Marketing Uncovered: Price Wars

You've seen the discounts, the sales, and the shops fighting to be the cheapest. Or is it just clever marketing? Let's find out in the latest "Marketing Uncovered" episode!

Here are my top phrases in the shopping category, together with their alternative meanings.

"We guarantee our prices are unbeatable"
This doesn't mean that the prices are the cheapest. You'll often find a host of terms and conditions attached to claims like this. Usually, if you buy the item and then find it cheaper elsewhere, you can get a refund of the extra you paid. But the devil is in the detail - you may have to jump through hoops to get your refund.

"10% off"
And what was the original price? If the company were already more expensive than their competitors, then they still may be more expensive! It's the price you pay at the checkout that counts, not the discount.

"Our customers save £150, on average"
This is designed to lure you away from your current supplier, but again, doesn't guarantee that you'll save money. The key here is that the phrase talks about "our customers", and not the entire population. That's because, with services like insurance and utility companies, no company is cheapest for everyone - it depends on where you live, how much you use, and a whole range of other factors.

"Special offer!"
Why? Is the product a limited edition? Is there a temporary discount? Or is the company trying to offload some outdated products from the back of their warehouse?

A side note
Don't get too sidetracked by prices. A cheap product that doesn't last long can be worse value than a more expensive product that lasts. After-sales service can be important too, and may be worth paying extra for. These are factors that are easily overlooked when comparing prices.

If you've ever wondered why competing companies can seemingly have "cut-throat price wars", while still managing to make a tidy profit at the end of the day, then you might now have an inkling as to how this is done!

(as always, the phrases above are generalisations, and are not intended to reflect any particular company's claims)

Marketing Uncovered: Food Labels

Image credit: Ralf Roletschek

In the latest instalment of Marketing Uncovered articles, I decided to explore some of the ethics around food labelling and advertising claims.

Here, as always, is a run down of my pet hate marketing phrases, together with what I think they really mean.

No added sugar
This just means that the product hasn't been sweetened with sugar. But if it's a sweet product, and it's a processed food (eg. a soft drink), then it has to get its sweetness from somewhere. Sometimes manufacturers use fruit juice concentrate, which is really a sneaky way to use fruit sugar instead of normal sugar. However, for the most part, I find that "no added sugar" usually means "contains artificial sweeteners". Also, because sugar is a natural preservative, removing it can mean that products like soft drinks need stronger artificial preservatives to compensate. So "no added sugar" doesn't necessarily mean "better for you".

Real ingredients
This doesn't necessarily mean you're eating a hand-made product, or one that only uses natural ingredients. Going from the products I've seen using this claim, it currently seems to mean that natural or close to natural ingredients are used. This might include "nature identical" ingredients, for example, a strawberry flavour that is made in a factory, but is almost identical to the natural substance in real strawberries. But as I haven't been able to find an official definition of "real ingredients", it's really anyone's guess as to how tomorrow's products will use this phrase.

85% Fat Free
Regular readers will have already worked this one out. It means that the product contains 15% fat. In other words, when you look at the nutrition information on the back of the pack, you will see that there is 15g of fat per 100g - fairly high. Thankfully, recent industry changes in the UK mean that there are now controls over the use of phrases like "fat free". But it still serves as a useful illustration.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm the one in the supermarket looking at ingredient labels. At least they have tight regulation, and they have to disclose most (but not all) of the contents. I find it a great way to dispel the marketing spin, but only if I have one of those rare ingredients: time!

Image: Bilder im Supermarkt by Ralf Roletschek, CC-BY-SA licence, obtained via Wikimedia Commons.

The Endless Summer

Fresh vegetables at a street market
Image: Biswarup Ganguly

Everyone knows about the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. But did you know that choosing the wrong ones could have an impact on your wallet, your wellbeing, and the environment?

The phrase "Endless Summer" was coined some years ago, to explain how it's always summer in some part of the world. This makes it possible to have fruit and vegetables on sale all year round, no matter whether they're in season or not. Thanks to an Endless Summer, they are always in season somewhere, and can be transported to store shelves anywhere in the world.

As you'd imagine, the environmental impact can be huge, especially if goods have to be kept refrigerated on the journey. And by the time they reach the store shelves, they're already a few days old and have lost some of their nutrients.

Of course, someone has to pay for the transport costs too. That would be you. Well volunteered!

The way around this? Look for produce that's grown in your home country, or at least close to it. Ideally, try to buy from local producers or farmers markets. If there's a poor harvest (which still happens even in developed countries) the local outlets will still have small amounts of local produce. The supermarkets, however, have to buy in bulk and will often buy abroad instead. The supermarket may be cheaper in this case, but don't forget that there is still a cost to the environment.

Even better than all this is to grow your own vegetables. It's easy (no, really it is), and you can start with a plant pot or grow bag on your patio or balcony.

We might not be able to make the summer last all year, but we can make food choices that have a feel-good factor.

Image: Vegetables by Biswarup Ganguly, CC-BY licence, obtained via Wikimedia Commons.

Mental Health Awareness Week

It's Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK. Mental Health issues are often the "elephant in the room" - we all know people who have been affected, but we might not realise because it's a taboo subject. But it needn't be.

