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When Advertisers Over-Advertise

IJunk don’t have anything against advertising and have used it in various jobs myself, however, some companies appear to over-advertise which starts to feel quite intimidating. The photo of junk feels like the advertising I see every single day.

Adverts these days are everywhere.  Whatever you do and where ever you go they are very hard to avoid; on social media, websites, television, on the bus, public toilets, public spaces, text messages, train stations, newspapers – it’s tough to shut them out of your life.

So, what happens when someone continuously sees the same, or a particularly bad, advert:

  1. Become burned out so much they numb to the content
  2. Turn off the TV losing viewers to a certain program or even channel
  3. On social media hide any future advertising from that company
  4. Block the company on social media sites
  5. Provide public angry feedback to the company creating a risk to their reputation or loss of potential customers

Companies control the rate of advertising that goes out, they should fine-tune it so customers don’t feel bullied into purchasing the products. Companies also control, somewhat, who their target audience is such as on Social Media.  Hopefully, a company targets advertising to a cross-section of people who can benefit from their product, but you wouldn’t bombard someone who is in the senior age group for a product that is for teenagers. On a daily basis, I see many examples of mistargeted ads.

Who are the main culprits of over-advertising? Here are some examples:

  • Wayfair – first time I saw the TV commercial I thought “moderately ok” but since they push that out every break I have to either mute the sound or turn the TV off.
  • Smile Direct Club – the cheesy childlike branding is not only annoying but their social media team bombard people with a never-ending supply of copy and paste hard sell messages that feel like spam beating people into submission
  • Pharmaceuticals – multiple commercials every break with annoying music and messages
  • Conservative Party of Canada – really draining negative messages on the Space Channel which people watch to avoid politics
  • Mattresses – for some reason, on the west coast of the US, advertisers think there is a huge market for bed mattresses for which we see multiple adverts in the same break

Many companies that over-advertise push so much income into the marketing department but fail to beef up customer service staff which is why you see so many negative experiences with the ones I mention above.

The reason why Ad Blocker type plugins have become so successful is partly due to the continuous bombardment of adverts we are all seeing these days. We shouldn’t need to use these plugins if companies moderate themselves.

2019-05-19T22:10:25+00:0019 May 2019|General|

Peaceful Restaurant

Peaceful LogoPeaceful Restaurant first opened in Vancouver in 1997 specialising in Northern Chinese cuisine. I remember the first branch, which wasn’t very big, always had long lines outside waiting to get in.  Whenever the in-laws visited Vancouver this was the number one destination for them to go.

The restaurant increased it’s popularity when it was showcased on the Food Network’s Diners Drive-Ins and Dives television show:

Now we extremely lucky to have a new branch of the restaurant chain open right here in Newton, Surrey, British Columbia. When we saw the signage the other day we asked ourselves whether it could be the same chain that we have known and loved for 10 years.  Today we found out that it was!

We were thinking of a nice restaurant to go to for Valentine’s day lunch so we thought we’d try it out. We didn’t realize it was their first day of business at that location and we were, in fact, their first customers.  As in typical Chinese tradition, they had an open ceremony with Lion Dancers.  The restaurant was crowded attended by and in celebration of, the suppliers and stakeholders of the chain.

The food was amazing as usual, as good as all the other Peaceful restaurants. We had all our favourite food. It was a fantastic treat for Valentines.

Since the restaurant is very near where we live we’ll be visiting them frequently. I hope everyone else will be too.

2019-02-15T06:16:50+00:0015 February 2019|General|

White Rock

White RockWhen we came back to Canada one of the places I really wanted to move to was White Rock.  Why White Rock?  Two main reasons really 1) it was by the sea so I would get the fresh air from the water, and 2) it reminded me of a typical British seaside resort, therefore, I would feel it would be a little piece of home in Canada.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be due to a number of reasons but pleased to live close by.

White Rock is a municipality of Metro Vancouver and is easily reached by car and public transport. Some of the draws to the city are its quaint shops, the beach, the pier and restaurants, especially those on the promenade. There is ongoing development in the area which is good for driving new business and new residents including those who can no longer afford to live in Vancouver.

Businesses and Restaurants

Following are some of the businesses, large and small, we have frequented and enjoyed, too many to provide a complete list:

  • White Rock Framing
    We have a lot of artwork that has required framing and re-framing, we have done business with this store many times in order to get this work done, they have done an amazing job. We still have more artwork to be framed as soon as we get it all catalogued and decide where we want to place it.
  • The Boathouse
    This is a regular haunt for us and the restaurant is part of a larger chain.  However, this particular outlet has always been friendly to us and the food very good.
  • Moby Dick’s Restaurant
    This is a very well-known and much loved Fish and Chips shop along the seafront, during the summer there is always a long line.  If the weather is good customers will take their food down to the seafront to eat.

Things to do

The most enjoyable things to do are basically strolling around enjoying the beach, walking along the promenade, the pier, and White Rock Museum. People in general just like to hang out when they are not enjoying the shops. Personally, I like to watch the BNSF train because in the UK I used to live near the major route into Liverpool Street Station, kind of makes me feel at home too. Unfortunately, the pier was damaged in a recent storm, but they managed to fix more complex ones in the UK so no doubt this will be fixed too.

You can find more things to do on the Explore White Rock website.

Photos

Following are some photos from our last trip to White Rock, which was to celebrate our birthdays.

2019-01-18T23:23:36+00:0018 January 2019|General|

Back to the Beginning

I have started my website and blog from scratch. There are numerous reasons for this but sometimes one just needs to make a fresh start.

What Happened?

I had been thinking about start from scratch for sometime but the main push at this time was my hosting company Hostgator.  I had numerous technical issues with them that was quite tormenting and it was easier to have a make over than address the problems with them. I wouldn’t recommend Hostgator but didn’t want to make a change to another hosting platform this year.  I have a backup of all my other posts and I might bring them in at some other stage but not quite yet.

The Story So Far

For those who aren’t familiar with me or my story this is a quick run through of my recent life:

  1. 20 year ago I met the love of my life Don. We met online, he then visited London and the rest is history.
  2. Don moved to London as it wasn’t possible for me to live in the US due to their stricter and less gay-friendly immigration rules.
  3. We decided that I should spend time in Denver so we moved there, I managed to get a student visa. While I was on that student visa I did a lot of voluntary work the main chunk of it with Immigration Equality.
  4. After I had done my degree there was no path to remain in the US, the conservatives were in power and no chance of immigration laws becoming any friendly towards me.
  5. We did a stint in London and I was lucky enough to work at London Metropolitan University, a great experience.
  6. Don didn’t like London at all so we decided to move to Vancouver, Canada.  That was also a fantastic experience and I particularly enjoyed working at HealthLinkBC.
  7. Since Obama was President a lot changed in the US including the ability for us to marry, which we did, and the ability for me to move there.  So we moved from Vancouver to Washington DC.  We didn’t like DC at all, so much racism and homophobia from federal government workers and staffers. We moved back to Denver but then the era of Trump hit us like a lead balloon.
  8. Health Care was really tough to access in the US and with Trump in power it was bound to get much worse, and as I write this the country has gone down the toilet.  We decided to move back to Vancouver, our last move, we are very grateful Canada has accepted us as it is a habour of gorgeousness away from the crazy Trump run United States.

Well, that’s pretty much it. Hope you will stick with me as I share other life experiences with you here.

2018-08-06T17:15:30+00:001 February 2018|General|