The ad states that the ‘side effects may include nausea, dizziness, and sweating.’ That could be bearable, until one reads the fine print which states: ‘Antidepressants increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behaviour (suicidality) in children, teens, and young adults. Depression and certain other psychiatric disorders are themselves associated with increases in the risk of suicide. Patients of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior.’

Indeed, it is important to disclose all the side effects for clinical reasons. Yet, one wonders if such warnings are not placed there for legal reasons, beyond the legal obligations. I could imagine all sorts of companies choosing to state the worst, or even fabricating the worst, on purpose, knowing that hardly anyone reads the fine print, and those who do, might be desperate enough to try anything. Also, the public has become immune to bad news of this kind. It’s like the health warnings on packets of cigarettes. The public has grown accustomed to wild warnings. It seems that nothing will shock. So, with that in mind, and to prevent legal action by a litigious society, I wonder if manufacturers will now make up, or exaggerate, side effects, just so that they can proclaim, ‘We told you so!’

By the way, if you are interested in hair loss treatments, and if you have anything to do with Sam Cohen or IHRB, be sure to read this dedicated site (www.IHRB-Story.com) so that you do not waste your money. Sam and IHRB are so clever, you will kick yourself if you are stupid enough to part with your money.

I had already published articles about the unfathomable prices of parking at Secure Parking and at Wilson Parking. Wilson lures people with an attractive offer that is not as good as it seems. Secure shouts with massive signs that are as confusing (and therefore as misleading) as mobile phone rate-cards. This article is useful to managers who would like to learn more about pricing strategies and the destruction of consumer confidence. Although this article uses two parking stations as an example, it is designed to assist senior managers to delve into pricing models that could well be destroying the brand though invisible unscrupulous practices.

In this previous article about Secure Parking, I had commented about the rates that jump all over the place. Three weeks after posting that article, we now have yet another price change. If someone at either company knows what they are doing, they might do well to study this analysis, and perhaps they can tell us how the client is supposed to make head or tail out of these rates.

Consumers are used to seeing prices increase. They would not be baffled if someone had raised the price of something from $10 to $12 to $14. Consumers could assume that the company is either greedy, or that the price of raw materials had gone up, or some such excuse. However, in the case of Secure Parking and Wilson Parking stations, the logic is way beyond even the most seasoned of mathematicians and actuaries. This report focusses on two stations that are both on Sussex Street in Sydney. These are stand-alone operations, only six buildings apart. They both occupy the entire building in which they operate, so we do not have to suffer any disparaties in terms of comparison (becasue some stations are under corporate tower blocks and shopping centres).

Let us analyse their pricing strategies. First, note that within a short period of time, Secure Parking had three price changes that do not make sense to me. They went from a ‘From $5′ inducement to a ‘From $6′ inducement and changed the exit time to an hour earlier during weekdays. During Friday and Saturaday nights, entry was changed by one hour in what seems to be in the customer’s favour, but later you will see that this was a clever hook; more like honey to catch flies.

Look at the photo below. One wonders what the deep thinking was behind the logic of the tactics that moves the 1st bracket up by one dollar. Then the 2nd bracket remains unchanged. The 3rd goes up by one dollar, then the 4th by two dollars, and the 5th by three dollars. According to this new price list, if you park for four hours, you pay the equivalent of $11.25 per hour. But if you park for 24 hours, you pay $1.88 per hour. How can it be that Secure Parking is satisfied with $1.88 per hour, but charges $11.25 per hour if you park for four hours? Is this because they know that most casuals stay for approximately four hours, and this means that they are charged the maximum rate quick-smart to catch everyone in the net? It’s like saying, ‘Give me everything now, and show me that you love me.’ Also in the photo below, the rates on the left went from $24 to $32 which is a jump of $8. The second set of rates (right side photo) went from $25 to $34 which is a jump of $9. That seems sneaky to me. Not only did the price increase, the gap between the two was also increased. I am waiting for the day that they introduce the 99-cent suffix to end up with $6.99 and $45.99. Also below we see an earlier exit requirement for early-bird parkers. Seems sneaky to intrudce the 24-hour army-style of telling the time. If everything on that page is 6:00 am and 10:00 am, why must 2:30 become 14:30? They can’t say it’s for clarity, because they differentiate with the ‘am’ and ‘pm’ suffixes in all other cases. Early-birds were first required to park their car and walk to 9b (that could be good exercise). Later, they were asked to ‘drive’ to 9b first in order to validate their tickets. Perhaps people were cheating or something.

The strangest of all terms is the one that says, ‘Rate apply from entry time to time per 24 hours period’. Please read this over and over and see if you can make sense of it. That is either one of those mega-clever statements designed to trap anyone who opens their mouth, or it is an abbreviated version of complex indecipherable legalese, or it is in response to a few people who have found a loophole in the system. Either way, no-one understands it. And I suspect that if it led to a legal showdown, no judge would accept that the average person could have been deemed to have been given fair warning, because the language was nonsensical. So, why is it there? Is that to cope with people who park for 26 hours, and they would be expected to pay $45 plus another two hours based on the rate at the time, depending… blah blah blah? Why not just sell it all at one rate per hour and let people park until their heart’s content. Besides, it seems that companies always write their legals to cope with a few underhanded unreasonable customers, and as a result, they confuse all the regular decent cleints. I have seen young drivers physically ligft the boom-gate and drive off without paying. Is it worth anyone’s time to trace the anomaly in the day’s takings, or to pursue the matter in court? I wish they would, but I doubt they would. So if all this is meant to cope with someone who parks for 26 hours or even 126 hours, what’s stopping them from driving their mate’s vehicle in, and using that ticket to pay for 30 minutes. And then the mate can declare a missing ticket, which comes to $45. Do they have a policy for that? There are way too many cheats out there, but in the end, do not bamboozle everyone, in order to cope with a handfull of idiots who will break any rule, and who will not be pursued for their petty crimes.

Before we delve even further into the strategies, let us now conduct the same query by looking at the differences between the second price rise and the third (below). At face value, it seems that the price went down. Alas not. Why did Secure Parking reduce the rate for the first 30 minutes of parking from $6 to $5? Was this benevolence? Customer service? A favour to the City of Sydney? Or was it just a way to compete with Wilson parking down the road? We will compare the two companies shortly. Meanwhile, what has changed between the second rate rise and the third, which took place within a matter of weeks? In the world of parking, there seems to be something significant about the second and third hour. Is that the ‘sweet spot’ as far as statistics are concerned? In the first rate-card in the photo (above left), we saw that the rate moved up the ladder from $24 to $32. The second rate-card (above right) went from $25 to $34.

The third rate-card shown below-right, the price went from $28 to $38. That’s a category jump of $10. So far we have seen deltas of $8, $9, and $10. Note again that these are not price increases, but category jumps on top of the price increases. That is a subtle yet clever distrinction. The average punter would see the entry price and the maximum price. At face value, we see the entry price as $5 and the maximum at $45. On the whole, one could presume that the rate card went in the customer’s favour. The photo below-left shows it going from $6 to $45 and then it changed (bottom right) from $5 to $45. That seems dandy. But the real change ocurred in the middle. $25 became $28 and $34 became $38. So the incrase (within this seemingly decreasing benevolent rate-card) went up by three dollars and then it zigzaged up the category scale by a jump of $10. Any business can charge what it likes. But this not a matter of raising the price, but of manipulating the core rates while disguising the truth with smoke and mirrors. That is the bit to which I am objecting. It does not point to sound management practices. The core of any company needs to be wholesome, and these tactics do not point to sound wholesome practices.

