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Sale NOW ON! There are certain words which have been used so much commercially that they have began to loose their appeal and effectiveness. These words include "free", "save", "cheap" and "sale MUST end soon". The first three of these have been used so constantly by people who work in the advertising industry that they have lost all credibility. Indeed, some advertising companies award hefty bonuses to the employee who can use "save" the most times in one sentence. After a few days at the company they begin to do this instinctively, without thinking about it. Here is a transcript from the office of an advertising agency: "I'm talking VERY cheap, that's a big free saving!." "Cheap?" "Cheap save!" "Save free cheap, Dave!" This conversation would obviously be accompanied by a series of complex gestures intended to express that the conversation is both entirely "free" and relatively "cheap". Here is the same conversation again, carefully translated out of marketing-jargon and into normal everyday English. See if you can notice the subtle differences where the marketing terms have been removed: "Morning." "Morning Dave." In fact, forwards thinking advertising agencies are cutting workloads by as much as 80% (or, in marketing terms, "eighty save percent cheap") by implanting a chip directly into the brain that automatically fills any gaps in the conversation with helpful information about how cheap this free saving really is. The last phrase on that list, "sale MUST end soon", has been overused entirely by furniture retail chains. DFS, for example, has weekly advertisements inviting you to explore their latest sale, which MUST end soon, to make room for the next, exactly identical sale. In fact, the only time it is possible to catch the chain in a state of non-saledom is on bank holidays, or other times when the stores are closed. Occasionally there may be brief transition periods between sales, but these are kept to an absolute minimum due to DFS' policy of immediately dismissing any store manager who allows a non-sale period to go on for more than three hours and six minutes. This jargon saturation has now extended to insurance sales, with the latest addition "save 10% on your insurance!" I have seen this claim on every single insurance advert I can think of. Not only that, but I also see it in my local supermarket, most banks, at the post office and all over the internet. I've come to the conclusion that it has become a legal requirement for any business that employs more than three people to offer me at least 10% off my insurance. I would just like take the opportunity to stress the vital importance of the number one rules of general safety. Kids, NEVER get in a car with a strange man who offers you 10% off your insurance, and NEVER accept insurance quotes from strangers. I may not be a financial spectator, which means that I am not qualified to officially offer advice on insurance premiums (a privilidge reserved for those with the financial rank of 'Chancellor of the Exchequer' or higher) - but if company A is offering 10% off company B, which is offering 10% off company C, which promises to beat any quote by 10%, then I have come to the conclusion that they should each be paying ME a premium of £118 a month. Eventually someone has to realize that if EVERY insurance company is offering a 10% saving compared to EVERY other insurance company, something has gone wrong. I have worked out the cause of this seemingly impossible situation. Insurance companies test their own premiums against those of their competitors, but when sending off a form to the competition they might not check the details quite as thoroughly, and might accidentally quote a slightly higher annual mileage. They might also make a couple of similar small errors -- such as mistakenly siting their occupation as international terrorist, and carelessly lining the envelope with anthrax -- it's amazing how fast these tiny mistakes add up. Lo and behold, the premium comes back a little higher. Anyway, I'm going to stop worrying about such things, and get back to watching the Olympic Games, which is currently offering all its athletes a generous ten percent off their insurance. - Sam Smith By Sam Smith. |
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