I love this story – if only for the fact it’s nice to see some [albeit illegal] ingenuity coming out of the UK and Australia rather than the usual ‘home of fraud’ – China!
Of course it could be – and probably is – total bollocks, but for the ‘smile value’ alone, it’s worth repeating PLUS I found a way to make a pretty tenious link to planning at the end – so there might be a little value in reading the post.
Please note I did say ‘MIGHT’! Ahem.
Thousands of people in Japan have paid a company called Poodles as Pets, upto $1600 to buy the latest fashion accessory – a poodle dog.
Apparently $1600 is a snip given they normally retail for at least twice that much.
So what’s the catch?
Well instead of a dog, they’d been sold a sheep! No, I am not making this up!
The scam was uncovered when Japanese movie star, Maiko Kawamaki, went on a talk-show and commented how her new pet did not bark or eat dog food.
When investigated, she was informed that what she’d actually bought was a sheep and almost immediately, studio phonelines were jammed with hundreds of other women all claiming that on closer inspection, their ‘poodle‘ also a different animal.
Apparently one couple found they’d been duped when they took their ‘dog‘ to have its claws trimmed, only to be told it had hooves.
Japanese police believe upto 2000 people could be affected by the scam – which worked because sheep are so rare in Japan, many people don‘t even know what they look like.
“We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles,” Japanese police said, the The Times reported.
So there you have it – proof our emotions control our actions … because when we want something, we become blind to all the signs which may be screaming ‘SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT HERE’ … which is why we live in a World full of fashion victims, owners of pointless technology and people who take sheep for a walk!
It is also proof that the best communication resonates on an emotional level, not just on bloody rational attributes.
There’s another clue for your A[P]SOTW project – though you are not allowed to come up with ‘scams’ to achieve the business goal, however ingenious it may be. Sorry, ha!