Don’t Let Great Marketing Catch You Off Guard
December 21, 2007 by Pinyo.
There are some really great marketing campaigns out there. So good in fact that you might believe they are head and shoulders above their competitors. So good that their brands became synonymous with their industry — at least, some of them got me convinced.
Car Insurance
When I think about car insurance, I think AllState and GEICO. For me, they have the best commercials. Who can forget the little talking gecko? What about the memorable slogan: “You’re in good hands with AllState” and the blitz about accident forgiveness program.
I found AllState to be an excellent company. They even defended me against one lawsuit — yep, the bonehead who ran the red light and almost totaled my car sued me. I have to say the lawyer retained by AllState was awesome. He literally left the plaintiff lawyer speechless. Unfortunately, AllState was really pricey. I was paying over $3,000 to insure two cars with them.
Guess what? I actually did save a bunch of money by switching to GEICO when I left AllState. But after a year with GEICO, I switched again and saved even more money. I told you about my move to Liberty Mutual in “I Just Saved A Bunch Of Money On My Insurance.”
Cell Phone
So the giant AT&T Wireless was acquired by Cingular and now we have “more bars in more places” with the “rollover minutes.” Exactly where are those “places” anyway? Another great marketing is the one by Verizon Wireless. Sure the geeky guy with his Verizon army is cool, but who can resist the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones pitching T-Mobile?
My family has been using T-mobile for about 5 years…what can I say, Catherine is hot. Unfortunately, our main complaint with T-mobile was poor reception. Switching to Verizon was out of the question, because their phones do not use SIM card; which make them worthless when we travel internationally. So more bars in more places must be better right? Well, not really. We switched to AT&T Wireless but the reception is now worse than before!
Home Internet, TV, and Phone Service
Since I live in Queens, New York, my choices are Time Warner or Verizon when it comes to comprehensive package. To me, Time Warner has a superior commercial with the unforgettable childhood icon — Road Runner. Beep. Beep.
Since we already had Time Warner high speed Internet and cable, I switched to their Triple Play package. To my horror, their digital phone system was barely usable and eventually died on us. I told the full story about switching to Verizon in “Loyalty Is Dead, It’s Better To Be A New Customer.” The services from Verizon is actually better, although, I do miss the HBO and Cinemax On Demand programs.
The Lesson
The lesson for me is don’t trust everything I see and hear; especially on TV. To think of it, the worse offenders are probably the “As Seen On TV” products. Sometimes, there are good reasons for companies to spend a lot of money on marketing. Good marketing can fix a lot of problems.
More about marketing and consumerism:
- Cheap Marketing Tricks Supermarkets Employ: Avoid Overspending By Being Aware @ Personal Financier
- Another Edition of Slick Marketing @ Fiscal Musings
- Twelve Ways Advertisers Insult Consumers @ SavingAdvice.com
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I have had fantastic experiences with State Farm. The handle crisis situtions very well and the rates are always competitive.
They call me when they can lower my rate. Not many companies do that.
The whole point of commercials is to get you to buy their product not give you the plus and minuses unfortunately. For all of these examples the best way to find out if the product is good is word of mouth. Even that has it’s flaws. What’s a shame is that for something like cell phone service you’re usually stuck for at least a year.
Nice to see someone from Queens!
It’s so true…the marketing definitely influenced who I looked into first for my insurance. As it was, AllState gave us a great deal and I decided to leave it at that. (I did look a bit farther than just Geico and AllState, but they were the ones I started with. State Farm’s website wasn’t working right–they didn’t get a chance.)
Typo in title:
“Don’t Let Great Marketing Catches You Off Guard”
I think you meant to say:
“Don’t Let Great Marketing Catch You Off Guard”
@RocketC - I used State Farm at one point. May be I will give them a call next year.
@Free From Broke - Hey, a fellow Queens person!
@Mrs. Micah - Yep, being the first to get phone calls is half the battle. That’s why they spend so much on advertisement. Also, I used to stuck with online quote too, but it’s worth picking up the phone.
@Zapp - Duly noted and corrected. Thank you.
I tried the online route with Geico and Progressive quotes, but they were twice as expensive as what I found through my Nationwide broker. I’ve been happy with it.
Thanks for the mention by the way too
Great Post and follow up comments. You may be able to get my attention with the commercial, but it is the actual deal that will get me and the customer experience is what keeps me.
Sometimes the commercial doesn’t even work. For example when I switched from Farmers to AIG, Farmers couldn’t even compete with the savings. As for ATT, no amount of advertising can convince me to try them because of the amount of negative information I hear from friends and read on blogs about their service. Yeah my new iPhone is great! I love it! AVAYA even created a great business app for it called One X Mobile so I can use it on my company network but I hate the ATT service I get. That is what I have heard, or variations of it from friends.
Good marketing is usually very subtle and cathes most people off guard because it doesn’t necessarily sell a product but rather plants the product in your mind, so that when faced with a number of similar options you go for the one with which you are familiar, rather than the one that makes the most monetary sense, it’s a classic psychological ploy and you are right that we shouldn’t be caught out by it! Remember the BEST companies rarely need to advertise!