Category: Marketing / Advertising

How To Sell

Gun/Ammo Tests, Marketing / Advertising

Got the usual email from the folks at Lucky Gunner for 7.62x39mm ammo (among others), and I want to highlight the product blurb from the manufacturer.  Note the highlighted parts:

The big “knocks” against inexpensive “39” ammo are that:

  • the steel casing can damage a gun’s action (it doesn’t)
  • steel casings can’t be reloaded like brass casings can (true)
  • Berdan primers are corrosive (not anymore), and
  • a lot of ranges (e.g. the one where I used to shoot) won’t allow steel / alloy-steel bullets because of potential damage to the backstop.

Every single issue is addressed in the copy — nay, not just addressed but trumpeted.  As marketing/advertising copy, it’s absolutely brilliant.

I know that 40c/round is expensive compared to the old 15c price bracket, but these are different times we live in.  And for AK owners, like I used to be, this looks like a decent bargain.

And who the hell reloads 7.62x39mm anyway?

Random Totty

Beauty, Business, Marketing / Advertising

You might look at pics of this toothsome redhead and think, “Oh well, just another example of Kim’s infatuation with bimbettes with ginger pubes.”

Well, yes.  However, this is a woman who started making her own cosmetics at age 13, became a world-renowned makeup artist, and is now head of an eponymous global company named Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Ltd, with annual sales of close to $200 million with profits of about 40% of that.

Not much of a bimbette, in other words.  Oh, and in the above pics, she’s in her late forties.  Yum.

Nosebleed And RCOB

Marketing / Advertising, Two-Minute Hate

Yesterday I went to buy someone a Dallas Cowboys cap (don’t ask), and at Academy I was just about to throw one into the shopping cart when I caught a glimpse of the price.

THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS?  FOR A LOUSY CAP????

So back on the rack it was flung, with some force, and I was so angry I had to buy some new .45 ACP ammo to settle my nerves.  (And at just over a dollar per round for primo self-defense stuff, it wasn’t that bad or else I’d have had a stroke.)

I can sorta see how a thermal cup, for instance, could cost maybe fifteen bucks (don’t get me started about that stupid Yeti crap):  there’s a combination of materials and a little quality thrown in, and then there’s the “brand” to pay for (although the way the Cowboys have been playing recently from all accounts, they should be paying US to take their shitty merchandise).

But $30 for a common-or-garden baseball cap, made (as they all are) in China?

FOAD, America’s Team.

Misfire

Marketing / Advertising, The Gun Thing

If ever there was a corporate decision that made no sense, it was FN Herstal/Browning’s to discontinue the manufacture of the much-loved Browning P-35 High Power.


Need less to say, that “gap” in the market was quickly filled by Springfield, with its SA-35:

…and more recently, from EAA/Girsan (Turkey), with its MC P35:

Okay, both clones are apparently made to FN specs, but both SA and EAA claim to have “cleaned up” the design, using modern tooling, steel  and manufacturing methods.  We’ll see over the next few years if this is in fact true.

Here are the principle differences between the two.  The SA-35 is more faithful to the original P35’s appearance, but does not come with the annoying magazine disconnect safety (which prevents the pistol from firing unless a magazine is inserted).  The MC P35 has a ambidextrous safety (which will endear it to left-hand shooters) but does feature said annoying magazine disconnect safety.  The SA-35 has a white dot front sight, while the MC P35 has the traditional HP’s white line front sight.

The SA-35 runs about $650 street, and the MC P35 about $525 street.

Now for the fun part.  When FN saw the response from gun owners to the new suppliers’ models, they said “Oops” (or however they say it in Belgianese) and re-released the P35, albeit uglier and at the typical FN/Browning premium price ($700 over the Springfield):

Me, IF I were in the market for a new High Power to replace the one I lost in that terrible canoeing accident on the Brazos, I’d get the Springfield SA-35 in a heartbeat.  Hell, I might get one anyway, just for spite.

Here’s an overview of all three new variants.

Staying Away

Business, Freaks & Loonies, LGBTOSTFU, Marketing / Advertising

I don’t often visit Target stores because they so seldom have anything I want, and if they do, it’s at a premium price.  Guess I won’t be going there anytime soon anyway, what with this bullshit going on:

Target will be selling breast binders and packing underwear as part of its latest clothing collection just ahead of “Pride month” in June.

The retailer is known for celebrating June in a splashy, rainbow-colored way. It has been criticized for offering a pride collection for kids, specifically babies, for years. Now the company is catering to the trans community by promoting specialty garments specifically made for them.

According to Bustle, Target partnered with TomboyX and Humankind for the collection, which are both “queer owned, female-founded brands.” Merchandise will include the expected rainbow-colored messaging that’s become commonplace for these collections. It will also have some new items that a mainstream retailer like Target hasn’t sold before.

…

In the adult collection, a poem that includes the line, “For the queer lovers and everyone in between, for the rebels that fight to forever be seen,” is featured on tote bags, shirts, and beach towels.

There are also pride flag cat toys, including a giraffe designed in lesbian flag colors and stuffed teacup with rainbow tea, and three tea bags with the lesbian, transgender, and bisexual pride flags.

Call me whatever-phobic, but I just can’t see that any of that merchandise will be suited to me.

Idiots, or evil?  I report, you decide.