Sometimes, there are Decent Advertisements
Well wadayaknow? Honest advertising works. Even a broke-ass clock is correct twice a day. Unless said clock’s hands are literally broken off. Then I suppose it’s never correct.
Ya’ll know I hate advertisements. I’m not against them. I mean, someone’s got to pay the bill for Facebook, right? But if I had my ‘d’rathers, I’d absolutely choose to get rid of them if I knew I could also keep the service I was after.
It’s rare, but one advertisement got me today. NAPA. You know, the auto parts store? I change my own oil, because a penny saved is a whisky drank, or something like that. As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed today I noticed an add for NAPA motor oil. The price was showing in the ad, and much like the good lord looking over all that he had created, “It was good.” Not to mention, it was fully synthetic oil. I did a quick search of the web site, fully expecting to not get that price for my oil, but nope. There it was. 5w20. 5 quarts for $18.99. Wait, the Hemi sucks in 7 quarts. Then there’s the Kia. It takes a meager 3.5 quarts. Let me just look at the price of the quart bottles. Holy shit, $3.59. Wait a minute. <does some quick math in his head> It would actually be cheaper to buy it by the quart, by about a dollar per 5. I dumped 11 quarts into my checkout cart.
Great, now to setup my account. I’ve never shopped at NAPA online before. Use my address, new password, sure I’ll sign up for emails and texts. And what? Some reward program? No thanks. I had just heard some story on NPR about what data these reward programs are selling.
Now I can go checkout and pay. But wait! The website knows, by my phone number presumably, that I had bought something before, and would I like to link that rewards program to this new account? Sure. Why not. Not only did I get the discounted oil but they applied my $5 credit from the previous reward program. That made the deal sweeter than the deals at that car place on Alameda. That $5 dollars totally ate the cost of taxes *and* some. So yeah. Sometimes the ads do work. Pay online. Pick up in store. Gotta love it.