The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

1. I think the issue I’m going to rant about goes
beyond this particular ‘special’ day.

2. That’s never stopped me in the past.

So what’s the story I’m threatening to bore you with?

Well, it’s this … about a month ago, I received this email:

Yes, it’s from NEST – those clever chaps who have just been bought by Google – but there’s a couple of things wrong with it.

The first is the whole ‘buy a smoke alarm or learning thermostat’ for your true love.

OK, so they had the good grace to point out it’s not very romantic [which is more than can be said for this] and – to be fair – if a woman bought it for a man, they’d probably like it because the real reason men want kids is because it gives them an excuse to buy a new DSLR camera [thank you Toby Young] but come on … can you imagine the face of your beloved if you handed this over on the 14th Feb?

It would similar to buying your wife some bathroom scales for Christmas or a new kitchen bin for their birthday [the first done by my Dad in a very rare moment of mental and the latter done by my best friend Paul, who to this day, continues to argue, “… but it was a bloody expensive bin”] which, let me tell you, does not get a positive response from the receiver, however good your intentions may have been.

I would love to know how many of these were purchased by guys for their other halves for Valentines Day. I’d also love to know how many of them are now single.

This whole ‘any excuse to get people to buy our stuff’ really gets on my nerves.

I particularly hate it when car manufacturers/dealers start running ads saying things like:

Show how much you love her this Valentines Day by buying her a new Toyota RAV 4

Look, I know the best presents are the ones you’d love to have but could never justify to buy yourself, but a new car – are you bloody kidding me?

Only the uber-rich, insecure or stalker would do such a thing … though I am sure they justify it by arguing it’s not really to sell cars on Valentines Day, but to get the public to start thinking about the idea of purchasing a new motor, which takes on average 13 weeks or so, before you actually take action.

That aside, another thing that annoys me is how these ads are always aimed at the man, have you noticed that?

Of course I understand why, but it annoys the hell out of me.

What next, running ads in the funeral column saying:

“Yes it’s sad they’ve died, so use the life insurance to cheer yourself up with a new BMW 3 series”

ARGHHHHHHHH!

But the other reason this email is daft – and not just because I’m anti-Valentine’s Day – is because I already own all their products which is, I assume, how they got my details on their database list in the first place.

Yes, I appreciate they don’t know my marital status so they could argue I could still be in the market to buy one of their products for my significant other, but it all highlights the problem with database marketing … it tells you what happened, not why it happened, which ends up with brands cluttering inboxes with offers that people don’t want or make no sense.