Melbourne Herald Sun, 20th February, 2010
Just last week I was complaining about telemarketers and how their phone calls interrupt the evening's dinner and telly.
Now while I was narked at their timing, I didn't say I wanted the poor working stiffs thrown out of a job and set on the street to beg. They have to make a living as we all do, and some jobs are better than others.
Not all are so soft-hearted - I see that our anointed betters are planning to do just that. In 2007 they set up the Do Not Call Register that allows you to stop telemarketers calling your home. Fair enough, it's like putting a "No Advertising Material" sticker on your gate.
But currently, in Parliament, there's a move to extend this, by allowing all businesses and organisations to list themselves - all their telephone and fax numbers.
The trouble is, there are 440,000 small companies in Australia that rely, to a significant degree, on telephone calling to win business. It is the most cost-effective form of business-to-business advertising and an awful lot of firms - and jobs - depend on it.
To my mind, forbidding cold calls is a denial of freedom of speech. The receiver can always tell me to get lost, that's his right, too. But do we need a law to police this?
It's the old nanny state syndrome. We who fought for freedom from censorship, women's liberation, gay rights, sexual freedom, freedom to wear jeans to the office - are finding ourselves compressed by a remorseless political correctness.
From politicians and education administrators, doctors and judges, there is inch by inch pressure to force us all back into the box.
So Manly City Council is trying to ban the sale of bubblegum in shopping centres, the sale of puppies and kittens in pet stores, smoking on the beach, plastic bags and the sale of bottled water at public events.
Senator Stephen Conroy, whose department is responsible for the Do Not Call Bill, is also ploughing ahead with his internet filtering legislation. Which adds up to his being the Minister for the Nanny State Imposition.
A few months ago, at a Melbourne PC User Group meeting, some 300 computer enthusiasts were quizzed by their President, Keith Younger, who asked how many members favoured the internet filtering legislation. Not one hand went up. How many thought it would work? None. Who thought it would slow down our already dismal internet speeds? Up went a forest of hands.
I have yet to find someone in favour of it - but who can stop a NSW politician with a mission?
Mind you, who are we to talk? Already in Victoria soft drinks have been banned from government schools, all confectionary will soon follow. Now I'm not an advocate for child obesity - I just don't like some politician telling me or my kids what to do.
Macquarie University has banned the sale of cigarettes on campus. Back in my day at uni, wearing shaggy hair and puffing endless fags was what it was all about. You grew out of it - in your own time.
Funny thing about nannies. Remember a few years ago when the Howard Government brought in Net Nanny, the free parental software to control children's internet viewing? Well Telstra reported that only one percent of parents ever made use of it. So it's not in demand from the voters.
Oh and the latest internet warning is to beware of messages from the Do Not Call Register. They are being used to deliver a type of virus called trojans, which collect your email and phone details. For sale to the less scrupulous telemarketers.
ray@ebeatty.com
20 February, 2010
Marching to the beat of a different drum
Melbourne Herald Sun, 20th February 2010
Were you ever an army cadet? My own version of that was an outfit called the Sea Cadets. Much like army cadets, only dressed in little blue uniforms and white sailors hats.
We never seemed to have anything to do with sailing or water but spent much of our time marching up and down the parade ground tossing rifles from shoulder to shoulder. I later learned that the reason for this was to drill into us a sense of being a part of an unthinking herd and reacting to orders from any superior without question.
It left me with a lifelong suspicion of regimentation and attempts to make me gallop in any one direction.
I was reminded of this the other day when my hardware store told me they no longer supplied carrier bags. So I walked off, purchases in arms because I suddenly got mean about buying one of their fabric bags.
This was the third time that day it had happened and I realised I was observing a trend. Multi-squillion dollar retail chains suddenly getting righteous about plastic bags and the environment, and saving themselves some money in the process.
The vast amount of packaging that surrounds their goods - boxes and plastic packs, cellophane and polyethylene and polly-wally doo dah day - are conveniently overlooked while the micrometre-thick plastic bag is banished. Now I have no liking for the bags either - but doesn't this all smell of hypocrisy?
We often come across the gallop of stampeding herds. If you can trigger it, there is no better marketing tool.
Inching though the city traffic jams you can find yourself in a solid herd of CRVs. Big boxy four-wheel drives designed for scaling mountains and fording torrents. What on earth are they doing on the Monash Car Park? It's not as if they're allowed to climb the banks and skirt the traffic.
But some clever marketers persuaded many of our citizens that they are intrepid rugged pioneers. Even if they only drive to Collins Street and back.
