[mnw.pm] Re: Booth Babe rant

jeff at yoak.com jeff at yoak.com
Fri Jul 7 16:11:53 CDT 2000


On  7 Jul, Peter Scott wrote:

> What bothers me just as much - I have written lengthy tirades on trade show 
> brain damage in the past - is the lack of credit the vendor is giving to my 
> intelligence.  Why anyone would think that I would be more likely to shell 
> out large amounts of cash for a product because of the women at the booth, 
> or because they gave me a free T-shirt, is beyond me; but so many people do 
> it that there must be a sizeable population that it works on.  It bothers 
> me that these vendors look at me and think I must be part of that population.

Everyone is an above average driver and when telemarketers call, boy
does everyone I know really let them have it.  And no one reads spam.
 The fact is that all these undesirable things work on the majority of
people, and the fact that they don't acknowledge it even to themselves
doesn't change that.  Booth maintainers aren't trying to get the
thought to cross your mind that, "Hey.  She's cute.  I'll buy that." 
They want to increase by some small percentage that they will catch
your eye and that you will wander by, and maybe make the inessential
aspects of your visit more pleasurable.  And it probably works.  If it
doesn't work with you specifically, perhaps because it explicitly it
offends you, then it *does* work on the majority and that's why they do
it.  Processes like these are pretty efficient.  Things that don't work
generally aren't done long.  The only way to stop them it to somehow
make them work less.  That's the problem with sillily parading women at
shows and conferences.  That's the problem with spam.  Denying that it
is effective currently clouds the issue.

Cheers,
Jeff

-- 

Jeff Yoak                                     626-705-6996
----------------------------------------------------------

I create nice things...because it pleases the Author of my story.
            --Larry Wall





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