This is also called Marketing

I had been to Spencer’s one fine Sunday, two weeks back. Two men were blocking almost every person trying to enter into Spencer’s. And they were distributing some forms for filling it up.

When I tried to walk past them, S called out to me with forms in his hand.  I looked at him questioningly.

Fill up these forms and get a free gift from Spencer’s – S told me, as that was what that sales man had told him.

I was hesitant. If Spencer’s is giving a free gift to all the customers, they’ll do it inside, where you bill the things.

But S was insistent and put a pen and a form in my hand. They only need our name and phone number was his argument – it won’t take a lot of time to fill.

I am again against giving my phone number to Tom, Dick and Harry on the road. And there was no indication on the form, that its Spencer’s who are doing this free gift promotion.  No Company Name was printed on the form. Why does S take it so easily ?????

So, we filled up two forms, one in my name and one in S’s name, but I wrote S’s number on both the forms.

After a fortnight, yday, one man called up.

“Sir, you filled up a form sometime back at Spencer’s. Remember ?????  Congratulations, Sir !!!! You have been shortlisted among the top 20 winners. And I am very happy to inform you, that you have got gifts, not one, not two but three. They are Kitchen set worth 5000/-, One week stay at Munnar and a One Night stay at a Beach Resort on the outskirts of Chennai.  Can you come over to our Office by 5pm today and collect your gifts ?????? “

Now, I am sitting stunned listening to all these.  Who on this earth will give three free gifts, to the top 20 shortlisted winners, just for filling up a form ????? What do they want from us ???????

Then, when I checked out their Office Address, I found that they are a Holiday Resort Company, trying to sell the holiday shares to people. They make a few people attend a meeting and talk and talk and mesmerize the crowd into buying holiday shares.

And when we didn’t turn up at the meeting, at the scheduled time, they kept on calling us.  Even after politely refusing the gift offer and clearly telling them that we cannot attend the meeting, the calls continued.

Then my Dad told me that he had attended one such meeting and Thank God, he got some urgent call, he left half-way through.  Only if you buy the holiday shares, you’ll get all those free gifts, was explained later in the meeting, I believe.

It’s such a cheap marketing initiative, is my opinion.

[Via http://umsreflections.wordpress.com]