How the Internet Works -- a guide for marketers
OK, I obviously can't draw. But I am home with a sick kid today, and we are drawing pictures. Here are mine.
What just happened here?
Here are the basic things any marketer, company, or anyone thinking of posting a PDF coupon or rebate needs to know.
- People really like to share things on the Internet.
- When you share or save a copy of a PDF, it is identical to every other copy of that PDF. There is no way to distinguish between a PDF someone printed directly from your website, a PDF someone saved to their computer and printed 50 copies of later, or a PDF they emailed to their friends to print.
- There's this thing called geometric progression. If I share a copy of your PDF with two people, then they each share it with two people, then their friends each share it with two people, then... pretty soon you have a whole lot of PDFs floating around.
- If you put something up on the Internet that can be saved and copied, and all those copies are identical, someone will inevitably save and copy it to a place that is not controlled by you. Other people will inevitably find it there. Then they will share it with their friends. (See step one, rinse, and repeat.)
So basically: Once you release a coupon or a rebate form in PDF (or jpg, or any other copyable) format, you cede all control over how that coupon or rebate is distributed. People will share it. People will copy it. People will save it for others to share and print and copy. Whether they should do this is irrelevant: What's important is that they will. Know that going in, and accept the consequences.
This information is freely given. It can save you a lot of money and grief. If you want to hire me as a high-priced corporate consultant, I'll give you this same sketch and charge you for it, if you like 🙂
hysterical. and true.
LOL That is fantastic!! 🙂
I am just astounded that no one at any of these companies does not have anyone working there that realizes this will happen - even after it happens over and over and over again!
They do know that it happens. What is going on behind the scenes is that they decide to "save money" by not using a more sophisticated system (or pay for a service to do it for them), and in the end, it bites them in the butt.
You'd think that after this has happened eleventy-seven times, they'd STOP trying to save a few hundred bucks on marketing a $5 or $10 coupon/rebate that has the potential to cost them HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars more than they planned.
Can you put those sketches in PDF format? 🙂
AWESOME!!
LOL, maybe I should watermark them.
Too late. I have already saved them and posted them all over the interwebs, claiming credit for the talented art work. CopyRONG be darned!
Alas, I have been hoist on my own jpg!
Brilliant. I also don't get how the people working at these companies fail to foresee this. Obviously they need to start paying us the big bucks to save them from themselves.
My guess is that they weigh the low cost of an in-house created PDF versus the (potentially) high cost of contracting with coupons.com/bricks/smartsource to administer the coupon, and decide to go that route to 'save' money. Or they don't realize that redemption rates for internet coupons are dramatically higher than other distribution models and just don't expect it to be that popular.
Or that's my old marketing professor would say. 🙂
you are awesome!
Too funny...reminds me of the old shampoo commercial ("and they tell 2 friends, and so on and so on and so on...")
Take that, Brita!
Oh man, this is HYSTERICAL...I love it!