as incredulous as I was. We walked in, apparently well ahead of them and mosied upstairs to take in the poor man’s banquet of powdered eggs, limp bacon, and country-style potatoes. Turns out the breakfast I got wasn’t as free as the wind. I got the $1.99 breakfast (it had Swedish pancakes). Never mind that there wasn’t a sign spelling out the “free” part.

We men are very visual (ask any woman). Hot Tip for you, Ikea: A picture showing the actual free meal would have been good. But in the absence of both, I went for the gusto. Bottom line, it wasn’t free.

But this post isn’t about European bait-and-switch tactics.

We’d been sitting down for a few minutes, when who walks by but the lady who was walking the dog downstairs. I look at her, then at my son.

“Wonder what they did with the dog?” I asked. He turns his head to look, and does so for more than a few seconds.

“It’s in her purse,” he said.

“No it wasn’t.” I had expected to see that, but there was no dog sticking out of the purse. “There’s no dog in that purse. I would have seen it when she walked by. That’s pretty obvious.”

He looked straight at me. “I saw the tail sticking out the side.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Yeah!”

I looked again, because she was still walking down the aisle towards a group of tables away from us. Sure enough, the purse seemed to bulge. Now I’m no purse expert, but this was a completely unnatural bulge. I immediately knew I had to have a picture as proof.

Quick aside: The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas has a shop called (I kid you not) The Stupid Factory. Lest you think I’m kidding, here’s a pic:

This must be where stupid people are made

The lady sat there for at least a few minutes. I watched her looking around the dining area, that kind of look you see when you just know somebody is up to no good. Then she slowly bent over and reached underneath the table. I couldn’t see what she was reaching for, but I assumed she’d set the purse on the floor.

“I gotta see this” I tell my son. I get up and walk all the way around the dining room so I could come up behind her and maybe squeeze off a shot with my Blackberry’s built-in camera. Unfortunately there were people in my way, but I did get to visually verify what we’d both suspected . . .

She’d place the pooch in her purse and zipped the top closed while they went through the food line!

I have always loved dogs, and frankly I don’t get the whole pooch-in-a-purse thing. I think it makes for poor fashion and a high dumbass quotient (HDQ – We Americans love our acronyms). But whatever. This woman, however, decided to publicly make a full on, Guiness-book sized declaration of her HDQ aptitude.

You simply don’t put your dog in a purse and then close it up to hide him. I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing. YOU DON’T DO THAT!

I couldn’t tell if she ever unzipped the purse to let the poor thing stick its head out, but I seriously hope it took a king size dump in her purse.

Read Full Post »

Chances Are Good You Can *rant ahead

A momentary respite from my blog tour stuff . . .

Can I get . . .

Do you remember the Magic 8 Ball? It’s still produced by Mattel, in case you were wondering. For those who may not have enjoyed it’s completely random omniscience, you are supposed to ask any question at all towards the big number eight on the face of the ball, then turn it over to see how the universe feels about your question. Entertaining, sure. Eerily concidental . . . at times. If you have the slightest bit of worry-wort in you, don’t so much as approach the Magic 8 Ball. You’ll thank me later.

I bring up the Mighty Magic 8 Ball because there is a huge untapped market for this diversionary toy. I think Mattel should immediately embark on an advertising campaign directed at people to ask the following question when ordering at restaurants/fast food chains:

Can I get . . .

Maybe it would be better for Mattel to focus on the franchisees and restaurant owners instead. I’d pay a little extra for the sheer entertainment value of seeing a waiter or cashier repeating the question to a Magic 8 Ball, then turning it over and relaying the toy’s answer.

Customer approaches counter at, let’s say, Taco Bell.
Joe Public: “Can I get 2 tacos and a burrito Supreme?”

Cashier: palms Magic 8 Ball sitting in front of register, gives it a quick shake, then turns it over and reads the response “Concentrate and ask again.”

How perfectly fitting would that be as a response? Guess what, Taco Bell is in the business of selling tacos and burritos. McDonalds sells hamburgers, Arby’s sells roast beef, KFC sells fried chicken. My point may be getting lost.

There is always, and I do mean always, someone in line who will begin their order by asking the blatantly obvious. If you’re in Taco Bell, guess what you can get—a taco, or burrito, etc. Why ask if you can get one when that’s what they friggin’ sell?

Why people . . . why?

Now, I absolutely understand that if you want something that’s not specifically listed on the menu then you’re asking if you can be provided something not called out in their list of offerings. If you want fried pickle chips on your burger, you’d have to ask for them. Hang on! Here’s another example where you don’t need to ask “Can I get . . .”: If you’re requesting a modification to the standard deliverable, that is, if you don’t want tomatoes, but do want extra onions and secret sauce/Thousand Island dressing on your burger. Those items are typically provided on the burger, but you’re asking for a deviation from the norm. That’s a perfectly plausible reason to ask “Can I get . . .”

So you waiters and cashiers out there, if I’m ever in your establishment and see you whip out a Magic 8 Ball, you’re getting a little something extra in your tip from me, because I know you’re dealing with someone who clearly isn’t paying attention.

Now I’m going to hear it from people who have done this all their lives, if only because they’ve done it all their lives. or because “everybody does it.” Just because everybody does doesn’t make it right. Before the blessed advent of plumbing people pissed or performed other bodily functions where ever they saw fit—that would fly today, would it? No, the two aren’t closely related . . . but in principle they are.

Bottom line is, if it’s on the menu, you know, the big one, lit up, directly behind the counter or in your hands (if it’s a restaurant menu), then unless they’re out of the item you can get it. Pretty simple.

Yeah, this has been chafing me for years, and I finally resolved to get it off my chest for the world to see. I know I can’t be the only one who finds this stupifying.

If you’d like to see the internet version of the Magic 8 Ball at work, hop on over to Erv’s Virtual Magic 8 Ball. Go ahead and ask it “Can I get . . .”

I’ll be back later with my blog tour stop listed for tomorrow!

Happy Easter everyone!

Read Full Post »