Why Do Marketers Do This?

Hello,

A few random musings on a slow week:

Why do marketers think that we'll be assauged by hearing that our message is very important to them when we're waiting on hold?

Why does Verizon's Internet help line play a recording that directs you to the company's Web site? Aren't most people calling because they can't get on the Web in the first place?

Why does Citi require you to enter your account number before you reach an agent only to have that agent ask you for your account number all over again?

Why do direct mailers try to make their envelopes look like checks or pieces of legal correspondence? Don't they realize that when you open those envelopes you're only going to be pissed off and thus not likely to be receptive to their messages?

What about those cardboard inserts in magazines? I don't know about you, but all they do is irritate me.

Why do my iPods keep breaking? My fourth one just broke. The last time I sent one in, Apple blamed me for damaging it.

Speaking of which, why did my Sirius radios keep breaking? Did the company blow all its money on Howard Stern and skimp on technology?

Why can't Gap, Barnes & Noble and other retailers keep a record of those who declined to get a card? That way, they won't ask me the same question every time and have me awkwardly fend off their advances.

If pop-up ads don't work, why is Netflix still so aggressively using them?

Comments

[SomeAudioGuy]

The one that gets me is how the volume of commercials gets jacked up so high. You're watching a show, there's a dramatic moment, a fade to black, then a commercial comes blaring on, goose-stepping it's way into my ears in the most jarring way possible.

Don't they know that I'm instantly inclined to mute or change channels.

[Meek Speaks]

why do companies always put the violator on their packages that proudly states "New Look! Same Great Taste" ...when the look is simply a lame evolution and nobody would make the mistake anyway?

...plus the "same great taste" statement is an outright lie. most things in packages taste like crap.