We marketers just love a captive audience, don’t we? We like them strapped into pressurized metal tubes at 35,000 feet with nothing to look at but a tiny screen or a drooling neighbor. We like them squished into subway cars, bouncing off each other in mosh pits or looking for a familiar taste far from home.
Long ago, we discovered that if people are bored enough, excited enough or thirsty enough we can sell them pretty much anything, at pretty much any price.
Just the other week I picked up a bottle of Jennifer Aniston’s favourite water in an airport and was asked for $6.00. I put it back. Even Jennifer wouldn’t stand for that highway robbery. The official excuse from Hudson News seems to
be the extra expense of having Jennifer’s water scanned on its way past airport security. Oddly, security doesn’t seem to add 70% to the price of magazines, carbonated drinks or chocolate bars. Water must give them a hard time at the screening point.
A few months back, I stopped by a Starbucks in Niagara Falls for my customary tasty beverage, only to be charged about 15 percent more than I would pay at a Starbucks in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver for the same drink. I asked, of course, why and “Lady, it’s a tourist zone,” was the reply. Well of course: tourist Starbucks is much fancier than the stuff you grab on your way to work.
The same Starbucks that will charge me more to drink hot brown liquid in Niagara is happy to give me free wi-fi, yet the hotel, where I’m spending a lot more than $5.00 has the nerve to charge me $10 a day to use their wi-fi in my room. If I choose to do my work in the lobby, for some reason, the wi-fi is free. I guess lobby wi-fi, like downtown lattes, costs less to produce.
You know where I’m going. Hot dogs you’d pay $3.00 for on the street are $7.00 at a football game. Crappy tee shirts with terrible silk screening are $40.00 at concerts and, for reasons nobody will own up to, the price of gasoline can be counted on to rise on holiday weekends, throwing that whole supply and demand thing right out the window.
This is more than just good old-fashioned price gouging, my friends. A good old-fashioned price gouge takes advantage of a scarcity or adversity – the examples above, and countless others, take advantage of opportunity.
There is no water shortage in an airport. I can go to the many public fountains and nudge the chewing gum and bits of paper out of the way to get a drink. I can bring my own cup or water bottle and fill up in the ladies room. There are greasy spoons in Niagara where I can get a coffee for $1.50, and if I’m organized enough, I can buy a hot dog on the street and eat it before I go to the football match. None of this is about scarcity; it’s about what the vendor feels they can get away with. And that, Lords and Ladies of the Spin Cycle is just wrong.
It’s bad for your brand and it creates some pretty nasty behaviours all around. Is that what we want? Those security guards at the stadium are not only looking for potential projectiles; they’re looking for people sneaking their own drinks in or hiding a street meat souvlaki in their purse (believe me, the cleanup on that one is brutal).
I know that most marketers only get to play with the pricing long enough to suggest what it ought to be. Retailers, resellers and even our Sales Squirrels do all kinds of nasty things to our carefully constructed pricing sheets. I don’t, for a minute, believe that the people who make Jennifer Aniston’s favourite water even consider the possibilities of airport pricing, nor do the folks at Starbucks have any visibility into how a licensee in Niagara taxes the tourists.
That’s a disconnect we should all be working on.
Remember, Every Little Thing You Do is Branding.
Related Posts:
The End of Valued Customers
You Better Dance With Them What Brung Ya
Interesting Things I Found This Week
Feeling old? Want to feel older? The KPCB Internet Trends Report just turned 20. Gulp. If you are up for a trip down memory lane, the 2015 version is its usual insightful self.
Irony is really only funny when it’s picking on someone else. Just for a giggle, I plugged in some of my recent work on a white paper to one of my favourite places: BlaBlaMeter. This online bullshit evaluator is ruthless. They rated me 0.88 on the Bullshit Index. And here’s what they told me about my text: This reeks. We bet you’re a PR-Expert, Politician, Consultant or Scientist. If there is a message, it’s unlikely it will reach anyone. Maybe you should spend less effort on trying to impress somebody. Folks, my work here is done.
BizMarketer is Elizabeth Williams
You can reach me at escwilliams@gmail.com
or follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
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