Just in case you have been in the proverbial coma while marooned on a deserted island for the past decade or so, you should know that marketing is everywhere. All you need to do is to take a trip to your local grocery store to determine how true this is. Grocery store shelves have always been replete with brand-name labels - and there has for years been a certain amount of vicious jockeying to have one's products placed at the shelf that is eye-level to the typical shopper. But things have gotten much more competitive than ever recently, as I myself found out this week when I myself nearly became a marketing victim.
I was looking for the free-range eggs that I know that my grocery store sells but that they insist on hiding each week when I was approached by a woman looking something like a nurse - white tunic over white pants, sensible white shoes. She asked me if I wanted to take a free blood-pressure test. And I found myself agreeing. Looking back on the event, I really can't imagine what made me agree - surely an important part of many marketing strategies. It may have been something subliminal about that white uniform: Most of us were taught as children that we should obey authority figures, and medical professionals constitute such figures.
It might also have been that word "free". If there's a basic cardinal rule within the world of marketing, it's that people will do really stupid things if they think that they're getting something for nothing. Or - if I were being really charitable to myself - I could argue that I was simply intrigued. Going to the grocery store is not (at least in my book) a very interesting experience. This promised to make it more memorable than the average venture - and this turned out to be true. Marketing often succeeds because it makes mundane activities such as going to the store into more interesting ones.
So I sat down on a handily provided antiseptically white chair and had my blood pressur...