From the rates above, we can see that it all centres around the second and third hour. Anyone who parks for two hours is paying $14 per hour. And if they park for three hours, they are paying $12.67 per hour. Why is it so expensive at that combination, when Secure Parking is happy to say that anyone can park for 24 hours for only $1.88 per hour. That’s not a sliding scale. That is a sheer drop. Anything up to four hours comes to $11.25 per hour and then there is a cliff. It drop to $1.88 per hour. The is nothing sliding if one plots the graph where it all starts at the equivalent of $10 per hour and goes to $11.25 and then a massive drop to $1.88. That does not polt a bell curve. It does not plot a sliding scale. It does not point to economies of scale. And here is why: the company speaks to us in its rate card. It says, please enter at the equivalent of $10 per hour. If you stay for 31 minutes, you now owe us $12. This is not the direction of a sliding scale! Then it says, if you have the hide to stay one minute over one hour, just one minute over, you owe us $28 which is $12.67 per hour. If you stay one minute over two hours, you owe us $38 which is $11.25 per hour. But this is all misleading, because if someone does stay for one minute over two hours, then it is no longer correct to say that it is $11.25 per hour. This in fact is 121 minutes at $38 which comes to $18.84 per hour.

So now we ask, how can a company entice people with a $5 offer, when anyone who stays a minute over two hours is really paying $18.84 per hour which comes to $38.00?

Why promote a service at $5 entry, when I suspect that the overwhelming majority of a parkers would not leave the carpark in under thirty minutes. Anyone going in on a Friday or Saturday evening is most definitely going in for a function, a night on the town, or a dinner and movie (remember that this establishment is officially called the Cinema Centre Car Park). So why display a massive sign that promotes $5? This is not the kind of business practice in which any ethical company ought to engage.

SHORT-TERM PARKING MAKES ALL THE PROFITS

One more thing before we move on. Supermarkets have a special lane for people with 12 items or fewer. This was introduced to serve shoppers who did not think it fair to wait ten minutes to pay for a packet of gum. The supermarkets were encouraging small-value transactions. Now let us look at this new set of signs by Secure Parking (Wilson Parking has a similar section) that say ‘Short time parking: Under 3 hours’. This off is completely different from that made by supermarkets. The short-time parking bays are not a service to short-time clients. Rather, it is a service to Wilson Parking’s shareholders. These bays are on the lower entry levels. They are prime spots designed to make it easy for short-term visitors to access the car park. Why? Because anything under three hours is where all the profits are made. If these parking stations could have their wish, they would not want anyone to stay any longer than three hours. If the car-parks could be filled to capacity, by a high-turnover of people who leave in under three hours, they would be printing money hand over fist.

In a comedy sketch, Bob Newhart takes us into a driving school for bus drivers. The instructor teaches the class how to torment the customers by driving off while customers are chasing after the bus. He says that the driver must not drive too fast, lest the customer give us. He wants the customer to think that there is some hope of catching the bus. And when the customer becomes exhausted, the driver should accelerate. The instructor is teaching the art of tolerance. If you give people hope, they will not give up. A similar radio sketch was enacted by Tony Hancock, with Kenneth Williams as the instructor. In John Cleese’s TV documentary called, ‘How to irritate people’, Cleese says that when irritating someone, you want to remain irritating and annoying, just up until the victim is about to explode, but stop short of giving the victim that satisfaction. Irritate just enough and then stop. Do not allow you victim to hit the roof. Leave them angry but not enraged, so that they do not let off any steam. These are lessons in tolerances. It seems to me that the parking rates follow this wisdom. Charge people heaps of money up front, but make it sting at the high end, so that parkers say to themselves, ‘Gosh this is expensive. I am going to try to get out of here before it reaches $45 ($53 in Wilson’s case)’. In most businesses, customers are encouraged to consume more. The more they consume, the better it is for the business and the client. In this case, the spaces are limited, and so ‘turn-over’ is the name of the game. Both stations do not want people to linger. The top rates of $45 and $53 are not designed for the 24-hour stayer. They are designed to sting, in the hope that people leave. If a customer stays for 24 hours, Secure Parking makes $45. Whereas if a customer were to use the spot for 2 hours and 1 second, the company makes $455.

FLAT RATE OFFERS

I will not cover the early-bird rates in this article. But let us now look at the flat-rate offers. Below we see the change of rates within a few weeks of each other. What’s significant? On Mondays to Thursdays, we can now park for thirteen hours for $10. This works out at 77 cents per hour, yet a moment ago we could see that the company wanted $18.84 per hour. This is perhaps playing on the notion that business people are likely to park duing the day, and they tend to overlook such business expenses. Whereas in the evening, Secure Parking is speaking to the non-business crowd (people who might not claim such after-hours expenses against their company or Tax Department).

The other major observation is that the flat rates never apply to Fridays, and never to Saturday evenings. Yet, during Friday and Saturday nights, the enticing ‘From $5′ sign is displayed.

Wilson Parking

Down the road, the competitor, Wilson Parking, is offering Friday nights at a flat rate of $9, but I suspect that this will change after new customers form the habit or parking there, only to be bitten in due course if the company changes the night rate for Fridays. I say this because Wilson Parking has constructed new signage where Fridays have been separated. This seems to be a pre-emptive step in preparation of a major price differential when the iron get hot. But for now, Wilson’s $9 Friday night is a massive blow in competitive terms against Secure Parking a few hundred meters up the road. Of course, it is made difficult for consumers to favour one parking station over another. Both stations keep chopping and changing their rates (many more than I have shown here). In the end, we have to ask, what is it all about? Both stations are in Sussex Street. According or land valuations, how much different could one be from the other? As far as operating expenses, they bother operate in similar ways, offering concrete, lighting, and cleaning, with the odd security camera installed. So why and how can Wilson Parking offer Friday nights at $9 flat-rate while Secure Parking cannot? If someone parks for 10 hours on a Friday night, they would pay 90 cents per hour at Wilson and $4.50 per hour at Secure.

There are times when the parks are completely full. However, this is rare. People will pay $45 and $53 if they have no choice. So now we have to ponder if a business ought to adopt a pricing strategy based on a long-term, sustainable pricing model, or an opportunistic money-grabbing, greedy policies of charging whatever they can get away with, regardless of the damage or the confusion that it might cause. Does an existing board of directors not owe it to future of the business to ensure that genuine long-term strategies are in place to foster genuine long-term clients who can grow to trust the business, the brand, and the company. Does a management team not owe it to their own prfessionalism, ethics, and conscience to advice its CEO and the board about modern, ethical, sound management priactices that consider sustainability and growth, as opposed to instant myopic profits that not only destroy computer confidence, but puts the business in jeopardy?

WILSON PARKING

Wilson Parking has an article all its own. Read it here. By comparison, let us look at Wilson’s recent price increases. Below we see the old and the new rates. The photo on the right had an unfortunate flash light which obscured the the text. In fact, both old and new rates start at $7 for the first half hour. Then they both go up to $15, then $30, then $48. The only fee that changed was the 4+ hours to $53. What purpose could this serve? Is this trying to discourage people from staying any longer than four hours? Or could it have been due to a printing error in the first one, when it was not intended that $48 be printed. Was it also an oversight to have printed the illogical category of 4-5 hours, which begs the question: what happens after 5 hours?

If they were correcting errors, I wonder if they had missed this one: at the bottom of both signs is the legal nonsense that reads, ‘Car park charges apply per entry per pay’. Did they mean ‘per day’? Either way, it does not make sense to the average consumer.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

No-one would begrudge either company from wanting to maximise its investments. No-one should tell a company what it should charge for its services. I am merely noting the underhanded, the tricky, the misleading ways in which the company tries to communicate one thing, while trying to do another. It should have the audacity and the decency to face the facts and just call it out, and say, ‘We are in the business of making money, and we are trying to engineer an x-percent profit this year, and we have limited car spaces, so to achieve our goals, we will charge x-dollars per hour.’