Let's break this down using some facts and figures from the UK Department of Health:

• 1 in 4 people will have a mental health issue at some point in their lives. That means you already know people who have been affected
• 9 out of 10 sufferers experience stigma and discrimination
• People with mental health issues are more likely to become victims of violence (not cause it).

A large proportion of mental health issues are related to anxiety and depression.

People with a diagnosis won't necessarily ask friends for help and support. They may be afraid of discrimination, or they may even be in denial. Of those who do reach out to friends, some will be pushed back because their friends are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

If you're a friend in this situation, please keep the friendship going as normally as possible. It is almost always appreciated. If you're stuck for words, the web site Time To Change has ideas and e-cards that you can use to strike up a conversation.

After all, you never know if you'll be the 1 in 4 next time.

Click image to enlarge
Image copyright © 2008 Time To Change, used with permission,
via http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/take-action/campaign-us/share-campaign

Can you dig it?

I hated gardening when I was a youngster. My parents lived in a house with a large garden, and grew their own fruit and vegetables. I was given my own corner for planting, but I hated weeding and hated waiting for things to grow.

Not much has changed. The wife and I have our own house and garden, but still the old bugbear about weeds and waiting. But we're more aware of the benefits of growing your own fruit and vegetables, and they're certainly worth the effort.

We don't have a greenhouse. We don't have any special expertise, other than the advice our parents give us, and what it says on the seed packets. We don't have a big garden area, and we have probably some of the worst soil to work with (heavy clay).

But if we can grow tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes and purple broccoli, then anyone can! Some things we've learned are:

 - not much grows in heavy clay soil, and it's very difficult to improve it. You'll know if you've got some if it sticks together in large clumps when you dig it, and it tends to crack in hot, dry weather. Growing things is a hit and miss affair, but...

 - old buckets, plastic bins and washing-up bowls are great for planting veggies. We clean them thoroughly, drill some holes in the bottom for drainage, then fill with two-thirds topsoil, one-third organic compost, and some "fish blood and bone" mix. All are available from a garden centre. You can even decorate the outside if you're feeling arty!

 - slugs can be kept at bay by burying old glass jars in the ground, so they are flush with the soil. Then fill them with beer. Slugs love the ale, but they get drunk, fall into the jar, and drown!

Hopefully I'll be able to show some of our gardening results later in the year. But for the moment, here's a photo of some of our plants that are well on their way to the dinner table.

Seedlings. From left to right: parsnip, bell pepper, potato, broccoli, carrot
(Photo: mpmedia)

 

 

 

Positive News

Image: NS Newsflash

As they say, "No news is good news". And I've found that one of the ways to keep a positive outlook is to ignore many of the stories in popular media. I still read newspapers occasionally, but I'm careful which paper I buy. I don't like to start the day on a negative note if I can help it.

A surprising number of friends have adopted the same attitude, saying that many news outlets seem to have a negative tone. And it can be difficult to tell a real news story from marketing and political "spin".

I'd like to share a great example that I encountered last week. We were with some friends in a local pub at the time, when the barman started talking about the news.

He had read in his newspaper that 1 in 5 convicted criminals in the UK are residents of other countries, and the majority of those are from Poland. Someone at the bar overheard. "That's ridiculous", he said, "all those foreigners coming over here to commit crime".

I pointed out that, by the same figures, 80% of convicted criminals are UK residents. And only a fraction of the remainder are Polish nationals.

A few people's eyes widened. "Oh yeah...". There was a sudden realisation that the shocking news story wasn't shocking after all. It was, I suspect, written by someone with a hidden agenda. Now, hopefully, no-one will be suspicious of the Polish customers who wander into the pub. Or the locals who buy imported Polish beer.

This all reminded me of a legendary story from the cold war era, where a car race was organised between two teams, from America and Russia.

The Americans won the race, and the US newspapers reported that the Russians lost. However, the Russian newspapers reported that the Russian team came second, and the American team was next to last.

Both stories look like they have opposite views, but in fact they are presenting the same facts in completely different ways. Just goes to show that there's always another side to the news.

Photo credit: Newspapers B&W (4) by NS Newsflash, CC-BY licence, via Flickr

Quest for new socks

Hand-made re-soleable socks,
without anti-bacterial agents
(not my legs. or my socks.)
credit: krysaia

It's that time again. I've had to throw away a bunch of socks with holes in them. Part of me wonders what happened to darning, which seems something of a lost art. But back to the main topic...

New socks are hard to find in the shops. I'm talking about plain, ordinary socks.

If you've bought any in the past year or so, you may not have noticed that they weren't as plain as you thought. Yes, even the humble sock now comes with anti-bacterial agents and "freshness technology". And it's almost impossible to buy men's socks in the UK without it.

Now, no-one likes smelly feet (well, apart from one of our cats, who seems to be developing a strange fetish for socks that have been through a hard yoga session). But there is becoming no choice whether to have socks with chemically-treated fabrics or not.

Plain, ordinary cotton socks (bless 'em) are a rare species.

The packs don't say what the chemicals are. I might feel better if the manufacturers came clean on the label. And I'm sure this would be welcomed by people with skin allergies.

It seems to me that we've survived for a long time without anti-bacterial socks, even when socks had a longer lifespan (through darning). Do we really need them now?

Photo credit: "Sharks socks redux" by krysaia, licenced under CC-BY-SA licence, via http://www.flickr.com/photos/krysaia/7008399231