| You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours |
Think of your favourite brand. A brand you love so much that if somebody made fun of it, you’d almost feel like they were personally targeting you. They probably are; I don’t even know you and I think you’re an asshole. But let’s be friends for a minute – I’d like to point you in the direction of free stuff from your very favourite brand, whether it’s Domino’s, Ralph Lauren, or maybe even BP (in which case you’re either the CEO of BP, or Satan).
A lot of people might get the impression that asking a company for a favour is a bit like asking a friend for a favour. It isn’t really. Most people know that asking friends for free stuff completely out of the blue isn’t going to get them very far (unless your friends are complete pushovers, in which case I’d recommend taking it up a notch to see if they’ll do your laundry). But, when it comes to harassing the owners of your favourite brands, you can be as annoying, ignorant, and immature as a small child on an airplane.
A big difference between your relationship with your friends and your favourite brand is that you’re constantly doing your favourite brand favours by buying what they have to offer and pledging your allegiance to them, even if you don’t really think about the hard work you do for them every time you’re at the cashier. These ‘favours’ are basically a hall pass for making ridiculous demands and getting away with it. It comes from the well-known-but-not-always-well-thought-out principle of ‘reciprocity’, which is basically a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ sort of thing (see the first thirty minutes of the film Superbad for an informative and witty take on this). Companies use it all the time on us – sending us shopping vouchers in the post, using loyalty card systems, and then expecting us to shop exclusively at their stores because they’re such nice people. I would never fall for such a myopic trick myself, but six boxes of nappies for the price of five is an absolute bargain, you’d have to be an idiot to miss out on something like that. But don’t worry, there’ll be more time for reciprocity on this site in the future, because there’s a few tricks hidden within it, but I’ll only show you if you you’re nice to me.
Right. Nobody likes to read unnecessarily long posts. When I see a really long piece of text I usually just stare at the shape of each paragraph rather than actually reading anything. So, in light of that, I’ll sum up the point I want to make here, and let you see the evidence of it in the next post. What I’m trying to say is, if you really like a brand and are constantly buying things from it, why not give them a nudge, tell them you’re a regular customer, and get ‘em to hand over some cool stuff to you. No, they won’t think you’re insane, and even if they do, they’ll still probably send you some goodies, out of pity, or terror. The next post will show how I handled the situation with my good friends at McDonald’s, with a friendly and respectful email. And if my email was a success, believe me, you’ve got nothing to lose.
