Trust in me, just in me……?

pantodragon wrote:A recent guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs was a former CEO of the Tesco supermarket chain.

Whenever the man talked about his work he went to some pains to point out that every business strategy Tesco employed was done solely for the benefit of the customer. The logic behind this is that if the customer is happy, then business will thrive. Thus, for example, the introduction of club cards was for the benefit of the customer (by this means it is possible to keep track of customer preferences and thus improve services); the very existence of, and proliferation of, Tesco stores is for the benefit of the customer (people, he said, have a stated preference for supermarket shopping), and so on and so forth. As the man said all this, he sounded so benign, he sounded so friendly. Thus, even when the presenter challenged his assertions i.e. by suggesting that Tesco’s tactics were, in fact, a “merciless” exploitation of the customer, he very politely, and very pleasantly, refused to be budged: everything that Tesco does, he repeated, is for the benefit of the customer.


The truth of the matter is that no one talks like that. It is quite simply the case that when you hear anyone talking like that, then you know that they are a bad egg, a rotten apple. No justification is needed. No one talks like that. End of story.


I quote some of Kaa’s song to Mowgli (from the Jungle Book):

“Trust in me…just in me……
close your eyes…..go to sleep..…
slowly and surely your senses will cease to exist……..”

nattykr wrote:. Easy, accessible food without much effort, !

asd wrote:Check out George Carlin's take on advertising ))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW2JInyMoPc

pantodragon wrote:

nattykr wrote:. Easy, accessible food without much effort, !

Not in my experience. It is generally supermarket policy to prevent customers from developing habits. So they don't want you to have a weekly shopping list that does not change although you might want to have one. The reason they do this is that it generally induces people to buy more than they need and it gets them to walk round the supermarket past products and that is a form of advertising etc, etc. The list of ways in which supermarkets interfere with the smooth flow of one's shopping trip is endless and growing.