Just call it out, up front, without the hideous ‘From $5′ which is an absurd rate from which no customers can benefit in the overall scheme of things.

In other words: Stop lying. Transacting ethically. There you go. Four words. That what this 3164-word article is trying to say.

Interestingly, we see that both Wilson and Secure raise revenue from advertising. How much further could they take that idea? What if every spot was sponsored by a different company? Of what if each floor were dedicated to an advertiser. Rather than parking on 9b, we would park on the Coca Cola level. Or what if parking were free if you drove a Holden, sponsored by Holden. Would more people by more Holdens. When I owned a Lexus, the salesman boasted to me that Lexus customers can park at the Opera House at no charge. That sounds good. Silly me, I did not ask to see the fine print. There were many conditions. There were limited spaces, and first in best dressed. And one could only park there if they have a ticket for a show at the Opera House. So he mislead me. Silly me. Stupid Him. I was bitten like this by Apple recently. They said, for $160 or so per year, you can have unlimited training. Not so. The training happens in George Street, and only one hour can be booked per time. So I would have to drive two hours into town, park, pay tolls etc, for a one hour session. Apple would not allow two or three sessions in one day. So that’s four hours on the road, $39 parking, $15 in tolls, just for one session. Silly me. Stupid Him (and stupid Apple policy).

Over the years, Chrysler has been missing the mark (or should I say ‘Marque’ to force a pun, as many do, thereby committing sin Number One). The Chrysler advertisement below, which resembles one of their billboard campaigns, seems to ignore two important rules. Incidentally, while the world was suffering one of its greatest financial meltdowns, the US government poured millions into Chrysler, while at the same time, the company was spending US$134 million on advertising, saying that it needs to keep its image alive. I endorse advertising, but I fear that they might have wasted a lot of money.



The first error is the use of jargon. In general terms, most people might understand inches and centimetres, or pounds and kilograms. So if we were to say that for $10 you can receive a bar of gold that is 2 cm (or inches) square, you would be able to comprehend this. One can visualise what is on offer. What if you were told that this bar were 100 kg in weight? If you have basic knowledge, you would be amazed, because something so small, to weigh so much, would be out of this world. However, is $10 a fair price for a small lump of gold? At this point, given that you know a bit about gold, you would ask if it is plated, or how many carats it is. If you knew a great deal about gold, you would be either suspicious or amazed at this price. The offer would trigger many thoughts. However, for the average person who is not a professional jeweller, this offer would only be amazing if they were assisted to comprehend the $10 offer, by comparing it with the market value. So the ad would need to say, ‘A $500 bar of gold, for $10 if you purchase today’. Now we have a clue by comparison.

Even as far back as 1957, Chrysler was using technical jargon. In this ad, it mentions horsepower, which back then, and still to this day, most people would not really understand what that means. We know that it sounds impressive, but it does not form a proper picture in our mind, and we cannot compare that with what we drive, because people do not know the horsepower of their own vehicle.

The Chrysler ads often mention the 317 kilowatts. Most people know what a kilo is. And they have heard the term ‘Watt’ used in relation to light-bulbs. Yet, when the phrase/measure is combined, it does not form a picture in one’s head. Of course, a real automotive pro would understand. But this ad is not directed at the pro. It is mass-marketed. The car is being sold to the average family driver or executive. The average person would not be able to imagine what this really means. This is failing in terms of communication. The best form of communication takes a message from one person, and implants it in the head of another (while evoking emotion at the same time).

So here we do not know what 317 kw really means. The second aspect where this ad fails is in what I call the ‘comparison’. The consumer would only say ‘wow’ if they knew what their current vehicle was rated at. For example, if the average Holden Commodore is only 17 kw, and this Chrysler is 317 kw, we know from general maths that this has 300 more. So first, tell the consumers what they are driving, so that they have a comparison. But this is useless unless you give consumers a reason to care. The ‘so what’ test comes next. So what that my car is 17 and this one is 317? Unless we can convert that into something we can visualise, then there is no connection in the communication. Of course, if it transpired that the Holden is 316.5 kw, and this one is 317 kw, that would spark a whole new set of questions.

The advertiser might do well to put that in terms of, ‘If your Holden and this Chrysler raced from Sydney to Perth or from New York to LA (the geography has to make sense to the reader), then by the time you leave your front door, the Chrysler would already have reached Alice Springs (Texas). And now this has an ‘amazing’ factor about it. Yet, the consumer will have to wonder ‘so what?’ Sounds fast and powerful, but my local speeding laws prohibit me from travelling any faster than the local speed limits, which are so low anyway.

And those who know a bit about cars will start to wonder what kind of fuel this car would consume if it is this amazing. There are dozens of other factors that would come into play. All the while, a billboard ad must contain no more than a few words, so it’s a tough assignment.

The internet version of the ad, as shown below, also mentions torque. The average driver whom they are trying to attract will not be able to really comprehend this. Sure, if asked casually at a party, they would pretend to know about it, because they do not want to appear ignorant, but place people in a room and ask them to explain what all these technicalities really mean, and they will fail. Which means that the advertiser has failed. Sure, we can boast in advertising, and we could hope that it would rub-off on the consumer, but in the end, people will feel lost.

The second-last strip worries me. It says that the Chrysler can go from zero to 100 kilometres per hour ‘in low 5 seconds’. This is either sloppy writing or slimy writing. The uninitiated is being conned. The average reader might assume that it is 5 seconds. Much like the silly ads that say, ‘in five short weeks, you can lose weight’. Five weeks are five weeks. There are no such things as five short weeks. And banks say ‘In five low repayments of $10′. Ten dollars are ten dollars. There can be no such things as low ten dollars. Hence, most people will presume that the Chrysler can reach 100 km/h in 5 seconds. Yet I suspect that they mean in the ‘low fives’ like people say, ‘I am in my low thirties’, which is like 35 years old. And so now the company commits yet another sin by misleading.

I trust that this article has given you a brief introduction to the complexity of advertising.



Jonar Nader is a management consultant who areas of expertise include adverting, marketing, and branding. His observations about customer service and consumer behaviour can be found in his book, ‘How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People’.

Paul Hogan affected the Americans with his Crocodile Dundee and his shrimp on the barbie. And the late Steve Irwin coloured the Australian landscape to the point where foreigners now expect to see a crocodile in every back yard. Not to mention what the TV show Skippy did to the idea that Kangaroos come a’hopp’n left right and centre.
I mention all this because at Sydney’s International Airport, arriving passengers are treated to ads on the back of the trolleys. This one is from Vodafone which shows an illustration of a snake, with the message, ‘Australia’s scary. Calling home isn’t.’ The tag line reads, ‘Make the most of now’. Is Australia so dangerous that if we do not make the most of now, there might be no tomorrow? Do we need to scare new arrivals to such a degree? We might not think much of it, but when you travel the world and you see how people just pigeon-hole countries and brands, you will realise the importance of brand control. This leads me to suggest that any company or any product that wants to associate itself with Australia, ought to seek approval from a Brand Manager. This person might be associated with the Tourism Commission or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The ways in which we send out messages about Australia could impact Australia’s standing in terms of its perceived development, intelligence, and social advancement. If you do not believe this, just travel and speak with people. I happened to be in the foyer of a hotel in St Louis, USA. A young, tall, healthy, blond-haired nineteen year-old boy heard my non-American accent and he wanted to know where I was from. When I mentioned Australia, he wanted to know more about it because he imagined it to be a red, dry, desert whose inhabitants kept kangaroos as pets. As I described our way of life, he asked me, ‘Do they have cars in Australia’. And when I answered this question, he was not convinced, so he quizzed me some more, ‘Like what type of cars?’ I mentioned a few brands, of which one was BMW. He turned to his father and said in amazement, as if to report a revelation, ‘Hey Dad, they’ve got cars in Australia!’ Replay that in your mind, using a strong Yankee accent.

