Marketing 101
I don’t know about you, but I am getting more and more cell phone marketing calls by the day. The old standards include something about my Google Business Listing needing to be upgraded, a desperate need to lend me money either for my business under some sort of free government benefit regime or just to consolidate my debts, my car warranty running out (that one always wants me to say “well, go catch it!” like my childhood prank refrigerator calls), or my ever present and insatiable need for more low-priced Viagra. I also blame myself for having once made a $50 contribution to the National Firefighter’s Association or some such thing. Now, there is a guy with a low and well-paced voice who calls me from various Upstate New York numbers that represents some combination of the Firefighter’s, Law Enforcement, various Veterans Associations, Health Care Workers Organization, Wounded Veterans, Homeless Veterans, Police & Fire Workers, Wildfire Prevention Consortium or Titanic Visitor Relief Fund. Does that guy not realize that I can recognize his radio-perfect voice a mile away and have usually hung up before he finishes his first sentence?
I used to very politely say something like, “I’m sorry, I handle my affairs differently”, then I went to a simple, “No, thank you”, then I reverted to just hanging up, now I am considering berating him back. Every once in a while I see another Upstate phone come up (why does it never say “Suspected Spam”?) and I answer it to hear a thin and whispy woman’s voice rather than the big loud Tom Bodett voice. That give me pause until I hear her mention one of Tom’s favorite charities, and then I hang up on her too. I have been blocking these calls for years now and that seems to do almost nothing. They have a limitless supply of new Upstate numbers to use. In fact, I am beginning to think that if I don’t block them, it may throw them off their game and perhaps they will finally realize that I am on to them and that I have some devious non-blocking tracing capability. Maybe that will make them go away.
About all I can say is that in an era when internet personalization and Big Data are ubiquitous and pervasive, what does all this marketing say about me? I know that Netflix and Prime have me nailed to the wall on my viewing preferences. As a kid who grew up thinking Combat with Vic Morrow was the best show on TV ever, all the streaming services I subscribe to tee up one WWII movie or another for my viewing pleasure. It has gotten to the point where if Kim is going to watch with me, I sign into those accounts as a guest so as to get a better array of choices and not just get stuck in Nazi and Tojo hell. One of the things that I don’t understand about the psyche is that I am a raging pacifist and anti-gun person to the extreme. My mother kept guns from my playlists until she couldn’t fight it anymore and finally bought me a BB gun when I was 12 (yes, just like Ralphie in A Christmas Story). I find assault rifles unconscionable and hand guns almost as bad. And yet, give me a John Wick movie or Midway any day of the week. Once when I was challenged on whether these sorts of movies promote violence and should be banned, I found myself arguing that they should not because watching them exorcized those violence demons in people like me and made us better people. That is a rather thin argument, but it was the best I had on the spur of the moment to defend my choices in movies. So, Prime and Netflix can keep sending Saving Private Ryan and The Dirty Dozen my way all they want with a good degree of take-up on my part.
But back to the spam calls, I don’t understand their formula for success. Did that one-time $50 gift make me a permanent member of the must-call club of Upstate New York? I would have thought they would have some statistician onboard who has figured out an algorithm that says $50 gets you just so many attempts that get hang-ups before they move on to greener pastures. I actually think that has worked in reverse, the more I hang-up the more they seem to call. Maybe I have done something to show them that I can be worn down by repetition. Maybe they feel I am a bleeding heart that has no resolve. Whatever it is that they have concluded about me, they keep calling and calling and are starting to drive me crazy. Maybe that’s the marketing angle. Maybe they are really a front-end marketing campaign for some local therapy service. They are plotting like the guys behind the curtain in The Social Dilemma, figuring out how best to drive me crazy and make me question the very fabric of my soul, such that I have to reach out for high-priced help to solve my deep-seated identity and existential crisis.
No, I suspect this is a more ham-handed marketing effort devoid of Big Data or any such thing. They find one loose thread in my online profile and try to exploit it to the hilt. Let’s take my debt utilization as an example. Having been a banker for 45 years, I have a certain perspective on credit utilization. To start with, whether its these sorts of marketers who want to make money off of people’s debt woes or just the credit agencies, they do not understand borrowers like me. I use American Express as my main expense concentration vehicle (for some reason, I like the points). I have “Been a Member since 1976” of which I am weirdly proud. I am also proud of my 47-year track record of never (I repeat, NEVER!) having been late on a full payoff of the monthly bill. If I have to go rob a 7-11 to make my payment on time, I do it. I do not want American Express to ever question either my ability or willingness to pay my bill. A number of years ago AMEX started wanting to offer credit to its heavy users and I somehow think that’s a trick or at least a slippery slope and I refuse to give into it. I pay that damn bill, no matter how big it is, exactly when it is due. I even, once in a while, pay it a few days early, just to prove to them that I can. Well, the FICO people haven’t figured out people like me yet and they are forever telling me that my credit card balance has gone up or down based on my AMEX balance and payoff cycle. You would think that 47 years of history would be a big giveaway, but Big Data hasn’t gone that far yet.
Apparently, that AMEX history and the fact that I make sure to occasionally (at least once a year) use a portion of each and every credit card, not just to feed them some fees, but also to feed them at least one month’s worth of interest on a small balance, just to whet their appetite. I know the psychology of lenders, they want you to borrow and help them make money. Well, I want credit availability, the reasons for which are not entirely clear, but I think of it as a part of my safety net, financially speaking. I grew up in a banking world where people actually paid fees for credit availability, so I maintain perhaps 6 or 7 credit cards (even with institutions like Citibank, who I have come to despise for various historical operational reasons) and keep the available credit at a level that feels like an emergency cushion to me. Like all cushions, they are best when they never have to be called into use and so far, so good on that front for me.
It all makes me think that if I am not so different than others (who’s to say on that one?), why doesn’t some marketing genius invent a spam call to sell me credit availability that can get established and then never used. Maybe I would use it to give a donation to the American Firefighters or Wounded Veterans, or buy some Viagra. Now THAT’s Marketing 101.