Here in our compound of 8 villas/town-houses there is just one post box which has ‘no-junk’ on it. This is rather surprising because each week now we get a bundle in one package of about 12 different advertising folders. They are colourful brochures singing the praise of many different bargains to be had for the canny shopper. They run the gamut from Big W to The Good Guys and include such mouth-watering shopping venues as Fantastic Furniture, Dick Smith, IGA and even good old Woollies.
Did you know that SUPER IGA this week has, wait for it: Whole Economy Rump for $ 5.99 a kilo and it includes 200% guarantee on freshness & quality. Now, I ask you, how could anyone resist the 200% guarantee? But it gets even better. They have Peters Overload ice cream at $3.99, Minties at $1.99 and a 2 litre tomato sauce and 2 litre Barbeque sauce at both for a mere $3.99. Can you imagine 4 litres for $3.99? The mind boggles. I simply can’t imagine rushing out and get 4 litres of sauce to squeeze over food. I am not going to live that long, neither would you want to suffer that fate.
And that’s just the beginning. Cop this. At Fantastic Furniture, just for you, and as advertised, the magnificent Dallas Chaise in ‘living fabric’ reduced from $ 399.- to $299.- included 5 year structural and 10 years foundation guarantee. It’s all too much. I’ll just have to lay down on my own battered Euro Chaise and rest, rejoice in all those bargains.
Seriously though, who in earth studies those brochures? I must admit I have always felt a terrible bout of weariness coming on when it comes to anything with advertising. I just don’t get it. Do people really look at TV ads or newspaper ads? I must confess to having peeked into a Real Estate window when we were looking for a place to live. Mind you, I probably would look that up on the computer now.
When the kids come over they watch The Simpsons and they now know how to get to that channel. Apart from SBS we never ever watch a commercial channel. SBS has ads but I never really know what they are advertising because my eyes are on automatic when faced with advertising and just glaze over, and I take a nano nap.
I remember going to Moscow many year ago. It was heaven, not a billboard or ad in sight. No shops either. On SBS’s I love watching global village especially when it features continental Europe. It’s pure bliss seeing street scapes without those advertising hoardings so familiar here. Do Europeans buy less because advertising is so much more modest? It is all rather puzzling. I do think much man made architecture in Australia could be improved by making advertising subject to some sort of control.
Any trip along Sydney’s Parramatta Rd almost results in the need for a rehab, or a solid bout of counselling. Nothing in the world could possibly get any uglier. How can addicts to alcohol or drugs remain clean when visually assaulted everywhere they go? Trying to get repeat tourism to Australia the best thing would be to get some kind of aesthetics committee up and running and try and introduce standards in public use of advertising space like they do in most countries that are more sensitive to the world of vision. After all, why should we have the freedom to visually insult so many locals, let alone tourists, by imposing ugliness in the form of hoardings and screaming advertisements?
Anyway, Coles Beef has No added HORMONES and No added COST to you.
Fantastic, I must rush out, go to IGA for the 4 litres of sauce and 200% fresher Economy Rump then of to Big W to snap up the 5pack of Bonds hipsters.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
If you really want to get rid of junk mail, Gerard, you can get little stickers which say ‘GPO Mail Only’; this is not so easy to get out of on the grounds that ‘Well, your honour, I don’t think my advertising material is junk mail…’
😉
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Sorry Gez; I started to read it, but then ended up treating it like the ‘begats’…
😉
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Gez, read this funny/poignant piece yesterday between lines finishing my Pig’s Psalm. My victory regards this advertising thing was buying a discounted packet of dried fruit and noticing if I sent in the empty packaging with receipt to prove I had purchased it I would get more money back than I had paid. Gosh. My claim must have had to go to the Synod of Dried Fruiterers and thence to the International Court of Justice – months later, I received a brief letter of acknowledgement on a nice letterhead and taped to a carefully trimmed piece of cardboard the amount offered. Menz was the brand.
Maybe another was…that sort of backfired…my ex-hub used to be inundated with false advertising in the mail that was addressed to him and I wrote a satirical letter on agreement, that he signed saying how impressed he was with a free clock offered (they forgot the ‘if’) and he was happy to accept it, such an extraordinary gesture… he received a letter saying the clock was out of stock but he could have summat else (can’t recall). I wrote another he signed expressing deepest sorrow the clock was out of stock. Nothing else would do but the clock. The Commission of Consumers of Clocks and Free clocks for All who Expected One were invoked in the gravest terms. The Frenchman who was the Australian rep/manager of the company telephoned! Yeepers! Charmant! He announced expansively, laughing, he wanted to meet the man who wrote the ‘very cleverrr and very funeee’ letter. Any man who wrote ‘zis lett-err’ must be OK. Oh, no! Cripes. We went through the charade and were guests with kids welcomed and drinking French wine gratis.
