As a former marketing major, I was taught the knowledge, skill sets, and know-how it requires to provide such support to my future employer. From the ten or so courses you take on the subject matter-at-hand, you gain the confidence in the ability to provide analysis and ideas that will assist any future firm you’ll belong to in becoming better equipped to sell its product or service. That’s what you’re taught. Marketing majors exist to help sell goods.
No, no they don’t.
Marketing majors exist to mess with your head. They make ordinarily normal purchase decisions impossible, since they help deal the cards, and their whole deck are jokers. If it was a base comparison of two products, without marketing, decisions would be made on price and quality. Look, I’m totally cool with the above statement. Had I pursued a career in marketing, I feel aptly qualified to mess with your head. But instead, I’m just one of the flock who is forced to make purchase decisions involving the most nefarious scheme of all: limited-time promotions.
Today’s promotion comes off of a sign in the cafeteria downstairs that has made me ponder such an undertaking with great curiosity. It simply reads:
Every 30 minutes your meal is on us!
To celebrate YOU, our customer and to show our appreciation for your patronage, we are setting every register up with an egg times for one day. Every 30 minutes, when the egg timer rings, the customer at the register, will receive their meal on us.
Yes, those two misplaced commas are on the flyer.
So the marketing majors at our building’s catering company are at it again. These flyers, which pretty much are omnipresent in our building right now (and must look professionally sweet to our clients), are simply designed. It’s a giant picture of an egg timer. Now before I pose my dilemma to you all, I’d like to congratulate the marketing majors on resurrecting the noble egg timer. It’s no secret that digital timepieces have done away with the usefulness of the egg timer, and it’s archnemesis, the microwave, is largely responsible.
And it’s also worth noting that egg timers have been underused because they lost their vision. The original egg timer could time a period of about 3 minutes, or the time it takes to cook an egg. The egg timer evolved into a timekeeping piece for 1 WHOLE HOUR. Have you ever successfully cooked an egg for a whole hour? If so, I’ll just assume you have magic powers. Care to unscramble this egg?
Ok, onto the dilemma. Now this stupid timer promo will only affect one person at each register every half-hour. And the timer itself is concealed from view, so you really have no idea when it will go off. UNLESS, you go down early and listen for it to sound, and then keep track of the following thirty minutes. This is your best opportunity to guarantee victory. Granted, you’ll lose 30 minutes of productivity at our desk, but that’s ok. It’s lunch time.
So if you have a guaranteed free lunch coming due to your timing prowess, don’t you go big and put like 60 dollars of food on your plate? You know, extra bottles of soda, cookies, the entire salad bar – all of it! After all, it’s going to be free.
Unless you miscalculate. Then you have to pay big time for your gamble.
Damn those marketing majors.
2 comments:
Although that sounds wonderful to a Marketing Major, the Economics major would not like it as much. "There's no such thing as a free lunch!"
I can't count how many times I have heard that phrase!
This post has upset me greatly for 2 reasons: 1) I HATE bad punctuation and/or grammer in promotional material. Come on, people! Check it out before you post it. 2) Chris Condon has completely turned his back on his past. Didn't those group projects mean anything to you? Would a free bottle of Borjomi help bring you back?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go mess with some people's heads.
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