Jack's life advice: If you're trying to sell something, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IT IS

[jack]

This one is something of a cheat, because I'm advising people on something I WANT them to do, not actually what's necessarily best for them, simply because I want to browbeat them into doing it.

But if you're trying to sell something, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IT IS.

That's not actually true. If you're trying to sell a hunk of crap, it may well be more effective to sell it to people on spurious grounds. It may be more effective to:

* bundle mobile phones with mobile phone contracts and lie to people about which is which
* make a mediocre product and advertise the heck out of it because it's "fun" without specifying what's good about it
* claim something is a "necessity" for modern life without saying what it does

But I wish:

* Film posters are many square meters large (A-2 or something); they should devote a sentence somewhere, even in small print, to telling you what the film is about. If it's small enough, surely all the people who want to see it because it has a cool name and a famous actor in will not be put off, but people who say "wow, that sounds cool" will be enticed?

* Shaving foam, shampoo, non-rechargeable batteries, etc had "shaving foam", "shampoo", "non-rechargeable battery" written on them somewhere.

* Mobile phone sellers had a table of the options you might want, and their cost, rather than collating them into arbitrary bundles with stupid names, and

Comments

[pseudomonas]

I think non-rechargeable batteries are (sadly) normally denoted by being batteries. I can't see manufacturers putting "non-rechargeable!" "one use only! "landfill-tastic!" signs on the packaging unless compelled by law.

[jack]

ROFL. Now I want landfill-tastic labelled batteries [1] :)

I agree, it's probably hoping too much for anyone to actually DO that unless compelled (although it MIGHT make the battery stand out from others), but it still annoys _me_. I guess they have history on their side, in that "batteries" used to be the only sort, but that at _some_ point you to accept that what you're selling isn't the norm any more.

[1] Obviously I don't actually WANT them, but want them in preference to landfilltastic batteries not labelled as such.

[pseudomonas]

It *is* the norm. Many many shops stock no rechargeables at all.

[jack]

Oh, hm. Fair enough. It hadn't occurred to me, I just assumed rechargeables were less faff for most things, so hadn't questioned that they ought to be the default, without considering that they might not be.

[pseudomonas]

I think even if they get to be the default for using, they won't be the default for selling since you tend to buy a few pairs of them and then nothing for five years. Compare cloth vs paper hankies, or refillable vs disposable pens.