Beware TV Ads

Watch much TV? Do you view those irritating ads for products you order by phone, or by going to a web site? Here are some marketing practices that you should be aware of.

It's become common for these ads to offer you (for example), a second what-ever-it-is for free; "just pay separate fee."

First, I don't know how much that "separate fee" is likely to amount to, but you should consider that, with this fee, it's not actually free.

Second, consider this: Say the item costs $19.99 and the second one is "free." I think you should understand the offer this way: The item really costs $10 each but you are being forced to buy two of them.

And then, have you noticed that all prices are "just such-and-such an amount" or "only. . ."? This is a bit of psychology practiced upon you by the merchandiser, trying to make you think (usually unconsciously) that the offering price is low, cheap, a bargain. Maybe a little less subtle is when they say "For the amazing low price of . . . ." Or they imply that the price is lower than formerly. Probably you can't verify that, and I suspect it's most likely not true.

Another trick to make you think the price is a good one is when the screen shows a price with a big red "X" through it and then a lower price, meaning (again) that the price has been reduced. Again, be suspicious of this.

Sometimes, if the price is for some cosmetic is, say, $39.95, maybe you are getting two or three items and the ad will say, "A $170 value." There is no way you can verify that and you should consider it totally phony and made-up.

For more expensive items, it might be something like, "For just five easy payments of $29.99 each." (Note the inevitable "just.") First, I suspect they don't expect you to multiply the amount of the payment by the number of payments to determine the total cost you'll be paying. Face it, you're lazy, and maybe also not good at mental math. And, sometimes the screen will show (for example) five payments, which (again) is crossed out by a big red "X", and then it's four payments--again to make you think you're getting a price reduction and a bargain.

Are these TV offers ever a good deal, or at least reasonable? In one case I compared the TV price with the price for the same item on Amazon. The same.

Sometimes the items advertised on TV--even if the ad says "Not sold in stores"--are in fact available in stores. For example, Bed, Bath & Beyond carries many "As Seen on TV" items--and if you buy the item from BB&B, you won't pay the shipping charge, though you may have to add sales tax to the price.

I frankly don't know whether, buying from TV vendors, you get an okay product, or reasonably fast shipping (the ads often say "Allow 4 —6 weeks for delivery"), or whether you get ripped off on the shipping charges. That's because I've never ordered from a TV ad; I'm too cautious. Though I have occasionally bought "as seen on TV" products, and I would not generalize to say that they are no good.

A final word: A lot of what I say here may be pretty obvious to the more shrewd among us, but, judging from how frequently I hear on the news of scams and so on that people fall for, I do have to believe that, if not actually stupid, my fellow man sometimes is naive, incautious, or just not critical.

Update, May 16, 2018:  Another device may be subtle (well, maybe they're all subtle). "You may qualify" for a hearing aid or for their life insurance. Qualify? To be sold something? You bet you qualify, as long as your money is good. They want to make you think you're lucky that they're willing to let you buy their product; but who really is the lucky party when you shell out your money, you or they?
Added, July 17, 2019: Yes, that is the tactic of a vendor of hearing aids. They make you think you are lucky if you are "accepted" into their 30-day trial period to "evaluate" their revolutionary new hearing aid. But if you are smart you will recognize it's simply "we sell, you buy."
Also, you can dial the number shown on your TV screen to learn about extra benefits that maybe not all Medicare beneficiaries (What, not me? Horrors!) may be receiving. It really is just about an insurance agent on the other end of the phone line who wants to sell you their particular health insurance scheme.

© 2018 by Richard Stein

Standing on the Shoulders of Predecessors

It's often said that, in science, one advance is built on another. In technology or inventions, it's also true that one advance depends on one or more prior inventions.

Movies, for example, were built on the previous invention of photography, but with the new addition of the idea that, if you took a series of photographs and showed them in rapid sequence, you could produce the illusion of motion. So the camera (and film) had to exist, and then what was new was the idea of a camera that could take rapid, sequential photos—and a machine (projector) to show the movies. And that of course also needed a light source, and it was not Edison's incandescent light bulb that was used but an arc lamp, which was brighter. (A similar arc lamp was used to light the movie sets.)

Television, of course, drew upon several prior inventions. First there was the concept of creating a "moving picture" by breaking a scene down into a succession of still frames projected and viewed in rapid sequence—as in the movies.

Also there was the idea of wireless transmission, from radio; and the idea of the camera. Plus, the cathode ray tube, which had been invented several decades earlier, and the notion of creating an image on the screen of that tube by building it up with a sequence of lines which in turn were made up of dots.

Plus, again, the camera. But this time the camera had to create an image that was broken down into lines and dots—the reverse of how the TV image was created on the TV receiver's screen.

And now the television set using a cathode ray tube is pretty much obsolete because the TV sets using LCD and plasma displays (which evidently have come to be called "flat-screen" TV sets) are actually cheaper to make.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein