Ranting: Why people treat advertising people like vermin
The reason is that some say anything just to get the advertiser's money and don't care about keeping their word. So someone who puts a directory took a longer hiatus than he planned or told his advertisers. More than one of them told me they expected their ads to come out in 2008 not at the end of April 2009. Others, clearly expected the directory to be out at the very beginning of 2009 or at the very least before Pesach, as you can tell by the wording of their ads. And then there are ad for businesses that were defunct long before their ads came to the target audience. All these ads were paid for, as one of the advertisers told me, the credit card is charged first thing. The owner of the directory does not bother to inform the advertisers that he is holding their money for 8 months to a year or even longer before their ads would see the light of day.
Others play games like charging the credit card given twice, then offering to make good on the charge with additional ads but refusing to refund the money.
So people have all these negative encounters with advertising media and assume anyone in the business must be crooked. Consequently, I am often greeted with overt hostility when I call a business. Some will even insist that they already had and ad with me when I never had dealing with them at all. Others mistaking my magazine for another do not listen to my actual price quotes before declaring the rates to be too high. That claim is just another symptom of no longer even distinguishing between magazines.
The dishonest ones don't only end up robbing the individual advertisers they cheat but robbing anyone attempting to go about the business honestly of a fair hearing. There are the people who paid top dollar for their ads elsewhere and then claim that that money was wasted and so they will not put their money into any other advertising. Yet, these people always end up going back to the very same advertisers they derided for wasting their money without trying the lower priced alternatives offered. More than that, people who assume that they are dealing with someone in a dishonest business feel they are entitled to take advantage of them by delaying payment, evading calls asking for payment, claiming the check went out a month ago and they will not mail another one, or saying they don't think they should pay for the ad because it didn't bring in the rush of business they had hoped for.
Clearly, "virtue is its own reward," as there is no reward for honesty in business. The new guy on the block expects to expand and make it rich quickly. Unfettered by integrity, a person could get pretty far.
Others play games like charging the credit card given twice, then offering to make good on the charge with additional ads but refusing to refund the money.
So people have all these negative encounters with advertising media and assume anyone in the business must be crooked. Consequently, I am often greeted with overt hostility when I call a business. Some will even insist that they already had and ad with me when I never had dealing with them at all. Others mistaking my magazine for another do not listen to my actual price quotes before declaring the rates to be too high. That claim is just another symptom of no longer even distinguishing between magazines.
The dishonest ones don't only end up robbing the individual advertisers they cheat but robbing anyone attempting to go about the business honestly of a fair hearing. There are the people who paid top dollar for their ads elsewhere and then claim that that money was wasted and so they will not put their money into any other advertising. Yet, these people always end up going back to the very same advertisers they derided for wasting their money without trying the lower priced alternatives offered. More than that, people who assume that they are dealing with someone in a dishonest business feel they are entitled to take advantage of them by delaying payment, evading calls asking for payment, claiming the check went out a month ago and they will not mail another one, or saying they don't think they should pay for the ad because it didn't bring in the rush of business they had hoped for.
Clearly, "virtue is its own reward," as there is no reward for honesty in business. The new guy on the block expects to expand and make it rich quickly. Unfettered by integrity, a person could get pretty far.
Comments