Marketing Stratagem

Tuesday, I went to my mailbox to retrieve the daily mail. I see an envelope with my cellphone carrier, Suncom, written on it, thinking it must be the bill for this month. To my surprise, it reads that I am a preferred customer and I could get an upgrade for a brand-new phone. It also includes extra minutes that I am certain I will not use since I never use up my minutes.. When they say "preferred" they mean the ideal customer who pays his/her bill on time without complaining and bickering about the unreasonable roaming fees even if the bill is enough to support two families in a third world country for a year.

As I read, I was so excited. For some that may not understand the joys of getting a new cell phone, this was partly due to the fact of my love of electronics and my love for new toys namely the cell phone. The latter being that I am a generation X’er and you know that young people today love their cell phones more than they love life itself. Anyway, I continued reading until I saw the fine print reading stating: "Offer to upgrade to a new GSM comes with the signing of a two-year service agreement." So there you have it: My cell phone company wants me to sign my very life away with the promise of a new cell phone, mind you that I would still have to pay $20. (It’s really a 100 rebate and the phone actually costs $120) Talk about your marketing ploys. These people think that they are so smart, but they have not met the cynical and often highly critical consumer such as myself. Cellphone companies aren’t the only companies that do that. The same is true with credit card companies. They offer the so-called introductory rate for about six months or so. Then, when they acquire your signature(your very Life), they jack up the interest rates. Notice the people who are responsible: the Marketers. Their purpose is to reel you in and make sure that you will not let go.

That leads me to something else: A strange thing Goggle(Logger) has come out with lately called Adsense. Basically, you register for Adsense and they will place advertisements on your "Blog." and you can make money. Wait a second! Are you saying that I can make money from blogging? What is the catch? If anyone doesn’t know, but Blogger is a free service. I’m just wondering exactly how it is a free service. It must generate revenue somehow. How else could Blogger offer free service and then allow its users to make money from advertisements? It does not make sense. Maybe Adsense is just plain nonsense. Maybe Blogger actually makes money from Adsense. Something tells me that Blogger will start a nominal charge system in the future or they may enact mandatory advertisements as a way to keep Blogger alive if this Adsense gimmick doesn’t work out.

I have learned that some things in life are just not free. Most things come with a price given that it may not always be tangible. As the old saying goes, if something sounds too good to be true, then it really is. I have learned the hard way about this very self-evident truth.

One must be cynical to face the world realistically.