Re: Marketing block

[P Newman <pnewman1 -at- HOME -dot- COM>]

Many years ago, I tried an interesting ploy. I was hanging political
posters, (no one ever reads them.) I hung them upside down. More
people were seen twisting their necks to see what the signs said. :-)

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: Janet Valade <janetv -at- SYSTECH -dot- COM>
To: <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: Marketing block

>         <<Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon:  on web pages,
and now
> even on signs,
> > I find myself disregarding anything too flashy as an "ad."  I
don't even
> > read
> > it.  Sometimes it turns out to be important information.
>         snip snip
> > Do others do this?  Are we desensitizing people with flashy
marketing
> > materials?  Or am I just getting old?>>
> >
>         I think context has an effect, as well as the design. In
places
> where you have seen much advertising before, you tend to expect
everything
> you see to be advertising. In a recent situation, I concluded that
material
> included in software packaging is a problem. I believe that everyone
ignores
> all the loose papers in the box, believing it is all
glossies--advertising
> for other products the company sells. You used to at least shuffle
through
> it looking for the registration card, but now often don't even need
to do
> that due to online registration. I recently purchased some software
and ran
> into a problem installing it. Eventually, the solution was found by
poking
> around their web site, which led to the discovery that there was a
warning
> on a loose piece of paper in the box. The company had tried really
hard to
> inform users. The paper in the box was a bright florescent pink,
trying to
> call attention to itself. But, in my opinion, people just don't read
those
> things. The bright color actually probably was counter-productive,
making it
> look more like advertising. Looking like a warranty card might work
better.
>
>         Interestingly enough, just a matter of days after this, the
company
> I work for needed to warn people to stop doing something that many
of them
> are doing. So, we were discussing how to do this. I recommended that
the
> warning paper put into the box be white with large black print, the
goal
> being to make it look as little like advertising as possible. We
started
> discussing gluing it to the hardware some way, so people would have
to
> remove it, possibly reading it, before they could use the hardware.
>
>         Janet
>
> Janet Valade
> Technical Writer
> Systech Corporation, San Diego, CA
> mailto:janetv -at- systech -dot- com
>
>
>
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