Musings on marketing...

Being rather gray and somewhat dreary this weekend, not to mention chilly and damp, I tended to some loooooong overdue cleaning, dusting, vacuuming....everything except my taxes. Hey, just slow this year, what can I say...

Some time ago I blogged about a mailing ad that talked about how life was too short to do your own cleaning. Behold another such mailing...I'll give 'em credit for the 50's comic book look that was at least an attempt to hide the topic in a little humor:


Yep, good ol' Cleaning Authority will happily take away the trepidation one might have at the prospect that they might actually have to do their own cleaning...after all, if one doubts his or her ability to clean house, then they will do a lousy job at best, so why not farm it out to a professional to do it right the first time...or every couple of weeks?

Another mailing was for Bed, Bath, & Beyond, with their quite regular "20% off sale" postcard. As a consumer, I'll never be lured in by a 10% sale, and a 20% sale ranks runner-up in that ho-hum category.


Nonetheless, I enjoy reading fine print, be it for an ad like this or a car dealership (THOSE are rich with traps and exceptions)...and at the very bottom in red is the area where the following disclaimer is. Sorry, but if you enlarge the pic you won't be able to read the fine print it is SO small. Yep, 20% off whatever you want from the store...except for the following product lines:

All-Clad

Nautica

Tempur-Pedic

Wusthol

Margaritaville

DKNY

Tommy Bahama

Wedgwood

Lenox

Waterford

Vera Wang

Nambe

Riedel

Orrefors Kosta Boda

Oreck

Capresso

Miele

kate spade

Swarovski

Versace

Alessi

Richard Ginori

iJoy

Frette Home products


Oh yeah, see store for details. Naturally, you can't use the discount to get gift cards, but that's everybody's policy. 24 lines of products excepted, which is about as extensive a list as I've ever seen for some big store-wide sale...if you can truly call it that...

"Next...!"

Linens 'n Things gets a consolation prize for their Sunday circular ad:


They're just a 'wannabe' compared to the previous ad, as they listed only 14 brands not eligible for the small discount.

Back at Christmas, I found an off-brand 10-cup thermal coffee maker for $28...how could I go wrong? I suppose you can say I got three months of good service before the thermostat went haywire a couple of days ago. Seems the water being heated and sent to the filter area was hot enough to be practically all steam...10 cups of water became maybe 4 ounces in the bottom of the pot. Don't need that kind of electrical malfunctioning in the house.

And so I got a Mr. Coffee thermal model...I just love the thermos idea as I can preload my sweetener and cream, just like my grandmother drank it and taught me when I was little. OK, I've never been 'little', but when I was 'young', rather. I set the timer, and as I wake up I smell fresh coffee, grab the thermos and can sit and write uninterrupted (except for Mercy wanting another treat or to go out and look for nocturnal gollywogs for the third time!).

With the timer feature, I found this inserted card quite amusing:

I know why they disclaimed this, preheating the carafe, as MC has had a consumer complaint history of having less than hot temperatures on some models...but to tell someone to do all of this when you're using a timer? That's about as useful as a pair of oars in the desert.

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March goes out like a...lamb, I guess. Warming trend ahead, though skies stay rather unsettled this week, and it looks like good weather to put some grass seed out and let nature help with the watering. Afterall, you know about those April showers which bring May flowers which bring...

...Pilgrims.