NPO #21: Sales Math and Words What Ain't Words

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Night Owl

As some of you might know, I am in the midst of completing another term of my online Marketing degree at WGU. You may or may not also be aware that, even as a Marketing student, I find words and mathematical operations that are made up for advertising purposes (buzzwords, drug names, cringe portmanteau, etc.) to be extremely aggravating. So put on the latest hot jam from DJ Skyrizi, make sure your two kids, Rybelsus and Eliquis (which sounds like a medication with "may cause your horse to talk" on its side-effect list), are sufficiently distracted, remember to addivide three halves more espresso shots to your Al Pacino-sponsored Dunkacchino (because Adam Sandler references now live rent-free in my head such that I expect him to invite Kevin James, Chris Rock, Sean Astin, and Rob Schneider over and film a Happy Madison movie in my brain that's sponsored by Pizza Hut, Apple, and Dicks Sporting Goods, where he's an incompetent horse jockey married to Heidi Klum), and prepare for the following, marketing-inspired rant FROM March 11, 2012 (Piece Offerings #17: Sales Math and Words What Ain't Words):

I'm tired of being confused by commercials. Today I heard a commercial that claimed the advertised product had "four times less" of some detrimental feature or other. What the hell does that mean? It sounds like some made-up mathematical operation that only the false gods of sales and marketing would be capable of conceiving (is it Multiplitraction? Subtractiplication? I don't know or care, but someone, please shoot me before I allow another portmanteau to fall on my head, ejecting my brains all over the floor like some hapless victim of a Final Destination film).

It seems like we're always being flabbergasted into buying something by phrases like "as low as $19.95 or less" or being convinced that our unwanted crap could sell for "as much as $100 or more" when most of us know it's over $20 with tax and whatever recycling program we give our scrap gold to will only give us five cents for it. Can we not buy or sell something without having our hopes raised by unnecessary contradictions that set limits and then immediately and fantastically break those limits? We as shoppers are perfectly capable of making up our own minds, so it would be greatly appreciated if the advertisers could focus on making up their own.

And speaking of portmanteau, if I hear about one more group of Cabulance-driving Maxxinistas using Synergy to take advantage of their latest Shopportunity, I may beat my readers to the punch and shoot myself in the head. So you can each take your Venti Jamocha Frappuchino with a Soy FInch and other words that aren't in the Dictionary and go auto-fellate to Martha Stewart Living in the dumpster behind Jamba Juice.

And have a nice day :)

Time Drops will be dropping shortly.

Night Owl,

Who?