if i wanted trailers, i'd have gone to the movies!

i have written previously about the story we tell our shoppers. i believe that this story has to be constant and consistent. that each retailer must be able to be relied upon to deliver something. a cold and pretty miserable weekend in cape town reminded me of the effect we have when we disregard this in favour of the corporate greed story.

i have two beautiful daughters and regard myself as a hands-on, enlightened, modern etc etc dad. i must admit, however, to having resorted to renting dvd's for the girls to watch, just to give my wife and i a break. we dont have a television, so these dvd's are played on a laptop in the lounge. i am constantly annoyed by how long it takes to actually begin watching the movie from the time i insert the disc. now, i am not sure if you can avoid the experience when watching on a conventional dvd player and tv combo, but on a laptop you may have to wade through between 4 and 10 trailers and adverts, before you can settle down to watch what you bought or rented. the adverts normally include a pretty scary and disturbing anti-piracy advert, and occasionally include an inappropriate trailer.

my friends know me as the guy who actually purchases all the music and movies in my possession. some regard me as antique or even quaint. i just failed to believe that, as napster and torrent so convincingly taught, from this point hence all music and movies are free.

now to the subject of my gripe. i pledge to purchase or legally rent all the movies we watch. in return i would like to be entertained.

i do not however want to be sold to!
i have already paid!

the amount of selling i am subjected to every time i put on a dvd for the girls, makes me wonder why i don't just copy the movies off the network. "coming fall 2005" doesn't quite have the same ring in the southern hemisphere winter of 2008! it just builds resentment.

how often do we just disregard our story to see if we can get a few extra rands out of a shopper? woolies do it consistently with their hell run of sweets. just thank the shopper and ask them to come back. they are worth much more, over their lifetime with you, than a hard sell impulse buy. remeber your story, tell it at the point of sale! besides, if you push shoppers too far they may just stay home and download a pirate copy!