Bad news travels far and wide. I was in Melbourne when the Indian protests were taking place. I went to take a look, and I interviewed some of the protesters. ‘The Times of India’ newspaper wrote, ‘Indians in Australia are living in crippling fear. Worried parents in India are recalling their children from Australian universities. Victims have vowed not to go back. Aspiring students and travellers have decided against visiting Australia…’


Here is an audio of the protest. I could not understand a single word, but somehow the crowd knew when to cheer.

Mounted police officers were on the scene. The students had stopped all traffic around Flinders Street Station and the surrounding blocks. I spoke with police officers who said that they had no fore-warning about the protests. As a result, they were not prepared, and did not have the man-power to stop the illegal disturbance. All they could do was plead with the student leaders to stop the show which at times became rowdy and turbulent. It went well into the night and into the next day. Two police officers separately told me that they did not want to aggravate the crowd because ‘there are more of them than there are of us’.

One protester told me that he had his teeth kicked-in while at a train station. Despite video footage, the police did not act. The protest was more about the lack of police assistance, than about violence or racism. Anyway, it all got out of hand, and Australia’s reputation is damaged. One banner read, ‘Justice for the victims, not “sorry”.’ The students were fed up with politicians apologising. They wanted justice. So you see, much like people can’t stand it when corporations do not respond to customer complaints, citizens and members of the community feel aggrieved when those whose job it is to assist the victims, seem to show no compassion. It’s interesting to hear the stories, and then to hear police spokespeople say, ‘We do not want the students to take the law into their own hands’. Good idea. In that case, show us the law in action before communities turn against each other. Tit for tat. Retribution. Revenge. Violence. Bad reputation. We all lose.

Is this a matter of racism? Not at all. Australians are just lazy. You can hear of similar stories at hospitals and train stations and at the biggest department stores and the most prestigious brands. Lazy dimwits who don’t do their job. They have no pride and no concern. They want to get home, pop a pill, get drunk, and go out. That’s all they live for. That, and the footy, mate. It has nothing to do with Indians. What about the case of Aaron Warnecke and Greg Harland, attacked with metal poles while walking home, minding their own business. They were bashed for no reason. Charming. One was hospitalised. All caught on camera. Further threats made. The victims asked for an AVO (apprehended violence order) and the police refused, until three months of community protests. Disgusting. Get off your back side and do your job, whether you work at a hamburger shop or a knocking shop. Lazy bastards. And this image of Australia will not change until community and corporate leaders stop checking the daily stock price. I have said a million times that we need to stop the game of musical chairs. We need leaders/executives to stay in their job long enough to be responsible and accountable, and we need them to never own shares in the company in which they work. Go ahead laugh, or read ‘How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Your Boss.‘ 590 pages to make you laugh some more.

I conduct a lot of business with suppliers overseas. It has absolutely nothing to do with price. If I asked an Australian company to provide me with a quotation or an expression of interest or some ideas about a project, I could wait six weeks before I received a luke-warm response, and that’s only after I have had to escalate the question and re-send my query several times. Compare six weeks with thirty minutes from Asian suppliers who are polite, accurate, enthusiastic, and willing to listen and to perform. It has nothing to do with price. And isn’t it funny how Aussies complain about them over there taking their business and taking their customers. No business in this country loses a client to a competitor overseas. No-one steals them away. The local fat-cats kick their customers away. This week I sent notes off to MelbourneIT and to another internet service provider called Ilisys, asking if they would like my business. I had asked them the same question last week. I am always keen to keep my business local. It rarely works. I bet you that if I do not ask them a third and tenth time, no-one will respond. Lazy buggers. They give us all a bad name. As that police officer said, there are more of them than there are of us.

When Secure Parking shouts its price by using a font so large, that it dwarfs every other statement on the board, it makes me wonder what it is really trying to say. It seems to me that the more that a statement is amplified, the more one needs to be careful.

Last week I gave Wilson Parking a serve for their silly tactics. Sadly, Secure Parking is just as bad. Here’s why.

There were eight people plus me, walking around, wondering why we had been over-charged. Each was looking for clues as to why we felt misled. The photo on the left shows two ladies discussing what they thought was the price. The middle photo, where I placed the red dot, shows the pointed finders of another disgruntled customer trying to explain why he was confused. The woman in the right photo was trying to convince me and her husband that she felt that the parking was for $6, and that she should not have to pay the exorbitant fee.

I have been parking in such car parks from the time I could first drive. And in all my many years, I had never seen a community of people gathering around the payment machine in protest. People are normally shy. They never speak with each other in lifts, and certainly never around the payment machine at car parks. Yet, this week, there was what looked like a union meeting. Strangers complaining to each other about the utter confusion, each one raising different aspects of the various signs at Secure Parking’s Cinema Centre Car Park. I joined the discussion and took some photos to explain why this company, successful as it is, just does not cut the mustard.

First, why must it shout about its parking starting from $6? That sign and the font that displays the number ’6′ is taller than the average customer! Why is it shouting when, in the end, customers are disappointed. Normal people feel ripped off. They are confused. They feel let down. They feel misled. One woman was walking around like a school principal on playground duty, reading all the signs, scratching her head, arguing with her friends, and pleading that she was certain that she was promised $10 parking. The entry-point to that car park is littered with signs and prices, that it would not be so odd for someone to have glanced at one of the many signs and assumed that the offer applied to them. The woman saw me taking the photos and she presumed that I was going to complain on everyone’s behalf. I protested and said, ‘Everyone here must complain. People rarely take matters further than this, so please be sure to complain.’ In other words, I was urging her to not rely on me. ‘More of us need to take action,’ I said.

Why is it so jolly difficult to park a car? Why so many price brackets? Where are the economies-of-scale? This is a concrete building. Why must it speak in terms of segments and brackets of half an hour, then one-to-two hours, and so on? We are not purchasing jumbo jets from Boeing. Why all that inducements and incentives by hourly brackets? Just make it simple. Sell parking by the minute and be done with it. Phone companies realised this ages ago.

So we are lured by an offer of ‘From $6′. This is childish and totally out of touch with the market and with the service being sold. Here’s why: the sign says, if you enter after 5:00 pm on Friday or Saturday nights, you can enjoy parking from $6.00. How stupid. I would challenge Secure Parking to reveal to us how many people enter a car park on a Friday or Saturday night and stay for thirty minutes. For that matter, who goes out on a Friday or Saturday night, whether it be for a show, movie, or event, and departs in less than four hours? I bet that most customers who go to the city on Friday and Saturday nights are there for some major event, meeting, or entertainment. The jolly car park acknowledges this. So much so that it is officially called the ‘Cinema Centre Car Park’. By the time a customer drives in, parks, walks to the cinema, meets friends, has a meal, watches a movie, has coffee, and departs, it is four hours. So for goodness sakes, why are they selling their concrete spaces by shouting a price for a unit of time that would not represent the bulk of what customers need?



I have plenty more to say about this. For example, their price-list as you can see starts at $6 then $13 then $25, then $34, and finally $45 for the night. Why the mess? Why the confusion? If we work these out on an hourly basis, they come to these respective equivalents: $12 per hour, then $13, then $12.50, then $11.33, then $11.25. So all that fuss and nonsense that confuses the hell out of people, just so that they can sell their increments from the equivalent of $11.25 per hour, up to $13 per hour. In the end, not much difference either way. This is a useless way to sell a service on a Friday and Saturday night when party-goers are unlikely to spend less than four hours in town. What a palaver!

