In the spirit of the blog, and in an attempt at fostering similar angst and frustration with “the system” in my readers… I have chosen to address and target the marketing media once again for this installment.

Today’s misguided and scrutiny ridden tryst down into my dysfunctional mindset is geared toward the marketing media’s attempt to “disarm” or “numb” the buying public. Ah yes, word play which is created for nothing else than to downplay the grotesquely absurd price tag totals of today’s mostly useless, vain, and poorly fabricated trinkets in the malls and shopping centers of America.

I speak, of course, about the two words which are obviously a marketing MUST when attempting to persuade “John Q. Public”. These two words are….

JUST and ONLY

Look upon them carefully, people. See them for what they really are. Deception and disarmament, incarnate. No more contradictory terms could be applied to the majority of prices on merchandise than these two profoundly misleading terms. They are constantly used in an attempt to befuddle and downplay our sensibilities of what we know to be a decent asking price for any given piece of merchandise that these two words are splashed onto.

Why am I up at arms about two mere words? Because the sheer stupidity behind their usage is at the very core of this rant. Consider this, if you will… If you were to be in need of a stick of underarm deodorant. What might you suggest the price to be? $2.00? Perhaps $5.00? Who’s to say what brand you use? Ah, but what if you were to stumble across a rack of deodorant that displayed a large, fluorescent explosion sticker that boldly announced that the price of Brand-X Deodorant was ONLY $12.99 EACH!!!

I know what you’re thinking. “Right. Who would pay $12.99 for a stick of deodorant?” And you’re completely correct in your thinking. It’s absurd. But nonetheless, the words JUST and ONLY are constantly being splashed across every thinkable advertising gimmick known to mankind. No matter the cost, no matter the merchandise… the common thinking amongst the retailers must be centered around the chance that these two words will somehow dupe us into equating the quality and need for the product with that of it’s ridiculous price!

I, for one, am not fooled. Nor am I amused by it. It’s become a sickening and annoying sight. Check any newspaper…any billboard…any TV advertisement. ONLY $19.99…. JUST $500…

And if these aren’t enough, you’ve got to love UNDER. Ah yes, UNDER. “Buy this garden cart for under $100!!!” However, with the discovery that the cost of the cart is $99.99 … one tends to find their expectations of a legitimate and opportunistic bargain to be dashed against the rocks of disappointment once more. The very idea. All done in a bid to avert your eyes from a competitor’s shallow bargain just long enough to disgust you with their own shallow bargain. UNDER…… the very idea.

And while we’re on this little band wagon of spite… why not address the teeth-grinding experience of enduring yet another REBATE?

Oh for pete’s sake…who came up with this bastardization of comsumer relations??? Why must we endure this constant enslaught upon our intelligence by corporations bound and determined to capitalize upon every penny they can squeeze out of us? What ever happened to valuing the people who guarantee your profits by thinking of their interests? No, let’s bind ourselves to the rest of the greedy corporations by including an offer with a rebate!

We’ll offer an unheard of low price for a popular retail item…then confuse and fluster the hell out of our consumers by complicating every aspect of the rebate with “qualifying conditions”, “waiting periods”, “mailing deadlines” and “10 to 12 week” processing times. Not only this, but let’s engineer our conditions so that any error made by the consumer on the rebate claim form will cause him or her to default on the rebate due to mail delivery time. By the time they’re notified of the error and can send in a corrected form, the time period for their claim has now expired. Oh my aren’t we smart!

Not only will we make it nigh unto impossible to weed through all of this confusion without error… but we’ll play on the innate tendencies of the average human being to not want further complications in their life. Most people would rather lose the discount rather than suffer the headache of going through these steps, so we’re almost guaranteed not to have to honor our rebate offer! Oh delight and joy!

How much more of a red-tape anal rape can you devise? Rebates ought to be outlawed. If you wanna offer Brand-X phone at a promotional discounted price… grant an “instant” rebate. Let the retailer deal with recovering their money from the manufacturer. Gain the public’s trust and satisfaction by granting them the lowered price…period. No gimmicks. No hoops to jump through. Just a promotional low price.

Alright… I’ll go take my medication now and find my happy place. Good day.