Black Friday

[Neil]

Re: Re:

Now I'd accept, playing the percentages, they can take credit for a lot of why people by stuff.

But not all - and not everyone buys into it.

It's not some voodoo you buy into or don't. You believe that you're somehow above being persuaded into buying by marketers.

No I don't.

I simply reject the all-ecompasssing, take-credit-for-every-single-purchase-decision-and-product-choice-anybody-could-ever-make, part of it.

It's almost a modern religion.

And the voodoo thing? What about the little old bloke who knows what he wants from the shops every week, writes a list, and gets his favourite niece to go buy his groceries for him. How does he get suckered by marketing if he never actually samples it? I suppose you could try and suggest that whoever shops for him, occasionally buys something because of clever marketing in the supermarket, and he then decides it's changed his life - but most people I know who shop for other people just buy exactly what they ask for, give them the receipt, and then the change.

Uncannily, it would appear a voodoo doll has no effect on him, either...

Marketing is simply the process by which you find or retain customers. From the earliest physical markets selling fruit to Ebay selling tablets the principles are much the same. For anyone to use Ebay or Amazon or Tesco or Coke and claim not to have been affected/influenced/persuaded in some way simply isn't credible.

Influenced - I'll grant you - driven by, in an all-encompassing scenario you'd have it take credit for is a different matter.

Lots of people, try and claim sophisticated schemes control everything - like the nutjob conspiracy theorists and their bat-shit crazy, lizard juntas controlling everything far above government.

The reality is, there's plenty of clever schemes, that affect and influence plenty of people - and yes, where business is concerned, in quite a cohesive manner. All the same, it's not the all-encompassing mind-control juju you're trying to have it claim credit for.

Look at the subject of this thread, for example: Black Friday. Some people are clearly heavily influenced - and indeed, go out with their elephant guns and bag themselves some spoils. Some know and hear about it but couldn't care less. And some people actively despise the notion.

As a generalism, you won't go far wrong with the notion that the answer isn't really some complex or clever overriding scheme, just an overarching common approach that tends to play the percentages. It's not magic, mind-control, or juju - there's always some degree of random.

And your example about veg or bread is misplaced too. The first guy who grew/harvested a carrot had to then sell it at a market. As it was new he might have given free samples or sold at a cheaper price than competitors turnips. People try it, demand grows and ultimately it becomes a staple to the extent that yes, a carrot is a carrot is a carrot. But again farmers getting their product to Tesco is still marketing, just not in the way you think of it. You're thinking of Tesco's organic carrots with their nice signage and eco credentials as the marketing bit. Which is only one small part of the marketing mix.

And plenty of people sell veg with home-made signs outside their farms or small-holdings.

Plenty of small businesses have no true notion of having some marketing consultant they've never had any contact with, take credit for them managing to work as a small business, oddly bereft of any buzzwords, on a topic they've never had any instruction or education in, but have managed to prevail with their business, organically, because for some, at least, they've managed to keep their customers happy and their business running, by what they would perceive as common sense.

But by all means, apply the label of marketing to it, and you can take credit for what they manage to sustain, even if having no input, no connection, no influence, or no recognition by them, that the "system" you say applies, is just something they've managed to develop and evolve organically.

Anyway, this is done. You keep believing you're above it

Righto - only those select chosen few that have been to Hogwarts School of Witchraft and Wizardry could possibly understand and see the join.

and I'll keep creating stuff you want to buy.

Marketing and creating stuff? Demand, maybe - but they don't actually truly create stuff. Very few groups of people actually create stuff, these days. Little groups of various consultants talk about stuff, and get some people to do the actual work, then claim it's all them, man.

I don't rail against the notion that many things we choose or buy are heavily influenced by marketing - I just reject the notion that only the special, gifted people who are schooled in marketing, could possibly see the wires. Smoke and mirrors - s'all I'm saying.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

And the person who put the shop there to buy the veg from or the sign outside the blokes gate to buy eggs or veg from.

They found a place thought there was a market and persuaded that person or old man to send the daughter to that place

All marketing.


That's ignoring that fact it might be the old mans favourite apple at the right affordable price the shop keeper is selling them at.

 

[Neil]

Re: Re:

And the person who put the shop there to buy the veg from or the sign outside the blokes gate to buy eggs or veg from.

They found a place thought there was a market and persuaded that person or old man to send the daughter to that place

All marketing.

That's ignoring that fact it might be the old mans favourite apple at the right affordable price the shop keeper is selling them at.

OK, I'll give you a few more examples, then - to refute this fatuous notion that nothing ever gets done before the marketing consultants actually make it with their own, fair hands...

Raspberry Pi, Linux / Open source software, mountain biking, THIS very forum.