Dear Secure Parking, why don’t you just take the four-hour rate with which you seem to be happy? It amounts to $45. This works out at $11.25 per hour. Why don’t you just say that from the start, and be done with it. You can announce, ‘Come and park here for $11.25 per hour.’ How shameful is that? How impossible is that? How outrageous would it be for your company to reveal the naked truth about your price-list? Just tell the truth, damn it!

Better still, sell it by the minute and let people come and go as they please. Just say, ‘Park with us for 20 cents per minute.’

This question puzzles me no-end: Why oh why does Secure Parking (along with similar establishments) feel the urge to price each segment differently? Just why? How does it matter that it is half an hour or 2-3 hours or 3-4 hours? What happens to the concrete, that it matters? I can understand such pricing brackets if one were purchasing printing material from China. The quantity matters, and it affects the price of shipping etc. I am sure everyone understands the notion of economies-of-scale and amortised handling and shipping charges amidst fixed costs for customs clearance etc. The car park is a stack of concrete. What happens between 1-2 hours that differs so greatly from 2-3 hours? It’s just mumbo-jumbo.

And another thing: why are such companies so mean? They price their parking based on demand. That is a huge insult. It is so unprofessional. Go ahead, laugh. Sure, I understand all about price and demand. But it is sooooo mean-spirited when parking fees change based on need. When I really want to park in town, the fees are astronomical. When I am not desperate to park there, I am offered cheaper $10 flat rates. Please note that I have been in sales and marketing and management for many years, so I am speaking as a professional, and not ranting from the perspective of a customer. As a professional, who understands all about pricing, I am saying that it is insane to speak about a brand as having certain lovely qualities, when its actions are mean and nasty. Park with us when lots of people need our services, and you pay through the nose. When the city is not so busy, we will beg you to come to us, shouting with fonts whose height exceed 6 foot. When we need to fill the space, we offer flat rates and early-birds.

How hard would it be if a parking-station worked out its rent and expenses and what it needs to earn, and just distilled it all to a price per minute. They can then come out and announce, ‘Park with us, day or night, at any time, at your convenience, and you can always be sure that the price is dead simple. We charge x-cents per minute. You do not need a World War II code-book to decipher the fee schedule. You do not have to guess and wonder how we might be trying to con you. You do not have to remember any other number. Come park with us for one flat fee, day or night, at any time.’

In fact, if we average it all out, taking into account that the company is willing to charge $10 flat rates, and if we mix that with the current peak-period absurdities, we might find the middle ground, which might be around 12 cents per minutes, on the whole. By the way, I am not asking for a discount. I would not mind if Secure Parking or Wilson Parking charged ten cents or $50. The amount is not the point. It is the underhanded confusing fee schedule that adds no value. (Perhaps they need to show inflated fees to justify their price and fake-discounts to long-term corporate parking clients.)

As I mentioned, strangers were walking about, protesting. When strangers start talking to each other, you know that aggrieved people are on the loose. The whole car park is automated, so that night, customers had no-one to whom to complain. Sure, they could have pressed a button for ‘help’, but perhaps they did not like the idea of big brother shouting at them via a loud speaker (and believe me, that speaker is loud).

Like the rest of the docile crowd, I must have been an idiot too. I was unhappy with my stupidity because I really did not see the ‘From’. I really thought that it was $6 to park. Sure, I am stupid. Sure, I am blind. Yet, I was blaming myself. I was blinded by that 6-foot digit. After all that interaction, guess how much I was charged? $32. As you can see, I took a photo of the screen as it charged me for my parking. But I still feel like an idiot because nowhere on the board does it explain why and when someone is charged $32. So we add insult to injury that makes me feel completely lost. Where on the board does it stipulate $32? I can see $25 that jumps to $34. Goodness me. Compare this experience with the company’s website that says, ‘Secure Parking prides itself on creating superior parking environments.’ In its media releases, it speaks about ‘user friendly car parking’. I have argued with my Visa card company and American Express when my parking fees show up on my credit card statements under the wrong date. So if I park there four times over four dates, I see the bills all listed under one date, which confuses me and makes me wonder if I am being double-charged etc. Secure Parking’s web site boasts about ‘ground-breaking’ technology. Ha! Hardly.

Secure Parking manages more than 200 car parks across Australia, with additional car parks in Lebanon, Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai, and China. They have been in the business long enough (thirty years) to mature. A mature company, like a mature person, ought to stop shouting. Presumably, the company has the confidence to avoid trickery and slimy sales practices that are more akin to the ways of wild youth. On its website, the company uses all the right words, such as: passionate; ground-breaking; highest levels of efficiency; convenience; best people; and so many other magnificent words and phrases (a bit sickly really). And that’s great to see. The intent is there. All they have to do now is convene a meeting where the Board of Directors will ask, ‘Are we delivering on our promise, or are we acting like cowboys?’

By the way, I searched my archives and came across these photos, taken no more than three weeks prior to the photos above. Note the price increase, which is fair enough. What intrigues me is why all other rates have gone up except for the one-hour parking which remained at $13.00. It is also interesting to note the ‘From $5.00′ sandwich board outside.

P.S. You can read my article about Wilson Parking here.

You can read the follow-up article about Secure Parking here.

Here's something new. Secure Parking has erected these large signs. More confusion. It's almost becoming as complex as mobile phone plans. Goodness me, there are only seven days in the week. How hard can it be to find the average rate and just charge people that rate. Is it simple of me to utter such silly things? I love the silly statements of this world. They spice it up and place rockets under close-minded managers who soon find themselves on the scrap heap, only to blame some external factor. If a single soul at Secure Parking is sniggering at my suggestions, I would invite them to go down to their nearest Apple Store, such as the one in George street. Stand across the road. Stare at the store and try to imagine the sniggering at IBM if anyone had suggested one darn thing that Apple is doing, like good design, own the operating system, branch into telecommunications, sell your own products from your own store. They used to laugh their head off. Keep laughing all the way to the looney asylum.

Wilson Parking is over 40 years old, with more than 700 stations across Asia, including 208 stations Australia wide. The website boasts that the senior executive team has ‘a combined experience in the parking industry of more than 100 years!’. The company claims to park more than 240,000 vehicles every day, saying, ‘…so it’s no surprise that we are the market leader with a strength and reputation visible right across Australia.’

If this company is so professional, how can it allow this junior-style of offer to exist. You see, the offer that one can park ‘From $3′ is not plain and simple. Why was it extended in the first place? ‘Intent’ is sometimes more important than the ‘deed’. So, we must wonder if the executives convened a meeting whose minutes would reflect something along these lines: ‘I hereby call the meeting to order. I understand that our product manager has collaborated with the marketing manager to present us with some market research.’ To which the product manager would respond, ‘Yes Mr Chairman. We have been concerned about the public. Our research shows that people are annoyed about the city council which has failed to provide sufficient public parking. The city is a place where people must visit to transact. They need to visit banks and institutions to conduct their business, and they dread coming into the city because they cannot find parking. So the CEO and I, along with the marketing manager, propose that we take a dip in profit and reduce our parking rates in relation to the first thirty minutes.’

At this point, perhaps directors tapped the table and said, ‘Hear, hear, we concur. Let us fix this unfortunate lack of public parking by taking a dive. Let’s slash our parking fees for the first thirty minutes so that decent citizens can drive into town and go about their civic duties, safe in the knowledge that their cars will be well-looked after by our sophisticated security systems. We agree with your sentiments and we wish to grant you permission to be good corporate and community citizens. Hang the expenses. Just go do it and make Mr Wilson proud.’

Somehow I doubt that the sentiments were towards making parking affordable. I suspect that the meeting started with the question, ‘How can we lure people into our parking stations? How can we make it appear that we are affordable? How can we get people to assume that parking is cheap? And then, slug them for as much money as we can.’