Rugged individualism doesn't work any more when it goes mass-market. Once upon a time a muscle-bound Chesty Bond type would put intricate Celtic tattoos around his biceps. These days go into a supermarket and you'll be surrounded by tattoos. Worn by housewives, teens, factory workers and clerks. Not quite so rugged any more - but great for the tattoo industry.
Sometimes the trend can be a triumph. Wherever you stand in the herd, you insist on a good cup of coffee these days. The frothing Gaggia is a necessity for any eating establishment. The day-old jar of stewed coffee is hard to find. Hey even McDonalds can serve up a good macchiato in their Mac Café.
These trends can be manipulated. Remember that seedy, ill-suited Welsh phone salesman who entered Britain's Got Talent? Looked sad and dreary till he opened his mouth and sang like Pavarotti. The video clip went round the world and made Paul Potts an overnight sensation.
Think that was fate? Forget it! That was marketing. ("Here run down to the Salvos and find the bloke an awful suit. And I want the hair really nerdy....") So that when he sang the contrast was jaw-dropping. In fact he'd studied opera for years including professional training in Italy.
A couple of years later they found Paul a cross-gender twin in Susan Boyle. Same thing - Scottish spinster in a daggy outfit, bad haircut and makeup - and a brilliant voice. Look at her current albums in the shop today and you'll see her the way she could have looked then. But it wouldn't have pulled off the marketing twist, to arouse the excitement of the herd and send them stampeding to the cash registers.
ray@ebeatty.com
Were you ever an army cadet? My own version of that was an outfit called the Sea Cadets. Much like army cadets, only dressed in little blue uniforms and white sailors hats.
We never seemed to have anything to do with sailing or water but spent much of our time marching up and down the parade ground tossing rifles from shoulder to shoulder. I later learned that the reason for this was to drill into us a sense of being a part of an unthinking herd and reacting to orders from any superior without question.
It left me with a lifelong suspicion of regimentation and attempts to make me gallop in any one direction.
I was reminded of this the other day when my hardware store told me they no longer supplied carrier bags. So I walked off, purchases in arms because I suddenly got mean about buying one of their fabric bags.
This was the third time that day it had happened and I realised I was observing a trend. Multi-squillion dollar retail chains suddenly getting righteous about plastic bags and the environment, and saving themselves some money in the process.
The vast amount of packaging that surrounds their goods - boxes and plastic packs, cellophane and polyethylene and polly-wally doo dah day - are conveniently overlooked while the micrometre-thick plastic bag is banished. Now I have no liking for the bags either - but doesn't this all smell of hypocrisy?
We often come across the gallop of stampeding herds. If you can trigger it, there is no better marketing tool.
Inching though the city traffic jams you can find yourself in a solid herd of CRVs. Big boxy four-wheel drives designed for scaling mountains and fording torrents. What on earth are they doing on the Monash Car Park? It's not as if they're allowed to climb the banks and skirt the traffic.
But some clever marketers persuaded many of our citizens that they are intrepid rugged pioneers. Even if they only drive to Collins Street and back.
Rugged individualism doesn't work any more when it goes mass-market. Once upon a time a muscle-bound Chesty Bond type would put intricate Celtic tattoos around his biceps. These days go into a supermarket and you'll be surrounded by tattoos. Worn by housewives, teens, factory workers and clerks. Not quite so rugged any more - but great for the tattoo industry.
Sometimes the trend can be a triumph. Wherever you stand in the herd, you insist on a good cup of coffee these days. The frothing Gaggia is a necessity for any eating establishment. The day-old jar of stewed coffee is hard to find. Hey even McDonalds can serve up a good macchiato in their Mac Café.
These trends can be manipulated. Remember that seedy, ill-suited Welsh phone salesman who entered Britain's Got Talent? Looked sad and dreary till he opened his mouth and sang like Pavarotti. The video clip went round the world and made Paul Potts an overnight sensation.
Think that was fate? Forget it! That was marketing. ("Here run down to the Salvos and find the bloke an awful suit. And I want the hair really nerdy....") So that when he sang the contrast was jaw-dropping. In fact he'd studied opera for years including professional training in Italy.
A couple of years later they found Paul a cross-gender twin in Susan Boyle. Same thing - Scottish spinster in a daggy outfit, bad haircut and makeup - and a brilliant voice. Look at her current albums in the shop today and you'll see her the way she could have looked then. But it wouldn't have pulled off the marketing twist, to arouse the excitement of the herd and send them stampeding to the cash registers.
ray@ebeatty.com
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