My Commonplace Book

I get to do a focus group tonight. I've gotten calls from time to time, but I haven't qualified for any of the studies, so I'm happy that I'm finally doing one. They were looking for people who purchased a new car in the past year and who are happy with their purchase. That's me, all right -- I love my CR-V!

The focus groups are fun to do, but the main advantage is that they pay well. This one is an hour and a half, from 7-8:30 pm, and it pays $100. Even better, a day or two after they scheduled me for the group they called back to ask if I would do some "homework," for which I'll get an additional $25! They emailed me a Word file with three questions and a blank page to make a collage.

Turns out the study is about trust.

( Homework )

I'm usually the iconoclast at these focus groups. I'll never forget the one I did on paper products, where the facilitator asked our reaction to seeing "New and improved!" on a package of toilet paper. Most of the other participants responded positively, saying it made them want to buy it. The rest were neutral and said it didn't make any difference. When it was my turn I said, "I hate seeing that on a package. I like my toilet paper the way it is, and I don't want it changed just for the sake of changing! And 'new and improved' often means nothing more than the amount of product in the package has gotten smaller!"

Everyone else just kind of looked at me, but the whole idea of focus groups is that they want to know your feelings about the way the product is presented. The spiel at the beginning always tells us to say what we really think, not just nice things, and a good facilitator is completely neutral no matter what the participants' comments are. But a few facilitators seem really insulted if you say something negative. The whole thing is filmed through a two-way mirror, though, and the company's people are also back there watching, so it gets through. I know I can't affect an entire advertising campaign single-handedly -- my focus group is only one of many being conducted here as well as all over the country -- but I do try to get my licks in to improve logic and honesty in the marketplace.

Tonight's group appears to be focused less on a specific proposed advertising campaign than on how the feeling of TRUST can be communicated in new car ads. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes ... and to going home with an extra $125!

I have AdSubtract Pro (which I'm amazed to find them proudly touting as having been "the #1 Best-Selling Ad Blocker for 2003!" ... which doesn't give me a very good impression since that was the equivalent of the 19th century in computer technology years ... but I digress). In 2003, when I got it, it was the best ad blocker. Well, maybe there weren't any others. But it's done a super job and I've been very happy with it.

But the technology is evolving and my version of AdSubtract isn't -- I'm still using v. 2.55, which is from -- yep, 2003. I'd love to upgrade it, but I can't -- that's the newest version that works with anything but Internet Exploder. (I sent them a question just the other day asking if they were ever going to make it compatible with Firefox "so that people can use the best ad blocker and the best browser" instead of having to choose one or the other!)

I use Yahoo a lot because of my freecycle moderating, and whatever they did in the past week or so has completely defeated AdSubtract. I've heard that AdSubtract works much better than Firefox's ad blocker extension -- and I already paid for AdSubtract back in the Dark Ages -- so I haven't downloaded the extension. But now I'm getting frustrated. I'm afraid to have them both working at the same time, though, for fear they'll interfere with each other, so I'm not sure what to do.

Can I use them together? Should I get rid of AdSubtract and use the FF extension? Is there a new ad blocker extension that's any better? Is there a new program that's any better? (I'm willing to pay to get something that does a really good job zapping ads, the way AdSubtract used to, because with my ADD, I'm literally unable to read pages with colors and motion jumping around in my peripheral vision.)

Tell me what you've heard about ad blockers!

So I'm walking along shopping in Giant Food, and this diffident young clerk in a Giant smock walks up to me to coax me to buy a Triple Winner card. You pay a dollar -- 100% of which goes to The Children's Cancer Foundation -- and get a card with two scratch-off thingies. One gets you a free product, the other is a chance to win up to $10,000. So okay, I'll donate a dollar and try it.

I scratched off the product side and found that I could get a 7 oz. Tag Body Spray.  I hadn't the slightest clue of what "body spray" was, and spent ten minutes fruitlessly cruising up and down the three health and beauty aisles looking for the damn stuff. I finally went looking for a clerk and found one at the yogurt shelves. She had never heard of "body spray" either -- she was a dairy clerk -- but I wouldn't let her get away, so she came with me to the health and beauty section where she spied a clerk from that section.

"Ask him, he'll know. He works in this area," she told me with obvious relief in her voice, and made her escape as quickly as she could. Fortunately the man was familiar with the product, and led me right to it. He explained that it's a new product for men by Gillette -- no wonder I hadn't heard of it! -- and that there had been a misprint on the card and it was really only a 3.5-ounce can.

"Oh, that's a rip-off," I said jokingly, "but—" -- a bit of annoyance crept into my voice -- "what am I going to do with this?" The clerk wisely recognized it as a rhetorical question and remained silent, and I said, "I guess I'll give it away." I figured I could offer it to Ken, and if he didn't want it I'd just freecycle it.

So I started an email to eudyptes to ask him if he wanted it. I thought he might not know what it was either, so I figured I'd find the website and include a link so he'd be able to figure out whether he'd want it or not. "If you don't know what it is," I typed, "you can go to this website:" ... and then I went off to Google.

I found the website, all right -- the very first link on Google when you search on tag body spray. It's http://www.tagbodyspray.com/ . But I was taken to a page that said only:

You don't have the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player.

This web site makes use ofMacromedia®Flash™ software. You have an old version of Macromedia Flash Player that cannot play the content we've created.

[button]        Why not download and install the latest version now? It will only take a moment.

Macromedia and Flash are trademarks of Macromedia, Inc.

That's it. That's the complete and entire content of the page.

If I don't download the latest version of Flash, they will not let me in to see the site! God forbid I should be blind and using a text reader, or standing in the supermarket with a Sidekick and wanting the "lite" version of the site, or using dial-up and preferring something that won't take 15 minutes to load, or =gasp= using a 6-year-old computer and not wanting to load it down with graphics-and-bandwidth-heavy crap just to get an idea of what the hell their product is about.

I can't get over this. It's a brand new product and they're trying to promote it, according to the store clerk. But unless you have a fast computer and broadband, they will not let you find out anything about it. Not only is there no non-Flash site, they won't even let you try to see it!

I guess the demographic they're aiming at -- Gen Y males, I imagine -- will have the latest and greatest gew-gaws on their computers, or will be so horrified to find out they don't that they'll immediately download the new version of Flash and then use the Tag product site to try it out. God forbid a mom should want to buy one for her son, or a middle-aged woman should want to buy one for her husband or boyfriend to make him smell better when he doesn't shower, or make him feel young, or whatever. Nope. They're not interested in you. You can just go fly a kite. Either get broadband or a new computer or teach your guide dog to read aloud, or you're SOL.

Needless to say, I have no intention of sitting around downloading and installing the latest version of Flash so that I can sit around some more waiting for my 6-year-old computer to limp along loading the displaying their infomercial!

What kind of marketing sense does this make? I may send them an e-mail, or I not bother. At best they'll send me some coupons for their products -- maybe even a coupon for more Tag -- and I'm not interested.

This is just so stupid.