I dare say that the ‘From $3′ offer was designed to attract people on the correctly-arrived-at assumption that no errand in town can be transacted in under thirty minutes, and that once people realise this and are delayed, their parking fee jumps from $3 to $16.

Why am I being hard on Wilson Parking? Because their prices start at $3, and then jump to $16. And that’s cool if that’s how they lure the flies to the honey. But they don’t do it that way. They say, ‘From $3′ which seems to suggest that people can park at $3. Although technically this is true, I doubt its practicality. One second over, and the customer is up for $16. That’s more than FIVE times the intended. A customer thinks, ‘Oh, yes, I can afford three bucks. Cool, I think this is great, fantastic, reasonable…’ The $3 evokes all sorts of positive emotions. The $3 is a brilliant idea because it lures the customer and generates all the positive feelings. Perfect. Except that it jumps five-fold if someone goes one second over. Dear Wilson Parking, can you please let me know how many people, out of the 240,000 vehicles you park in Australia each day, in fact are lucky enough to pay $3? And while we are at it, of all your stations around the world, how many people park for under 30 minutes? And where is it the done thing to increase a price of something (the exact same thing) by over 433%? It’s not like upgrading a silver pen to a gold pen, or a small meal to a large meal, or going from economy class to first class. This is the same parking spot. What happens after 30 minutes that increases your costs to such a degree? Or are you saying that you would ‘prefer’ it if people left in under 30 minutes? Do you want a high turn over? I would have thought that more people moving about is not profitable for you? All those tickets and credit card transactions and boom gates bopping up and down and all that wear and tear… It seems to me that you do not want so much traffic, as is evidenced by your early-bird parking policy which totally rewards people for staying-put between busy periods. I am utterly confused. And that’s just dandy. It seems that you and mobile phone companies love to dish out indecipherable plans to completely confuse the market. At this point, you might say that I should pull my head in, because it is clear that I do not know what I am taking about, having just admitted to you that I am at a loss. How true. All the more reason I protest as a client and as a social and corporate warrior.

As a marketing professional with 30 years in sales and marketing, I have to say that, in my humble opinion, it is totally unacceptable to suggest that someone can park from $3. I say this because your prices are not in $3 increments. This means that the $3 was not designed to help the customer, but to lure the customer. This means that the price was a ploy/tactic to suit you. And indeed, you have every right to charge $30000000000000 per hour. It’s not up to me to comment on how much your should charge. But the moment that you say $3 and then the next second it becomes $16, we are talking about marketing tactics. And please note that I, as a marketer, cannot let that pass without comments, because it is an indictment on the marketing profession that you should use such sales tactics. A well-establish company like yours ought to have better scruples. It just is not the way the game ought to be played.

Wilson Parking either loves or hates the casual parker. Which is it? The pricing model is polarised. On the one hand, it says, in lights, come all ye drivers and park from $3, yet on the other hand, the price-list says, ‘If you wish to park here for one second over two hours, you will pay $47. If you wish to park for three hours, or four hours, or ten hours, or twenty three hours and 59 seconds, the price is still $47.’ This is strange. On the one hand they say ‘come to us’. Then they say, ‘Hey are you sure you want to come to us, because if you wish to park for two hours and one second, we will charge you the FULL day’s rate.’ This is bizarre. Whatever do they mean? How can it be helpful to lure people with a $3 offer, then say that anyone who wishes to stay for one second over two hours, will be charged the 24-hour rate? These extremes are daunting. So which is it? Are casual parkers welcome or are they not? If they are welcome, why can’t they park for three hours or four hours at a reasonable price? Why must they be forced to pay for 24 hours? So Wilson Parking must love the casual parker, considering the profit margin per hour. They love them so much, that their sign outside is focussed on luring them in. They are so important to this company, that the ticker-tape sign is dedicated to them.

Can you see the sneaky thinking here? If you are in the city, and you need to run some errands, and you stay for two hours and one second, you must pay for 24 hours. Note well:  you cannot take that 24 hours home with you. You cannot save it up for another time. You cannot derive the full benefit. You will not sit in your car for 24 hours just so that you do not feel ripped off. You will go home, paying for a service that you cannot use, thereby relinquishing the parking spot for someone else to use and who will go through the same motions. It’s not like a candy store that says you can only purchase a $3 block of chocolate, or a $47 block of chocolate. If that were the case, you might go for the larger bar, and what you cannot eat can be taken home in a doggie bag. But with this parking arrangement, you cannot take anything home. You pay for something you cannot use.

Will Wilson Parking allow you to go out, pick up the kids, and return an hour later to park in the slot for which you had paid? No. Once you exit, you cannot return. Can you see why I am making a fuss here? My mind races so fast, that I just cannot let things like this go without a comment. They offer early-bird parking and night-parking, and that’s lovely. But they are focusing on the casual parker, and so am I.

Then again, I am not the only one who notices things. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) took exception to another one of Wilson Parking’s policies, as noted in their media release of 8 October 2009, under the heading: ‘ACCC institutes proceedings against Wilson Parking…’ The media release says, ‘The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against Wilson Parking Australia… alleging that Wilson misrepresented the number of mobile security patrol inspection services it had provided to certain customers. The ACCC alleges that between October 2007 and September 2008, Wilson issued monthly invoices to those customers representing that the contracted security inspections had been made but did not inform them that Wilson had missed making a number of inspections. The ACCC alleges that Wilson did not reduce the invoiced amounts nor did it provide refunds, rebates or credits for missed inspections. The ACCC alleges that the conduct breaches ss52 and 53(aa) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and is seeking declarations, injunctions, costs and orders that Wilson inform all affected customers of these proceedings and implements a trade practices law compliance program. A directions hearing has been set down for 21 October in the Federal Court, Perth before Justice Barker.’

I shall be interested in the outcome.

P.S. Secure Parking is another company whose tactics leave a lot to be desired.

I told him that I had contacted his office and had made a complaint about his no-photo policy, and that if he likes, he can take it up with head office, and I would be happy to give him my name and number. He fetched pen and paper and asked me for my ID. Naturally, I was not about to comply, for no other reason that it was none of his bloody business. Who the bloody hell does he think he bloody well is, the ghastly man! I was most certainly going to give him my real name and my real number and this real blog site, but he withheld his pen and paper like a five year-old clutching a teddy bear, refusing to share. This went back and forth like a dance, with me holding my hand out for the pen and he retreating. In the end I said, ‘Call the police’. He would not have had far to go. Right outside his store was a police stand where up to six cars could be seen parked along the stretch of road.



I walked outside his store and stood at the entrance, giving him a chance to call the police. If he had pressed his red panic button, I wanted to hang around. It would not look good if I were to leave the crime scene. The second and more important reason for me standing outside his store was to remain within full view of his security cameras for when I unwrapped his burger to photograph it. I did not want to fall outside the full view of the cameras lest anyone accuse me of tampering with the evidence. You see, I wanted to show you what an Ultimate Double Whopper really looks like. If anyone at Burger King wants to argue with me, they had better first check the security footage. This burger is what I was given.

Here I was, a random customer, ordering their lead product. The ULTIMATE. So daring and grand is this burger that the poster asks, ‘Can you handle it’. This is more than a slogan. It ought to have served as a warning to customers to brace themselves for a massive burger filled with the following ingredients, as posted on the Hungry Jack’s Web site: Beef Patty (100% Ground Beef), Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Pickles, Onion (I asked for none), Mayonnaise, and Ketchup.

