Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
6 October 2009
07:5029898#1
Once again the British public have flagged up their love affair with consumer giant Tesco. Their half yearly figures show a profit of £1.42 billion , yes that reads billion and that reads profit ! Although its only up 1.5% over the same period last year, they still showed an increase in sales and volume during the worst recession for donkeys years. So, quite a performance.
But its not just Tesco. Morrisons and Asda, and indeed other supermarkets are all doing very well, as people rush to their comfort pricing zone in the teeth of this grim recession. So the future prospects of supermarkets soars and soars into the stratosphere, while the ordinary high street shop dwindles away to the point of extinction. And nobody cares. Sure, we huff and puff a bit but we vote with our feet.
We all have a grumble about supermarkets and we all particularly grumble about Tesco, but it isnt real, we all just grumble when we see a success story out of hand and perhaps we like to give them a bit of a kick...and we still go there.
But success breeds success. The more profits they make, the more advertising they do, and the more advertising they do, the more we all go and spend our money there. We love advertisng and most of all we love Tesco!
The machine rolleth on...
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
6 October 2009
08:0729906#2
Can't argue with that really Paul, but as you say, it is the Town Centres that suffer - most of which have small individually-owned businesses, who cannot afford loads of money on advertising, that's why the Discover Dover leaflet was so good - it promoted the Town Centre businesses at very minimal costs: come to think of it, that's what the Dover Loyalty Scheme did too.
I've now distributed all of the English ones and could make another print run, if I had just £400.
Roger
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
6 October 2009
12:1929912#3
the big out of town outlets survive because of free parking.
if someone who lives or works in central dover respects their taste buds, they will go to the charlton centre for their local meat and fruit and veg.
it is also much cheaper than the shop at whitfield.
failing that their are two shops close together in the precinct, that sell quality meat and fruit and veg cheaper.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
6 October 2009
17:1929922#4
Advertising is a mammoth steamrollor crushing all before it. It buys time and space in your brain and afterwards you do things and you dont even know why.
The guys in the Charlton Centre might indeed sell nice meat but who will know about it. Only word of mouth cant compete with that juggernaut that powers through your tv screens night and day.
They all do it...all the supermarkets, and they do it very very often. You need your daily dose of brainwashing, otherwise you might learn to think for yourself and that would never do. !984 revisited.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
6 October 2009
17:3729923#5
i have never been an ad mans victim paul.
every time i see something advertised on the box, i think of the extra on the product.
washing powders, washing up liquids and the like are all much of a muchness, just the ones advertised cost over double or treble the unknown name.
6 October 2009
20:2329932#6
Paul, I also have to disagree about your views on advertising. Being an advertising man yourself I dare say you take the view that the ad industry leads all of public thinking, but I don't think this is true at all. Some regard advertising as a cynical method of brainwashing the masses, others see it as merely publishing information about products and services. We all know that advertisers want to gain popularity through repetitive exposure but is this the only thing that works? I don't think so, not when out-of-town shopping offers so many real-world perks such as better prices, big (free) car parks, and an overall better shopping experience. It's also the same with online shopping. Amazon grew into an international mega-business from nothing with very little advertising. Have you EVER seen an advert for Amazon on TV? My business continues to work (albeit with difficulty during the recession) and we never advertise.
Tesco's profits do indeed reflect the public's love of big shopping and as I have always said, the Medieval "high street" market concept is a dying force because of online and out-of-town shopping culture. We, the shoppers, decide who lives and who dies in the world of shopping. I don't think advertising makes that much of a difference. After all, Tesco and Morrisons and Asda and whoever else are not advertising to make us aware of their culture, they are simply fighting for scraps claiming to have achieved X-number of cheaper shopping baskets than their rivals. They're advertising based on their own little price wars rather than brainwashing us to visit them. We already visit them, a lot.
I can't argue that advertising has SOME influence on people but I don't believe for one microsecond that the public (on the whole) are the brain-dead zombies that some advertisers may liek to think they are.
7 October 2009
07:1729946#7
Of course they are, or advertising wouldn't work and people wouldn't spend a fortune on it. Lots of people remember ads campaigns from decades ago, such is its power. I drink Tizer when I's dry, guiness is good for you, secret lemonade drinker.................we don't have to be stupid to be influenced, just receptive!!
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
7 October 2009
08:2929953#8
Yes Im afraid to say advertising does indeed work. Business spends a fortune on it as Bern says, and its not by co-incidence. Research proves that it works. But it works in a whole series of ways. Too big a topic to go into hugely but just to say advertising allows us to get familiar with a brand, to get comfortable with it. We all like a good brand and when we go to buy our TV we will buy the one with the familiar name. Its the one that reassures us we are getting the very best technology at a good price. We wont buy the obscure make from China even though it costs a lot less...nobody wants a HungFluHi in the corner to show their friends..we want a Sony.
By the time we are six or seven years old we already know the big brand names. We know BMW, Cadbury, Ford, Coca Cola, McDonalds and so on... our future spending pattern is already mapped out. We will buy the familiar car, the familiar drink, the familiar washing machine, dine in the familiar fast food outlet and so on. Brands are huge business...they have been created by almost a century of advertising in some cases and they are as familiar as your own family.
Just add this bit about Amazon. I think amazon have advertised the past few christmasses but cant remember for sure. But Amazon yes is a special case. They came along in an extreme and unusual marketplace which heralded the arrival of the Internet. The dotcom revolution. They got in quick before the High St brands knew what hit them. The High St brands caught up in time and now the chances are you will never see another Amazon. Unusual market forces created the opening.
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
9 October 2009
13:1630031#9
I read somewhere recently that the Competition Commission Watchdog have advised the Government to introduce a competition test to prevent the spread of so-called 'Tesco Towns'. This would measure whether a single chain dominated a local market before granting permission for further stores. Needless to say Tesco are unhappy with this and have called on the Government to ditch the plan.
Apparently this competition test will allow rival retailers to develop stores in areas that are currently heavily dominated by one player thus giving us the consumer the widest possible choice of supermarkets to shop in
Guest 674- Registered: 25 Jun 2008
- Posts: 3,391
9 October 2009
13:2730032#10
Yes and maybe this will include stopping big super chains buying up land to stop competitors opening up
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
9 October 2009
18:0330062#11
that is something that we sometimes overlook.
was there not a filling station close to the big grocers at one time?
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
13 October 2009
21:2130408#12
I gESSO
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
14 October 2009
11:0530444#13
Bloody Perfect.
Guest 684- Registered: 26 Feb 2009
- Posts: 635
14 October 2009
13:5830450#14
It's a real shame that Tesco don't seem to have considered plonking a couple of Tesco Metros or Tesco Expresses in Dover and Deal. I've got nothing against them in principle. Folkestone seems to have them sprouting everywhere. And boss Sir Terry Leahy talks great sense (see his stuff about our useless edu-kay-shun system in the Press today).
I remember when we used to have two Tescos in central Dover - next to St Mary's Church and in Pencester Road. But there again we used to have a great Sainsbury's next to the Charlton Carbuncle, sorry, Centre. Sainsbury's' departure was a massive death knell for the town that should have been resisted at all costs.
Hindsight, eh? Ho-hum...