My wife and I don't have television. That is to say, we don't have network television in our home. We do have a TV, and we do have a Wii, and we do love watching our Netflix (when she waits for me). Now, primarily, this decision is based upon our finances: there are simply better things one (or two) can do with $80/mo. In fact, if money was not a constraint, we probably would have cable or, in the very least, some distribution of Discovery Health.
So when the opportunity to bask in the glow of the boob tube does arise, we jump on it; and today, babysitting our friends' cats afforded such an opportunity. Our friends do have TiVo, but sometimes commercial television can be just as interesting as the entertainment its affording. Unfortunately, Discovery turned out some real stinkers, mostly targeted at Grandma and Grandpa: pharmaceuticals, life insurance, reverse mortgages, and Robert Wagner.
And then, to my great disgust, was a commercial for the latest Mercury Mariner. Actually, it was a commercial for hot summer deals from Mercury. But the disgusting part was a not-so-clever or hot repackaging of the standard EPA fuel rating estimates: "429 miles per tank" (paraphrasing). Miles per tank? From which marketing guru's brain did that spew forth? When did we start advertising how far a car can go on a tank of gas?
I'm disgusted because Mercury has tried and failed to inject into my consciousness an additional step between the actual mileage and the cost of gasoline (actual mileage: 26 MPG, highway, specifications). I was left feeling very curious about the American public and whether or not there are many of us who would fall for such a ploy.
Relatively speaking, 26 MPG in an SUV is nothing to get upset about (can anyone say, "Hummer"). But "four hundred twenty-nine" certainly sounds like more than "twenty six," even though the end result (for me) would be the same: $62.70 as the pump. I'll have to ask a real marketing guru to refresh my memory on the Blink experiments with regard to numbers and psychology. The only thing worse than an intentional effort to obscure the truth is an ineffective one.
Keep trying Mercury: maybe one day you'll have something that people my age want to buy.