I draw your attention to the alleged bacon and cheese. Mine contained none. As for the pickle, there was a shadow of half-of-one on my bun. How can a company, the likes of Burger King and Hungry Jack’s, be in business to dish out this type of product? No doubt Hungry Jack’s head office would be appalled. However, I cannot accept their apology. They make millions of dollars, and they have ample staff and strict policies. If, right under their nose, this type of rubbish can be dished out, then it is totally unacceptable for them to cry shock-horror. If they are horrified at this level of brand-degradation, and if they truly mean it, then I will not entertain any communications from them until they first descend onto that Swanston Street store and shut it down pending a full and thorough investigation. I am sick of arms-length apologies and beseeching. Ivory-tower managers have no credibility. I could not have been the first one to experience such nonsense. It seems that in a six-month period, that store has not changed. I had not tested any other store. I might well embark on a full-scale store-by-store review. All they have to do is step out of line and give me lip, and they will find me reviewing every damned store in every post code. What’s going on that a store like this one can go six months without a review.

It’s bad enough that their products never look anything like their photos. But when a product is supposed to have bacon and TWO slices of cheese, yet is served with none, that says to me that not only are we talking about incompetence, but also about fraud!

This article was written by Jonar Nader, author of ‘How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People’. Jonar is a consultant whose website is www.LoseFriends.com

TonyRoma’s promotes his ‘World Famous Ribs’. Is that like saying that apples are world-famous because everyone knows about apples, and as such, apples are famous around the world? And so here, are we simply being reminded that ribs are world famous? Or is Tony saying that his servings of ribs are world famous? If so, what benefit is it for the consumer to eat something that is world-famous. Does it taste better? Or is it so delicious that people are raving about it all over the world? I had never heard nor set foot at TonyRoma’s. I must have walked past an outlet, if I had taken this photo. I had the impression that it was just a corner pub. While writing this blog, I searched and discovered that this chain started in 1972 and now has 200 restaurants in 32 countries. Well… I never!

If we were to go to three major cities, like Singapore, Paris, and London, and ask random strangers if they can name a great restaurant that serves ribs, would the strangers scratch their head, look heavenward, and snap their fingers while exclaiming, ‘Oh yes, and you can’t beat TonyRoma’s!’ Perhaps so, but is this chain world famous, or is it simply an international business? My books are in many countries, but I am not sure that I am world famous. I have fans around the globe, but does that make me world famous? This article is simply asking about why someone needs to tell me that they are world famous, and what that revelation does for a consumer. If the ribs are delicious, then why would the consumer care whether or not people in Aruba think highly of it? Now that I know more about this chain, I shall give it a go. Maybe I’ll change my tune when I experience the taste. Dare I admit to you that I have never ordered ribs? The idea has never appealed to me. There’s always a first time.

This massive wall-sized poster at a department store says that we can grow younger naturally. To stress the point, they say that 77% of people who used the product thought that their skin felt lifted. Was their skin lifted, or did it just ‘feel’ lifted? I have no reason to bag this product. It might well be a wonderful cream. I am simply questioning why (on a massive wall) they make statements that drive me to drink. I need to know more information, like how many times did they conduct the experiment? For example, did they ask people to use their product, and at the end, only 30% agreed, so they scrapped that group and started again and again and again until they found a vibrant bunch of women who happened to agree. But to what did they agree? What was the question? How long had they used the product? Where were they, during the time when they were using the product? Were they using other products as well, or did the group drink lots of apple juice at the same time? The combination of activities could have affected the outcome.

Did the company take these women to a holiday resort and pamper them for four weeks with excellent food, rest, and exercise, as well as daily facials; thereby rejuvenating the group to such a degree that all the women felt better? I ask these questions because the fine print intrigued me. It said, ‘Based on a four week sensory study of 52 women in the US.’ Maybe those in-the-know would know, but what is a ‘sensory study’ to an average person walking through the department store?

At the time of snapping this photo (May 2009), there were over 307 million people in the USA. More than half were female. 80% were over 15 years of age (the age at which girls start to use beauty products), so that means that there could have been over 120 million women within the target market. Of the 120 million, the company selected 52. Is that a good scientific balance? Is 52 out of 120 million a satisfactory sample to warrant such claims? I really do not know. I am not mocking these figures. This might well be the world standard when it comes to beauty products. I have no idea. I simply do not like the notion that 52 people’s responses (about unexplained methodologies) warrant such claims.

Far too many questions remain unanswered. I visited the company’s website and could not find anything that discusses the methodologies. I will stress again that I do not doubt the quality of the products. I had not used them. But I am wondering how people can make such claims.

Back in September of 1950, on NBC, Palmolive aired a television commercial of a woman who seemed dull and dreary. A man appeared in her living room and recommended Palmolive soap. ‘If used three times per day over two weeks, lathered into the face for one minute each time, the woman was promised ‘a lovelier complexion’. A few seconds later, she emerges looking like a glamour queen. The announcer said, ‘Scientific tests on 1285 women, supervised by 36 leading skin specialists, shows that Palmolive brings most women a lovelier complexion.’

In 1950, there were approximately 55 million women over the age of 15. A sample of 1285 in 55,000,000 is much better than 52 in 120,000,000.

Palmolive engaged 36 leading experts. This company’s site makes no mention of experts in relation to this product.

I guess it all depends on the scientific definition of the terms ‘lovely’ (not to mention ‘lovelier’). And as for the difference between skin ‘feeling’ firm or ‘being’ firm, that’s one long argument.

It seems that BMW can ‘Defy the Laws of Physics’ (I do not understand the capital letters). Indeed, such a discovery would warrant more than a billboard at an airport. It’s a wonder their engineers haven’t been kidnapped by aliens or a secret government agency. Defying physics must be the next frontier. Alas, it’s available to all who can afford the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’. In any case, the engineers at BMW will need to find a new job. They have finally designed the ‘Ultimate.’ Nothing can come thereafter. According to Dictionary.com, the adjective means, ‘last; furthest or farthest; ending a process or series…’

I ought to be proud to live in an era where one can walk through a supermarket and access the ultimate in razors, detergents, and household products. These poor manufacturers will have nothing to do, now that they have reached the end of the design cycle. What can be better than the best? I guess they can always add one more blade to my five-blade vibrating front-lit night-vision razor. Why not go where no human has been before: the 12-blade razor. I am not sure which would be harder: to eventually merge all twelve blades into one laser-sharp turbo blade; or to come up with a word than dares to surpass ‘ultimate’. Oh, it might be called, the ‘All-new 12-in-one complete shaving system: where you only need to shave once per month.’ By the way, Google the word ‘ultimate’ and more than 307 million links are returned. The word ‘best’ brings over 2.49 billion links. The word ‘most’ follows at 2.44 billion.

Companies speak about building something from the ground-up. And they boast about it being ‘all new’. This puzzles me. How new does it make it? What is encompassed within the word ‘all’? Are we to assume that everything within this Audi is new? Does ‘all’ mean ‘everything’? So we have new nuts and bolts that had hitherto never been used on any other Audi? Not a single item within the engine or body had existed previously? If that’s the case, I take my hat off to the company. Wow. Fancy designing something as complex as a motor car, with tens of thousands of parts, where each part had to be designed from scratch. That would be exhausting. They must have a pretty nifty network of suppliers. I find it a challenge to find one competent printer who can put ink on paper. And here they are commissioning factories left right and center. Talk about just-in-time management! The feature that curls my whiskers is the ‘tronic’ aspect of this car. Not only do you get tronic, you can enjoy the S tronic. Now that’s edging closer to the ultimate driving experience… but there’s no need. BMW has beaten them to it.

Before I go, can someone tell me who does all the voting? I get around a fair bit, and I buy heaps of products, and use all sorts of services, yet I have never been asked to vote. Who gets selected? Who voted this as the best gym in Melbourne? Correction: only the best in the CBD! It might well be true, but who voted? Did they frequent every gym for three months at a time, and having completed their examinations, concluded, independently and individually, that this gym was the best? How? Who? What? On what basis? I never know what to think when a fast-food joint assures me that their meat pies were voted the best.

