Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Just $9.95 and you cannot be refused

One of the standard jokes in the financial industry is that if you have a shaky investment you can always sell it to a doctor.

The thinking is that doctors have a lot of money and not a lot of time to do "due diligence". They are also very smart at what they do and often fall victim to thinking that expertise in one area automatically translates into expertise in other things. Finally, doctors function in a  chain-of-command environment and have a high regard for authority and the symbols of authority.

The rest of the standard joke is that if the product you are trying to peddle stinks so badly that even doctors will not buy it, then sell it to dentists. Not that dentists are "dumber" than doctors but that their scope and experiences are narrower. They are more "naive" than doctors.

Is it out-of-line to suggest that financial products that seem to specifically target older, African-Americans might stink?

It takes but a minute to hop onto the internet and do a search. If you did you would quickly learn that Colonial Penn has "far more complaints than other companies of a similar size". In fact one reviewer claims that Colonial Penn has 8 times more complaints than the average for its peer group.

Their default contract will not pay-out if the insured dies in the first two years of "coverage". Most contracts automatically expire at age 80 which is about the life expectancy of a sixty-year-old; so there is a fifty percent chance you will not die in the period the contract is in effect. Furthermore, people who filed claims say that the process is tortuous and takes a very long time.

It begs the larger question: If a company is hawking any product by blatantly targeting traditionally naive customers...is it possible all advertising that use actors that appeal to traditionally naive customers are peddling products that "stink"? If the products offered exceptional value or customer experiences or timeliness...wouldn't the advertising be pointing out those benefits rather than relying on appeals to loyalty?

Bonus image

No wonder the EU is failing

A commenter at Filthie's Thunderbox suggested that we look at the picture of Maggie De Block, the Belgian Minister of Social Affairs and Health.

The EU headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium. Minister of Health?!?!


10 comments:

  1. Its one of those picture worth 1,000 words.
    I worried and fretted for years until I remembered Isaac Newton.
    Clownworld will ultimately fail because they do not live in reality. Physics is a stone cold bitch and doesn't care about your pronouns or feelings.

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  2. She's swallowed a lot of anger and emotion in her life....and a lot of pizza too! A paraphrase of Rodney Dangerfield.

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  3. You can tell that woman doesn't know how to push herself away from the supper table, or lunch or breakfast table either.

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    1. lives permanently next to the table.

      the new incoming "health" elistist prog in the UK looks similar.

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  4. In my opinion, hype is used when a product can't sell itself.
    Lots of advertising is either a sign of desperation or a sign of poor management of the marketing team.

    I would say that lots of advertising is focused on the 50+ generation because they have more money than younger folks (on average).
    Also, as they age they start to become less able to make good decisions and often become more easily influenced, especially by connections to their past (older actors by name, actors in general).

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  5. She needs anti-sway bars to stabilize that shifting load as she goes around corners.

    Acceleration would be fun to watch but physics says it would take a rocket to accelerate that much mass.

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  6. While all the observations about where lousy products/investments are sold I think are valid, let's not forget that the target market for these things may be predisposed to not understanding what it is they are buying, and so are likely to whine and bitch more. Certain socio-economic cohorts seem to be less inhibited and more likely to complain when they don't get more than they bargained for. Others seem to understand what a contract is for.

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  7. Among the multitude of extended car warranty advertisers there is at least one advertising how many billions of dollars they have paid out. I suspect the number of potential customers who have thought about that is indistinguishable from zero.

    Math is hard, according to Barbie.

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  8. I don’t think she’s been eating the plant-based burgers, or insects, that are being pushed on the rest of us.
    Southern NH

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  9. If she has to haul ass it's going to be multiple trips . Carbon footprint ? Nah bog 'ol carbon ass print

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