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Dec. 15th, 2007 10:36 amAt work we often talk about advertising being "high IQ" or "low IQ". Low IQ media would be anything that is cheap, cheesy, lacking in qualitative measures or misses the audience completely. For example, most people today would find vintage cigarette advertising to be very low IQ because consumers are far more used to advertising and more savvy about the messages that can persuade them.
Anyhow, the point of the pre-ramble is that my His Dark Materials omnibus arrived in the mail from Chapters-Indigo and it contained a mystery gift card. The only reason I ordered from Chapters-Indigo was that I wanted a Webkinz stuffed animal and I needed something extra to get the free shipping, and I wanted the book anyway (Amazon.ca has it $2 cheaper, but they don't sell Webkinz :-))
The mystery gift card entices the recipient with the possibility of winning $1000 in merchandise, but to find out if you're a winner you have to spend $50 in-store before you can redeem the card. It's not hard to spend $50 on books, especially when the Canadian price on a book is often $5-10 more than the American price. But it is hard to get to the nearest brick and mortar store because we don't live near one. Chapters-Indigo stores tend to be for the burbs, just not ours :-)
As much as I love coupons, I'm mildly affronted to receive this offer because it's so low IQ to appeal to a greedy nature. And this is a wired world where I can find the best deal on anything with my fingertips, and a real world where the local independent bookstore is charging the US price for books, so this isn't the best customer reward they could offer. The minimum prize is $5 and it seems more and more coupons are making the consumer work harder under the guise of saving a few bucks. Why can't they just send me a $5 coupon that's good any time, real world or online?
Anyhow, the point of the pre-ramble is that my His Dark Materials omnibus arrived in the mail from Chapters-Indigo and it contained a mystery gift card. The only reason I ordered from Chapters-Indigo was that I wanted a Webkinz stuffed animal and I needed something extra to get the free shipping, and I wanted the book anyway (Amazon.ca has it $2 cheaper, but they don't sell Webkinz :-))
The mystery gift card entices the recipient with the possibility of winning $1000 in merchandise, but to find out if you're a winner you have to spend $50 in-store before you can redeem the card. It's not hard to spend $50 on books, especially when the Canadian price on a book is often $5-10 more than the American price. But it is hard to get to the nearest brick and mortar store because we don't live near one. Chapters-Indigo stores tend to be for the burbs, just not ours :-)
As much as I love coupons, I'm mildly affronted to receive this offer because it's so low IQ to appeal to a greedy nature. And this is a wired world where I can find the best deal on anything with my fingertips, and a real world where the local independent bookstore is charging the US price for books, so this isn't the best customer reward they could offer. The minimum prize is $5 and it seems more and more coupons are making the consumer work harder under the guise of saving a few bucks. Why can't they just send me a $5 coupon that's good any time, real world or online?