NONE of those things got brought into being because a crack team of marketing consultants created them.

Marketing bods may well have jumped on the bandwagon since, once there was money to be made - but the ideas, the creation - none of that was a coup for marketing consultants creating them.

Now plenty of people buy Raspberry Pis, plenty of corporates pay for Linux OSs, there's been plenty of money made from mountain biking, and no doubt this very forum is a conduit for peer-to-peer or other transactions, but at the outset?

I realise a bit of exaggeration and claiming to have invented the wheel are legitimate techniques, and all - but doesn't mean there's not an awful lot of smoke and mirrors involved.

 

[Koupe]

I grow my own carrots, make my own bread, build & upgrade my PCs from scavenged parts, buy nearly all my clothes from charity shops, and get my old 2nd-hand cars from contacts on motoring forums. I'm not quite sticking it to the Man, but I am blowing raspberries at him. Go me.

If I'm going to buy something brand-new, I'll try my best to seek out genuinely non-biased product reviews to base my decision on, but I'll admit that I'm occasionally suckered by spiel. Oddly enough though, I'm far more motivated by avoidance than loyalty. The shops that I frequent only really get my custom because I dislike their competitors.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

I said nothing about consultants.

Raspberry PI found a market for something to help kids learn to programming, and adults alike. It moved into wider areas. From the onset they where looking to market it.

OpenStuff, the market are the people who want to do it and use it, else it wouldn't be there. Theylut it out there ij tot he market and see how KT goes. It doesn't have to be no ey, then people advertise it for them increasing the market.

This forum, John and a few mates had a chat and thought there was a market for this type of forum, there apparently was.


If there is no market or they cannot create a market, things fail. Until them that are in the picking things that a nice and also cheap are targeted with price reductions.

Of course that my thoughts on a market, common sense market. Not the creating or making the best out of the markets like techno or that women that went about improving hotels, high streets and businesses. Or the other one that goes about tarting and cleaning houses to sell houses...

Do you need a house, no but there are market for them, bivvies made from chopped down trees and leaves keep you dry, want to chopl that tree down quicker, well why not buy this handy axe, black Friday deal get it cheap. (Just don't check the price it was at some months back, bvut trust me its cheap now as this is black Friday and well we all know the hype... It must be cheap. ;-)

Luckily cyber monday is easier to do.

 

[Neil]

Re: Re:

I said nothing about consultants.

Raspberry PI found a market for something to help kids learn to programming, and adults alike. It moved into wider areas. From the onset they where looking to market it.

That's just spin.

The motivation for people at the outset was to encourage the younger generation to get back to past times where there was more innovative software development. That's an altruistic ethos, not a commercial one.

The marketing and commercial interests that have been attracted since, are merely a means to an end, and a necessary evil - the notion was not to serve that master at the outset.

OpenStuff, the market are the people who want to do it and use it, else it wouldn't be there. Theylut it out there ij tot he market and see how KT goes. It doesn't have to be no ey, then people advertise it for them increasing the market.

I'm sorry but that's simply not understanding how the open source community got going or thrived.

From the early days, it was nothing to do with marketing or increasing the market. It was people being fed-up of proprietary systems, OS and software, who openly collaborated for the good of the community.

Even now that ethic still thrives.

And yes, even now, commercial entities try and make a fast buck on the backs of an open, collaborating community by taking open-source software, trying to add their own competitive advantage - and they still can be held to account and made to publish their source code.

And whether or not it's the same for how this forum started, plenty of internet forums got started purely on the basis of helping others for no commercial gain. Going back some time I was very active in collaborating in some technical forums, and lost my interest in it when several members joined from commercial companies, purely to tout their service - when the forum had got established and built-up on the basis that plenty of innovators who'd pioneered and deployed environments and software solutions on certain platforms, freely collaborated with a community, shared their ideas / solutions and often software, only to have people selling services sweep in and tout their product as the answer to everybody's prayers.

The notion that everything is done, interest is garnered, and anything people seek out is all because of marketing, is all simply overreaching.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

I like to think, at times like these, what Jesus might do.

He might sell TVs at knockdown prices. He might sell iPhones.

Marketing his ideas, and those of His Father, would be the idea behind it all though.

What exactly is Walmart's idea?

I doubt it would be similar to the hirsute, sandal-wearing deity.

 

[legrandefromage]

I wonder how many keyboards Neil goes through.

 

[xxnick1975]

Re:

All media bullshit, fighting in supermarkets was set up, agitators paid by the tabloids to create a scene

Media only report the nonsense, mostly created by them

 

[Neil]

I wonder how many keyboards Neil goes through.

I do it with the power of my mind, and the gentle hum of superiority.

Just thought I'd tell you what you wanted to hear.