Those ridiculous TV commercials…
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It amazes me how some people are stupid enough to fall for the most ridiculous mobile phone application and other TV commercials…
The type of commercial where it’s like - Find out now if your partner is cheating, buy spending money on this awesome application for your mobile phone. You just put in their first name and the amazing predictor will tell you if your partner is cheating. OR put in your birthday to see how long you’re going to live for. You can throw those stupid text dating and sex chat commercials into the mix too.
We can assume a few things:
1. Television commercials cost a lot of money. It is one of the most expensive forms of media advertising.
2. For the TV commercial to be financially viable for your business, you need to make x amount of sales to cover your costs and make a profit.
3. These ridiculous commercials have been on for a long time, and continue to be on the television. Therefor we can assume all these companies are making enough money to continue with their television ad campaigns.
4. That means there are a lot of people out there actually paying significant money to buy these ridiculous products.
It actually shocks me how these businesses actually survive. I mean did they x-ray phone application actually make enough sales, that they could keep investing in a television ad campaign lasting approximately a year? I hate to think how much those TV ads cost over the course of a year.
Am I alone in thinking it’s all a bit crazy? Does it worry you that so many people actually spend good money on these things? It worries me…
Anyway, I’m sorry if you’ve paid money for something like this. I’m sure you had your reasons, but please let me know what your reasons were, because I’m very curious… 
I worked for optus customer service for 4 and a half years prior to moving to my current role and you’d be amazed at the amount of people who get done by them. They’re almost all subscription based services so by requesting one thing you’re actually subscribing and are generally charged something like $5.50-$6.60 a week. They charge for whenever they send messages/content out to you so it doesn’t matter if they send out 10 more messages than you wanted to get.. because you sent the first one to them you agreed to all their terms and conditions etc..
These companies make call centre reps go insane.. the thing is for most people it’s simple to understand, but try explaining it to hundred of people who fell for it.. majority of them are a few beers short of a six pack if you get what I’m saying.
In regards to the late night chat thingos they were hilarious.. especially when mum calls up to find out why her sons mobile phone bill suddenly jumped $100 in one month.
I think its fair to say that there are alot of REALLY STUPID people out there. I too am amazed at what rubbish is being advertised on the TV yet obviously people buy it!!!
Mizu :-D
If they’re that stupid to believe in these type of things, then they don’t deserve to have any money anyway!
I think it is most probable that it will be teenagers using these things with Mum & Dad pickin up the tab!If you think that my comments are harsh you can vote
1800 000 666 for ‘yes’
1800 000 111 for ‘no’Calls charged at 55c per 30sec mobile extra
haha mizu,
yeah it’s just people with too much money and they don’t know what to spend it on!!
Or kids with rich parents
If you think that my comments are harsh you can vote
1800 000 666 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1800 000 666 end_of_the_skype_highlighting for ‘yes’
1800 000 111 for ‘no’Calls charged at 55c per 30sec mobile extra
Dude, those numbers don’t work! I called them a few times each but no go. Do they work for international calls?
Does this also apply to gadgets like the iphone and their apps???
Don’t hate on the iPhone CJ. You know you want one…
The difference with the iPhone is that it costs like $1.19 for an app. which, compared to $10 + 5.50 per week is nothing.
My Dad got “1 free ringtone” from an ad in the paper. Which he messaged and got, for free… until the next week when he had to pay $10 for 3 more things each week. $10 later and he had canceled it.
Just shows the sneaky ways they get you to do things.
But I don’t know how people still do it. You can generally download a music clip for free (or cheap) and put it on your phone as your ringtone now, why would you pay $10 bucks for it? Even on the Iphone, they want to charge you for it, but there is easy ways around it. I have 4 ringtones and have not paid a cent. And I could make plenty more 
Goes back to people being impulsive, lazy and stupid. I agree it’s easy to make a ringtone.