200% of what?

Although I pride myself on being a right brain thinker - creative, intuitive, conceptual - there are times when I find myself not being able to think creatively enough.

The latest marketing gimmick of offering a 200% guarantee is one of those times when I feel like the cogs in my head are starting to whir too fast and that something is going to pop right off my brain's internal gadgetry.

Am I the only one out here who is asking '200% of what?'?

I most recently saw it in relation to a company that does home inspections.

Apparently the 200% was in relation to the fact that they would give you your money back and pay you for an inspection of your choice......okay, so in reality I do get it but it is pretty obscure if you ask me.

I have also seen it on a carton of milk.....I guess that means that if you don't like the milk that is inside the carton that they will give you two back.....really?

I always thought that a 100% guarantee meant that I would be 100% satisfied. A bit of a tall order but it sounded good and certainly showed that the company in question was confident about the quality of its product.

With the 200% guarantee, I find myself feeling less reassured rather than more reassured because I start thinking 'come on, now they are just making it up as they go along'.

I look forward to the first company that ventures into the unchartered waters of the 300% guarantee!

The Sharing Cup

We went to the movies recently as a family. We find ourselves doing that a lot lately now that we are into these lazy days of summer when the kids have too much time on their hands and are stunningly creative about finding ways to bug the crap out of me and each other.

After buying the tickets...all seven of them...and complaining once again about how expensive it is to do the simple things nowadays, like take the family out to the movies, we headed into the show.

Of course, we got sidetracked by the snack bar for a bucket of popcorn and a bunch of sodas. We bought one of those jumbo sized buckets that is enough to feed a small village and several drinks. At check out, after spending $40.00 on popcorn and soda, I asked if we could get some of their small drinking cups or a couple of paper bags so we could divvy up the popcorn into individual, more reasonably sized servings for the kids to share. Well you would have thought I was asking for something extraordinary and never before seen. Just a few small drinking cups to pour the popcorn into and I lit the place abuzz.

After 10 minutes, three counter attendants and the theater manager later, I was informed that they were unable to give me any extra cups unless I bought them. You know inventory and all that?

I thought the guy was kidding. I had just spent almost $100.00 at the theater on movie tickets, popcorn and soda and they couldn't give me a couple of extra cups so the kids could share their popcorn without fighting. And, oh by the way, be more disruptive to the other theater goers than any cell phone disturbance during show time ever could be!

Now as women, we've all heard about the worrisome trends in our country around increasing isolationism as we get more attached to our cell phones and gaming systems and less attached to each other. So we look for opportunities to get out of the house, spend time together and...here's a new idea...actually share an experience together.

And as a marketer, I see the theater industry trying hard to expand their repertoire to be a place for shared experiences, not just movies. And they are spending millions to do so. They are hosting musical performances, interactive shows, even scheduling mom's weekday gatherings. And they are on to something. I'd much rather schedule a family night at the movies than have everyone in my house go their separate ways and disappear behind a computer screen or the earphones.

But as is so often the case in marketing, they are missing the forest for the trees. I would be so much more inclined to visit my local theater for all kinds of activities...you know, become a more regular customer...if they could just get the little things right.

Like providing a sharing cup.

Not So Global

I know that there is nothing worse than listening to people who weren't born in the States moan about the fact that the US isn't aware that anything exists outside its own borders.

Well, I admit that this is a slight exaggeration, but when it comes to getting international service from a cell phone company, it might as well be true.

I am going to Europe for a couple of weeks - bon voyage everyone! - and I wanted to get international email service on my Blackberry. Personally, I think it should be automatically available, but that is just me.

So I went to the customer service center - a nightmare in itself - only to be told that they couldn't add the feature for me, I had to go to the special 'INTERNATIONAL' division. So having waited a lifetime to get to customer service, I had to wait another lifetime - I am practicing to be a cat with nine lives - to reach someone in the international division.

When I finally got through, I told them what I wanted and they said that they couldn't start the service on my departure date - why not for goodness sake? - they had to start it immediately, charging me almost double for the days that I was still going to be in the States.

When I asked what I had to do to only pay for the days I was away, the customer service rep. told me to call back when I was about to leave.

So.......I was about to hang up in frustration, when the woman I was talking to asked me if she had resolved my problem. Huh? "Well....no" I replied.

This seemed to catch her off guard because she had obviously been told to ask that question no matter what the circumstances and to expect a standard 'yes' as a response.

I guess I threw her off kilter, but she certainly ruined my day so I guess we are even!

Lost in Translation?

I am hoping that there are a few other women out there who are seriously scratching their heads over this commercial for Bayer birth control pills.

Having worked in an advertising agency for many years, I actually have no trouble imagining how this idea was cooked up. A bunch of young, keen creatives are sitting around a table scratching their own heads about how to come up with an idea for a clutter busting commercial that will carry the message that Bayer is a solid, corporate citizen despite some of the bad publicity around its birth control products like Yaz.

So they land on this concept of 'things are not always how they appear' but instead of letting Bayer communicate the message in the serious tone that it deserves, they have a bunch of blindfolded women touching a rhinoceros and trying to guess what it is.

Not only is the idea totally irrelevant and disconnected from the back the half of the commercial that suddenly wisks us to a Bayer laboratory, and consequently leaving us wondering 'where are we now?', but the tone is completely inappropriate for the message they are trying to convey.

Unfortunately for Bayer, the end result is that the viewer, who may or may not have had the mental space previously to wonder about Bayer's ethics, is certainly wondering about them now.