Consumers don’t get it – and how could we?

According to a report in Ad Age, we’re buying more stuff, but we understand it less. And it’s no wonder:

When it comes to explaining it all, marketers have a long way to go... In the meantime, consumers will likely keep doing research online, sifting through manufacturers' advertising and or returning or rejecting stuff they just don't understand.

No kidding. I consider myself fairly savvy, but I’m often put off by technical bafflegab or marketing jargon masquerading as helpful information. And then there are the dreaded user manuals. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to put my new phone on “vibrate” mode. I downloaded the PDF of the so-called user guide so that I could search it. Believe it or not, it did not contain the words “vibrate,” “vibration” or “silent.” Pitiful. (Of course I asked a teenager to fix the damned phone. They have a gene for this.)

Hat tip to Steve Rubel on Twitter

Comments

[Sue Horner]

I haven't figured it out yet, although #1 son has his identical phone magically set to vibrate; I'll have to ask him how. I had a similar experience trying to figure out how to fetch a ringtone from a URL. There was nothing in the manual about accessing the web, so I took my phone in to the local Bell kiosk, where the sales guy looked at me as if I was crazy to expect an answer there. I guess he too had the gene.