Come to think of it no-one was going to offer him a job as he was in the throes of a Ph.D and employed but there, but for the grace of experience might have gone I… and did I think of that. It was good fun and we were young …watching them fuss over him… listening to the flattery…on the other hand I was too shy to say I wrote it and have since discovered and developed a skill as a ghost writer. Never for anything again as nefarious as getting a ‘free’ product (we didn’t want anyway, but shrugged our shoulders over the depiction of and decided it looked orright) … Well, only, if I do, I will take credit! 🙂
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Ah, the post-box junk mail brochures. Thanks for the info Franklins, your scrumptious pictures of mince literally propel me into your crowded little aisles in some kind of anticipatory bolognese feeding frenzy. YES ! That’s it ! I had forgotten what mince looks like. And now I must have it. Must have it immediately ! Some giant magnetic force draws me to Franklins. The force of mince.
But George and Kali (their real names) go totally wild when the Whiskas and Pal go on special. Maybe the advertising is for them.
We put a Council-supplied sticker “Australia Post Only” on our mailbox – to ward off junk mail – with absolutely no effect. And then I felt a bit guilty of robbing the unskilled and cash-strapped of our borough and depriving them of the scant few bucks they get from carting this rubbish around.
Can’t win either way. Mince and Coke and Pal. Mince and Coke and Pal.
And flat screen TVs – how much better off were the Soviets ?
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Do you remember long ago, the Advertising Association’s advertisment
“in some countries
they don’t have advertising
to annoy them”.
with a starved looking russian family in a bleak room? And everyone felt so envious of them.
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It’s a mystery why they don’t have better signage rules. Everyne would benefit, except for the signage industry I suppose. They could be in a bit of trouble. Still, they could phase the rules in.
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On the corner of the main thoroughfare where the (large) police station is, and behind it the local district courthouse, used to be a GIANT advertising sign promoting the shopping centre down the road, but without any indication it was down the road. I registered my concern and maybe had effect. It is gone. I like to think I helped the lost and fearful looking for the police station that had no visible marker to show its presence.
It is impossible to complain about every breach of sanity (the way to insanity). I have wondered if a local project for a community group might usefully be to spend a day doing an audit/taking photos. I had a tangle of bus signs, time tables, and excess number of poles cleaned up off a pavement once that left no more room for a pedestrian. So boring these planning authorities…what planning ‘authorities’.
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We now live in a lovely, leafy estate with large blocks (and large houses!), underground services, so, no ugly timber poles, but, just down the road (thankfully out of sight from our house) is an ugly motel complex, which has seen fit to illuminate the eaves of every building with purple lights. Across the road are the usual fast food outlets with associated signage and lighting. It really looks like a brothel, in fact, there’s a brothel about 5 kms away which is much less garish.
I agree, don’t know who is influenced by all of this advertising. I know that many are sickened by it!
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I wonder just what they mean by “200% Guarantee of Freshness”.
If they mean twice as fresh as other rump available elsewhere then the whole notion is predicated on there being a benchmark “freshness” against which the SUPER IGA rump can be reliably measured. I don’t think that the beef marketing authority have ever published such a protocol, but I could be wrong.
If they mean that in the event that the SUPER IGA rump is found wanting in “freshness” then they will return to you twice what you paid for it, I can see all kinds of problems there, particularly if the rump in question does not come with a certificate from the relevant authority confirming its “freshness” status. Unscrupulous shoppers might see this as an opportunity to profit from SUPER IGA’s “freshness” policy. “Freshness” being such a personally subjective thing. One person’s “bad” being another persons balachaung.
If they mean that “failing fresh” rump will be replaced by twice the amount of rump you originally purchased then the whole thing could quickly devolve into an infinite regress until all available planetary resources of rump had been exhausted.
Advertising copy; can’t understand it, can’t shoot the copywriter.
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By the way have you noticed there’s an IGA next door to the pub. I wonder if they offer the 200% Freshness Guarantee. Merve’ll be onto that like a shot won’t he?
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Merve’ll be like a shot on some other things that can pay off handsomely as well. Ecoutez svp.
Some years ago, Woollies had some smoked salmon on ‘special’. They were not counting on my vigilance going through the check-out whereby it became clear to me that the discounted price hadn’t been factored in their scanner.
When overpriced you get your money back and the item for FREE. You must go to the counter, show them the docket, but never do this at the check-out because they will just adjust the difference!
Hawk-like I kept going back for more salmon but through different check-outs, much to the embarrassment of Helvi. I scored I kilo of salmon FREE before I called it a day. It was a special Christmas that year.
I did it before with discounted pumpkin. But the salmon was so much more satisfying.
It might be that I regaled this tale before in which case it doesn’t do much harm repeating it to some of the new P Arms patrons.
Waz, thanks for the tip on the 200% ‘failing fresh rump’ possibility. I might have to bring a rucksack.
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My one great supermarket victory was buying cashews for the price of peanuts (literally) as the bloke at the checkout didn’t know, and didn’t care about the difference.
I think that Gerard deserves a prize!
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BM, I don’t even like smoked salmon…
Some Christmas cheer: Here Missus, see what I got for you, a kilo of smoked ‘b****y’ salmon…
Yah, a true hunter and gatherer!
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Well, H, in that case, I’ll try to get some cheap cashews.
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Warrigal, don’t even think of ‘shooting’ copywriters. It might inadvertently hex the one that writes material that somehow gets past boards of directors yet sends up their product sans merci. 🙂
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