The False Negative

Capturing the attentions of jaded, cynical and increasingly suspicious consumers is a never-ending battle and a billion-dollar a year industry. One of the tactics to trick the public into noticing an ad or promotion is what I term the False Negative.

The False Negative is becoming more pervasive over the last several years and violates one of my rules when it comes to purchasing: If a lie is needed to get me to purchase a product then I will never, ever buy it. This is just one of my rules that makes me a smart shopper but in the eyes of the Gods of Retail a poor consumer.

The False Negative manifests in any number of ways with one of the most common being the the false error tone. At various places such as the gas pump and at the check stand in supermarkets (as noted in the previous post Waste Lots, Want Not) the False Negative comes as an alert from the equipment that a person would normally associate with an error. I initially noticed it a few years ago while gassing up my car. The pump beeps with a descending tone, the opposite of the usual higher-pitching rising and happier sound of a successful transaction, prompting me to investigate by looking at the pump display screen. Where one would expect a message reminding me to choose a grade of gas instead would be an advertisement for refreshments or a car wash. This is a tactic in up-selling I expect that will decrease in effectiveness over time. Annoying consumers in this manner is a poor strategy that should only result in short-term gains, if any at all. One could only cry wolf only so many times before it is ignored.

A False Negative that has been in retail stores for a while is the floor display advertisement in supermarkets. These ads occur as large adhesive signs applied to the floor of various aisles. One of the common themes of the floor display ad is that it resembles in layout an accidental spill or scattering of a product. In the snack foods aisle the floor ad would feature a bunch of cookies laid out on a plate. In the cleaning aisle a large ad for detergent could resemble a puddle of liquid soap on the floor. Typically the ads depict a box with the product bursting from it in some sort of flavor explosion.

What the..? Now I can pay for the puppy's surgery! Aw, dang.

By making the floor display ad irregular in shape and form the eye is drawn to it. But not because the product is interesting or worth purchasing. Rather, the ad momentarily tricks the customer into paying attention to the product through a perception of something wrong (a failure of cleanliness) or even the hazard of personal danger through an unsafe area.

The shape and location of the floor advertisement causes the patron to notice it when entering the aisle and presumably keep aware of it on some level while shopping. From a distance of a few feet most of the ads appear as spills or messes and only when the patron approaches it closely does it resolve in the mind from possible slip and fall hazard to advertisement. Where I work I have observed an increase in calls for clean-ups in some aisles following the placement of certain ads which are moved and replaced on a regular schedule. Often customers walking by an aisle alert the employees of the store to a spill and when investigated, none is found.

I have personally observed that both the customers and employees are predictably desensitized to the False Negative of the faux spill and safety hazard. After a day or two calls for clean up to the area with the floor ad begin to wane as patrons and the employees become adjusted to the ad and awareness of it fades into the visual and mental background. I have found that it is incumbent upon the managers to ensure that each call for a clean up is thoroughly investigated as due to human nature bored, careless or over-worked staff will assume yet another notification of a spill is going to prove to be without real cause.



 It would be interesting and not totally without merit to track slip and fall cases in retail establishments to when and where floor display advertisements were placed. An insurance company could possibly find a correlation from the possible result of an injury claim due to messes where not rapidly attended from the assumption there was no spill and the call for a clean up of an aisle was merely another False Negative ad on the floor.

Waste lots, want not

As consumers people are getting used to the increasing amount of advertising that appears next to, above and even on the products they buy and they are getting good at ignoring the information overload. It is also that after each purchase the customer is bombarded with one last plea to get their money before they leave the register by the use of secondary printers on each check stand that spit out coupons and advertisements shortly before they receive their receipt.

While sometimes as annoying as those subscription cards in magazines at least coupons have the possibility that it might be recycled in some manner when the offered discount causes a customer to return and buy the featured item. What is maddening is the increase in useless advertising that prints out along with and sometimes in lieu of coupons.

Once items are scanned at a register the coupons and ads begin to print out. In conjunction with a discount card that identifies the shopper targeted discounts and coupons will be applied and printed. But there are failures in the system. Ads, often duplicates of two or more, will print out promoting the very same product the customer just purchased. Considering how intimately the buying habits of each customer are tracked the seeming randomness of the advertising is causing a consumer backlash. The message is getting drowned in a sea of junk spam at the register. Additionally, the coupon dispenser beeps with false error messages that prompts the cashier and customer to pay attention to the device and printing ads. While the false error tone is intended to signal the end of the coupons being dispensed the real result is that the public is being desensitized by "false negatives" and are ignoring the messages altogether.

The coupons and ads have become such an annoyance that by the end of a shift each cashier has a full trash can of strips of paper the customers refused to accept. The avalanche of ads and coupons are the treeware version of email spam. Most customers just leave the junk print outs behind. Many cashiers act as content filters for the spam by sorting and applying to the purchases only those print outs that are immediately useful such as cash back or used to get a discount during the purchase for items they are buying. While the intended use of the coupons and ads are to get return business, customers appreciate more receiving an instant discount than a ream of useless paper they will never use on their next shopping trip.

Other than the annoyance of the ads and coupons that often print out during each transaction the spamming of a shopper shows how much lip service some companies pay to being "green". Not to suggest that the two companies in the advertising examples above are not fully committed to managing their use of the environment wisely. The coupons are printed out via a service they subscribe to in order to make consumers aware of their products and discounts. However, any company committed to being "green" should be responsible enough to be aware of just how much waste is generated by their vendors and affiliates.

Just think, if just one 6-inch ad is printed out during each transaction, times 3000 customers a day at each store, times 2400 stores nation-wide that is...Well, someone else can do the math. That's the result of waste from just from one company. That is a lot of paper. That much waste seems not only criminal, but sinful as well.