Welcome

Welcome to OFF the MARKeting, a personal look at some of the worst practices in marketing.

While these anecdotes are intended to be irreverent and amusing, they are also real stories about real people and real brands that hold real lessons for marketers everywhere.

Read. Enjoy. Participate.

Larry Robiner

Little Red Verizon-Hood

When this text message buzzed in on my cell phone the other day, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it:

From: 900070002925
FREE VZW MSG:
You are trending to incur substantial data usage charges on your account. We can help. Call 888-320-0591 for details. Reply Q 2 opt out.

Helpful warning or wolf in disguise? You decide.

Free Shipping* at Buy.com

My son got a new free cell phone that doubles as an MP3 player, so he quickly decides he’s going to download his entire iTunes collection. After about 7 songs, the phone memory is full. Nothing is ever free…

So now it’s time to order some more memory — gigabytes of it — on one of those tiny little micro memory chips that you insert into the phone with tweezers. (By the way, are these chips available for the human brain??)

I do the obligatory online shopping search to find the merchant with the best price for this commodity. The lucky winner: Buy.com. Even better, they are offering FREE SHIPPING! I give my son a high five and take out the credit card. But I didn’t see the fine print.

Not doing your Jabra at CompUSA

I finally caved in, cut the cord and bought one of those ubiquitous bluetooth headsets for my cell phone. “Headset” is a bit of a misnomer, actually. The thing is about the size of a nickel and weighs a gram and a half soaking wet. Anyway, it works great and now I can walk around and make everyone think I’m talking to myself.

The first problem occurred when I bought the device in a mysterious “bulk pack”. Later, I was put on hold for 12 days by the manufacturer.

US Petroleum squeezes more than the pump handle

Who doesn’t love a bargain?

When my wife and I saw a gas station with a sign out front advertising $4.03 a gallon (and saw our needle was near empty), we pulled right in and asked to fill it with “regular”. (Note the absurdity in the last sentence? What has the world come to when we consider $4.03 a bargain?!).

This was one of those off-brand mom-and-pop full serve filling stations — US Petroleum in Cambridge, MA. What we didn’t know at the time was that mom and pop’s real names were actually Bonnie and Clyde.

Verizon: Why can’t you hear me now?

There are few things more disturbing than being a victim of credit fraud. I have twice had my credit card number stolen (not my card, mind you, just the number). My card issuer has been great both times. They sent me a new card overnight and I was not responsible for any of the fraudulent charges.

But the biggest hassle by far is updating my credit card information with all the merchants with whom I have registered for automatic payments, reward programs, quick checkout, etc.  Cable, travel agent, Amazon, etc.  I have about 20 of these. I learned my lesson the first time this happened and I now keep a handy list of all these businesses. So the second time I was a victim, I just went down the list and updated them one at a time. Simple, right? Think again.

Loaves & Fishes & a whole lotta direct mail

I attended the wedding of two close friends one rainy Sunday morning in May in Northern California. For a wedding gift, as requested by the couple, I made a donation to their favorite charity — Loaves & Fishes. I felt good about this gift. I knew it would not be yet another kitchen gadget, set of towels or crystal stemware that would forever blend into the backdrop of domestic obscurity. It was simple. I was making a donation to help feed the poor, who clearly needed the money more than my upwardly mobile friends.

I have been receiving direct mail solicitations from Loaves & Fishes ever since. As many as six times a year. Did I mention that I made my gift nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO?!

Hertz like the Dickens

There is a first time for everything. For me last January, this first was getting caught speeding by an electronic surveillance camera mounted above a city street just outside downtown Cleveland. It was late. There weren’t any cars on the road. I was just trying to get back to my hotel after dinner.

Levenger customer escapes with no questions asked

I’ve always admired the Levenger catalog.

I’ve fantasized in its writerly pages and imagined the life of a serious author that I, well, could only imagine. I even bought my Dad one of those fancy birds-eye maple journals for a birthday present once. I remember he said it was so beautiful that he didn’t think any words he wrote in it could do it justice. In the end, he only ever wrote a few pages, but I treasure that journal now that he’s gone for its natural beauty and his short reflections, recorded in his own hand (which precious few can read).