At the supermarket the other day, I was totally sucked in by a new, sneaky, guilt-trippy marketing trick. I'd love to hear from any other victims, because I'm feeling pretty stupid.
Right, so it was a Thursday, I think, during the after-school rush at New World Birkenhead. I'd stopped to get a bottle of wine.
According to those little yellow tags, which I love because they always make me feel thrifty, the Saints range had the best savings to price ratio. But I don't really like their chardonnay.
I was reaching for something else when a Martha Stewart-ish blonde standing next to me at the fridge said: "Oh hi!"
Me: "Hi?"
She beamed.
"The Saints range is $9.99, which is a saving of $11."
Her smile ratcheted up a notch.
She wasn't holding a skull, but her smile went a little something like this:
"Oh, okay, I really like Saints, ah, is there any chardonnay cold?"
She beamed again, found me a bottle in the fridge, and bustled off to the next victim. I watched her for a while. She was accosting anyone who walked through the wine section - which you had to do to get from the milk fridges to the checkout - and her hit rate was spectacular.
Every time I pour a glass of that wine I berate myself. That was pure peer pressure. And I totally folded to it. Have I learned nothing since high school?
Sure, I was vulnerable. I was tired and grumpy. I had a big ugly coldsore on my face. I'd stepped in a puddle so my old suede shoes were leaking black dye onto my feet. I just wanted to buy some wine, go home and put my trackpants on, and I simply did not have enough nice left in me to nicely tell the nice lady to bugger off.
What really hacks me off is that I know the supermarkets, and Saints, were totally counting on that: it must be a million times harder psychologically to say no to an actual person, than to a yellow price tag.
The upside is I now have an excellent excuse - no, reason - to bulk-buy wine online.
I'd love to hear your supermarket stories.
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