Airlines take my breath away when their in-flight magazine’s front cover says something like, ‘Voted the best in-flight magazine in the world’. How, who, on what bases, but most of all… by whom? If by the travellers, one would assume that each passenger would have subscribed to every such publication and read all of them for the whole year, and in the end, voted for the best (but on what basis — the crossword puzzle?). I cannot understand how consumers can vote an airline-lounge to be the best in the world? How many frequent flyers have frequented so many lounges? So exhausting… does anyone know of a good hotel?

Maybe I am not the target group. I visited the Swanston Street store in the city of Melbourne, Australia. I ordered a Whopper, which should have looked like the yummy stack you see above. Alas, this is what I received. I did not touch the burger. I simply unwrapped it carefully. I neither squashed it nor squeezed it. It came as you see here. The company recognises that the current challenges include, ‘Maintaining and improving the quality of our products and services’. The company’s SWOT analysis mentions these as the first two weaknesses: 1) Operations not perceived to be superior to competition. 2) Perceived in the marketplace as No. 2 to McDonalds (ie. a follower not a leader).

Franchising is a tough game. It seems that brand owners want good operators to run the stores. When good operators make a fortune, they want more, so they figure that they should open a second or third store. Given their experience and cash-flow, they set about to expand their empire. The franchisor likes the idea. This increases the distribution. If the franchisee is denied additional stores, they might become bored or distracted by other ventures. And so it’s a catch-22 for everyone, and down the hill they slide, not noticing the poor quality that will eventually damage anyone associated with the brand.

Here’s the punch line: You cannot operate a retail business by entrusting the store and its reputation to a bunch of employees who don’t have the foggiest idea about customer service or product quality. How on earth can you run a franchise-chain on the basis that the franchisee is expected to care, when in fact, the owner farms-out the work to transient back-packers and students who don’t care about the business? This is as baffling as when regular retailers place their most junior and least-trained casual staff during the busiest trading periods such as Saturdays and late-night shopping days.

If you do not love hamburgers, don’t bother selling them or making them or preparing them. If you do not have pride in the craft of preparing and serving food, don’t enter the food game. Then again, I must be mistaken. It’s all about money, what!

In How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People, there is a chapter about customer service, wherein I say, ‘A person who has never worn a man’s business shirt should not be allowed to iron one. A person who dislikes desserts should not be allowed to cook them.’

In other words, get out of the kitchen.

P.S. At the Swanston Street store, I happened to be the only customer there at the time. While waiting for my order, I pulled out my digital camera to take a photo of the board overhead, but the staff member became agitated. He would not allow me to take the photo. Nor could he explain why. He was edging towards aggression. It’s amazing that journalists can take shots of celebrities in toilet cubicles, yet a tourist is threatened with police-action if shooting an illuminated poster of a hamburger. Perhaps he feared that I might take a photo of the kitchen. Did he not want me to snap the food-preparation area? It’s wide open anyway. The store is open to the public. What’s with all the modesty? I was not shooting any of his colleagues. I just aimed it at the sign. It’s not like I broke in to the top floor and spied into the ivory tower through the keyhole. This was a public place. There can’t be any corporate secrets behind that counter! Maybe there’s a new toaster that they don’t want McDonald’s to know about? His stern warning and frantic waving reminded me of when Basil Fawlty refused to allow two unmarried guests (albeit fiancés) to share a room. Basil said, ‘It’s got nothing to do with me… it’s the law’.

Is it illegal to stand across the road and take photos? I think not. Therefore, what's wrong with standing inside the store and taking photos, especially when I was the only customer.

I did not break the law, even though there were no signs warning valued customers to holster the camera at all times. Mind you, how come he had ten cameras trained on me from the moment I neared his establishment? Why could he and his employer take video footage of me and my bald patch, yet I was not afforded the same power? I phoned his Regional Manager who would not take my word for it until the CCTV footage was reviewed. Then I insisted that if they do not allow photography, they should put a sign up. I shall head down to Melbourne soon. I’ll let you know if they have erected such signs. Anyway, I think I found a loophole. I crossed the road and taxed my zoom lens. My baby camera is not so great. Sorry about the fuzzy images. That’s the price of portability. One day I shall invest in a mother of a zoom lens, and catch him picking his nose. Watch out my good man.

UPDATE: I have since visited that store for a second time. The second experience was worse that the first. You can read it here.

But does this make it the fastest of ALL networks? Or only the fastest amongst the national networks? Maybe it is the fastest of all wireless that are national, even though there might be local non-national networks that are 100 times faster?

In a huge window display, Telstra promotes ‘The world’s fastest national wireless broadband network’.

I find such things confusing. Which is the impressive part of the statement? The fact that it is wireless, or that it is national, or that it is broadband, or that it is the fastest in the world?

This headline is muddy. It’s like a statement about owning the world’s largest potato truck. Is the truck the largest vehicle in the world? Or, of all the trucks that carry potatoes, it is the largest, even though it might not be the largest truck in the world? Or is it the largest truck fashioned out of an over-grown potato, making the truck no larger than an apple?

In this case, are we to assume that there are faster wireless networks, albeit ones that adequately service a local area, but that do not extend nationally? Or is it the fastest wireless network, that is also national?

Besides, why would anyone need a national network? Most people to not travel that much. While at home or at work, most of us just need a fast system at our current location. This is like a dry-cleaning company boasting about having 700 outlets. How is this of interest to average people who just need their shirts cleaned weekly, at the handy laundry down the road?

And what does fastest mean? By how much? What is one giving-up in order to go with the fastest? For example, if it takes one hour and $200 to catch a flight to your destination, would you go with the ‘fastest’ airline if it saves you ten minutes, but costs you an extra $500?

Would you like to be coached by the fastest runner in the world? Would the second-fastest (who was a tenth of a second behind) be incapable of assisting you? Is the second-place holder simply a failure and an embarrassment?

I am easily confused, and yes, I ask too many questions. However, when a large corporation makes bold statements, it had better have a good reason for making them.

Suppose that I swallow it whole, and go with the spirit of the statement, and just drop all my questions, and accept that this is one super-hot very-fast network that would suit me, because as a traveller, I could benefit from a national network… then… pray tell, why the fine print in that poster, just under the headline. It says, ‘In selected areas with BigPond’s new USB card’.

How can something be national, but ‘in selected areas’? They boasted about it being national. So now it is not national. It is in selected areas, which is where all the major players operate anyway. Every provider works in selected areas. So the headline should say, ‘Wireless access in selected areas.’ That’s the end of that statement.

As for how fast it is, it seems that it just might never be all that crash-hot. Did you notice that the fine print also has more fine print; listed as item number ‘1’. Which tempers the enthusiasm by stating, ‘Actual customer download speeds are less than 21Mbps. Speeds vary due to factors such as distance from cell, local conditions, user numbers, hardware, software, download source and other factors.’ The poster on the left says that it works better in more places. Does this really matter to the average user? Australia is a big place. If this network works well in a 10,000 places, who cares? What individual users care about is that it works in the seven places that they frequent. Does it work well when they need it. Who cares that it works in so many places if one cannot get on with their work in their own back yard. What consolation is it to tell someone that they should not complain about not being able to connect to their emails because their network is a great network and works in 9,99 other places really well, but rotten luck you are standing in the wrong spot. Or that you cannot access your network because your postcode has more elderly people in it, which means that they surf the net, taking up your bandwidth. In any case, what’s all this mean when New Zealand’s Telecom says that no one does it better. What I want to know, is who does it well, properly!