Awesome business model

Haha, I was listed in one of those "honor" directories back when I was in high school many moons ago...the "Who's Who among American High School Students" or something like that.

Of course I wondered why I had to buy a copy of something I was being honored in, seeing I was a "Who" among "Who's." :rolleyes:.

I've learned a lot since then...

Hi Phil,

It looks like marketing at it's worst to me.

Do you believe that most people have great hidden talent, which, if it can be accessed and harnessed could be put to good use and make the world a better place?

Or do you believe that most people are generally useless?

The whole concept is designed around the singular parental pride aspect and the reality is that some of the children 'selected' could be led to believe that they have writing talent, when in fact they might instead benefit from being told to study and practice more and try harder.

One of the reasons why we now live in a world where boys are given role models such as the talentless dunce David Beckham (he's not even a good example of a talented all-round footballer!), girls admire Katie Price because of her 'business acumen' and Saturday evening TV is littered with karaoke 'talent shows' which are in fact glorified freak shows where the contestants are duped into believing that they are talented purely so that they can be laughed at and derided, is because anything that turns a profit - no matter if it is deceptive, unethical, unoriginal, or tacky - is regularly held up as an 'awesome business model' or 'marketing at it's best' - purely because it's sneaky.

But is it actually good marketing? And if it's not, how much more difficult is good marketing? 'Awesome marketing' should produce delighted customers as well as a good profit, without any risk of buyer's remorse.

The key is in the word 'trick' as used by one of the commenters in a reply here -

Sorry to disagree strongly, but that's my opinion. How much more difficult would it be for them to actually find the very best poems from the children and create a fantastic book which could lead to a future writing career for the children - a book that the children and the parents can be genuinely proud of?

I imagine they shove anything legible in there purely to make as many books as possible. If any of the parents bothered to read any of the poems written by anyone other than their own children, it probably won't take them long to realise they've been had/duped/ripped off and that the certificate is a joke.

Surely that's not good marketing, surely that's just deception based on a primal urge to be proud of your offspring?

We see the same concept all around us - absolutely everything is hyped up to the max and absolutely anything that turns a profit is held up as 'awesome marketing', regardless of whether it's actually a work of genius, or a Bernie Madoff spin-off.

It's no wonder that we sometimes come across seemingly unemployable youth who appear to think that they deserve the earth for nothing, when right from childhood we're (the schools themselves!) allowing unscrupulous marketers to raise their expectations via an 'everyone's a winner' scam disguised as a talent contest.