Sometimes I wonder if the head honchos at The Guardian have their own little in-jokes and like playing tricks on their readership.
How else to explain their current bizarre promotion of celeb-designed wrapping paper. So far the likes of Johnny Depp, Jonathan Ross, Paul Smith, David Bailey and Sophie Dahl have leant their considerable talents to the idea.
Seriously, is anyone going to buy the newspaper purely because of this? I mean, it’s basically a large piece of newspaper with a slightly different design on it.
How delighted would you be if you got a present wrapped up in a Johnny Depp-designed piece of newspaper? Would you even notice, more’s the point?
OK, so I know they’re raising money for their Katine appeal and readers are being encouraged to bid for the original version of the design, but it’s all a bit shit that apart, isn’t it?
Wallcharts with birds on are good. Mini-booklets about card games are great. Celeb wrapping paper? Not worth the paper it comes in!
So we beetled off to our local Wine Rack on Sunday because, like many thousands of other booze-buyers, we had a 40% off voucher that seems to be doing the rounds.
It’s quite an exciting prospect to be told you get 4 bottles free for every 10 you buy, isn’t it? I mean it sounds too good to be true…
Well, the basic truth is that it really is true. Using the voucher we did indeed get 40% off all the bottles we bought. But there was a slight catch and one I only really worked out afterwards.
You see, the group that owns Wine Rack and Thresher do this cunning thing anyway where they price their wine at a slightly higher price than normal but then offer a 3 for 3 deal. This means that a bottle of wine will cost £8.99 for example if you buy it singly, but will come in at £5.99 if you buy 3.
So effectively, the shop is offering 33% off before it starts, meaning the 40% voucher meant we only got an extra 7% off the starting price.
Now clearly, it’s still an incentive and if you were going to buy booze from there anyway you save money, but it’s another classic marketing offer that fools people (like me) into spending!
This challenge from the ever-brilliant b3ta.com made me laugh insanely.
These two are two simply brilliant examples.
- Don’t know it? One of my favourite albums
- In case you don’t recognise it: My favourite Pink Floyd album
