How Advertising Works Part 356

Every so often you hear stories of estate agents who decide, as a bit of a wheeze, to start advertising property "truthfully". Sure as eggs is eggs, they get a lot of publicity and everyone has a chortle.
Advertisements, of course, are not allowed to be misleading but you can dress up even the dullest truths in fancy clothes. If a soap powder is given a new additive that makes things glow, you call it "whiter than white" and link it to beaming kids in spotless England football shirts who later go on to become Michael Owen. They're not promising that your child will become a multimillionaire for kicking a ball into the back of a net (someone please remind Michael that's what he's supposed to do!) but it creates a positive linkage the next time you are in the supermarket.
Interestingly, some of my students did some surveys recently (I tell them not to do surveys, but it seems to be ingrained in them at school) in which people say, predictably, they a) are not influenced by advertising and b) they can remember ads but not what they are advertising. The truth is more complex: advertisers don't intend that you see an ad on TV and decide to stop what you are doing and go down the shops to buy a tub of margerine. What they want is for you to forget about it, then next time you go to the supermarket and are faced with row upon row of seemingly identical products, your memory of hopw the ad made you feel will create a linkage and a point of differentiation.
That's why most ads are for products that are largely the same as all the other products - shampoos, detergents, cereals and so on. They need differentiation.

Does telling the truth work?

Spotted today on eBay:

Guaranteed future classic!  If this car is not regarded as a classic by, say, 3000AD then contact me in person and I will give you a full refund without any quibbles.

The car is a 1993 Ford Orion 1.6LXi 16v on a “K” plate (which you may find mildly amusing if you’re a hot-shot COBOL programmer).

It has just short of 5,000 miles on the clock, although we may safely assume that it’s on its second time round.

The car is taxed until the end of August and MOT’d until November.  There is a genuine reason for sale … that it’s a very, very dull car.  It starts, it stops, it goes around corners, you can put people inside and stuff in the boot; all of which are useful for a car, but don’t make it terribly exciting so I’ve bought myself an Audi Quattro instead.

Right, we’ll do the good points first (if you’d rather do the bad points first then close your eyes and page down now).

It has been very reliable for the 8 months I’ve had it and has always started first time.

It has electric front windows, power-steering, a sunroof, central locking and a factory fitted alarm/immobiliser – all of which work.

It also has a Kenwood 10 CD auto-changer and head unit, with a removable control panel.  Again, these are all in working order.

Most of the bodywork and paint is in very good condition.

The interior is unworn.

There’s a big sheath of past receipts, MOTs and the original owners handbook.  These would be great if you like that sort of thing.

I’ll throw in the Haynes manual for it, free of charge.  Alternatively you can pay 300 quid for the  manual and I’ll give you the car to go with it free of charge.

For the money you could do a lot worse (you may disregard this point when the bidding exceeds ten thousand pounds, when you really could do a lot better for the money).

It has little England flags on the number plates.

OK, now you’re all fired up I’ll give you all of the bad bits.

There is a small patch of superficial rust on the off-side passenger door (see photo).

There is an equally small dent in the boot lid (see photo).

The temperature gauge doesn’t work (no photo, but it points to cold if you want to visualise it).

There’s a small cigarette burn in the back seats, about the middle.  I nearly forgot about, so you probably will as well.

For some reason it only idles on 3 cylinders, but the 4th one kicks in at about 1,000rpm.  You could fix this properly, or you could set the idle speed to 1,000rpm, or you could just ignore it (which is what I’ve been doing).

It has little England flags on the number plates (they weren’t put there by me, but I’ve left them there as new plates would represent an investment of a considerable part of the car’s value.  If anybody from Scotland wants to buy the car then I’ll provide, free of charge, masking tape to put over the plates when they drive home, to prevent them being lynched).

For the boy-racer crowd; the engine is neither supercharged nor turbocharged and doesn’t generate 300bhp or have a drain-pipe for an exhaust.  The wheels aren’t alloy, the speakers are the standard Ford ones and, unfortunately, the car is not compatible with those little blue neon lights you get in Halfords.

That’s pretty much it for the car, but feel free to ask more questions if you wish and I’m happy to take more photos for you. 

Now for the boring mumbo jumbo …

The car is located in Northumberland, which is England’s border county.  The border in question is the one with Scotland, this means that the car is a VERY LONG WAY FROM LONDON!

Any winning bidder who whines that they didn’t realise how far away the car was and uses that as an excuse for not buying it will receive negative feedback (if e-bay allowed you to leave “stupid” feedback they’d get that, but they don’t, so it will have to be negative feedback saying that they’re stupid).

Because I’ve transferred my insurance to my Audi I can no longer drive this car and, therefore, I am unable to deliver it anywhere, not even for ready money.  However, if a buyer is either local or can make it to Newcastle train station or airport I am happy to give them a lift to my house to collect the car.  My wife, who has hated this car since day one, may offer other all manner of “extras” to somebody who is actually going to take it off her drive-way, but these will have to be negotiated with her and are not included in the price.

Um, the bit above about taking more photos applies only to the car.  I’m not providing photos of my wife.

As is the norm, you should remember that you’re bidding to buy and not to just come and have a look.  If anybody wants to bid to just come and have a look they are welcome to, but it’s really not that impressive a car and I for one wouldn’t pay to see it.  No paying to see the wife either, sorry, but she gets spooked by that sort of thing.

Anybody who wins the bidding and then turns up and tries to haggle will be asked to wait while I go and buy a more vicious dog to set upon them.

Depending on how the auction is going I might stick an advert for this car in my local supermarket, so remember it’s the might of e-bay versus a free postcard sized ad in Safeways.  Don’t let those shopping b@st@rds get one over on you!

That’s it.  Thanks for looking and happy bidding.

At the time of viewing, three bids had been received with the highest being £55.