Advertisers Find Sneaky New Way to Make You Watch Commercials

by Corey Eridon

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I don't know if this is innovative, annoying, or a little bit of both. (Probably a little bit of both, but let me know what you think.)

I was buying tickets for Bruce in the U.S.A. last night through Ticketmaster. I was doing this because Bruce Springsteen isn't touring in the U.S. anytime soon, and I needed something to tide me over til his next tour.
But I digress.

So, I was buying the tickets, and I get to the captcha part of the online ticket purchasing process that we're all familiar with. It usually looks something like this:

Confusing, but most of us can get it right on the third of fourth refresh. (We're a highly adaptable species.) I didn't see that familiar captcha this time, though. I saw this:

And if you think it's just a plain ol' ad, you're wrong -- when you click on the copy to "reveal the security code," a video starts to play advertising Cascade. You're then instructed to "listen" for the security code, which resulted in me hunching down at my computer like an idiot to catch the secret phrase. My feeling of idiocy only multiplied when I looked at my screen and saw this:

Heh. Triple Action Formula. Didn't know you were just gonna slap it on the screen. Got it.

What Makes This Weird

Good on Ticketmaster for finding a way to make a few extra bucks, I guess. But a couple things made me feel icky about this: 

1) The phrasing makes it seem like you don't want to help stop ticket scalpers if you don't dream about Cascade Triple Action Formula, and implies that the folks at Cascade are personally fighting the good fight against scalpers.

2) They trick you into listening to the ad instead of just looking for the code to type in.

But you're not really listening because, if you're like me, you're freaking out so much about not missing the secret code. (It's a secret, after all! What if they're hiding it in the commercial?!)

But, I have to hand it to them -- "they" found a corner of the internet to 1) sneak in advertising where it hasn't been snuck before, and 2) sneak it in a place where you actually do have to pay attention to it.Kind of.

Have you seen these ads elsewhere? (My colleague found one a couple weeks ago on Songza.) What do you think of them?

A sneaky way to get money off your groceries

How I managed to shop at Ocado for less than the exact same shop at Tesco...

In my household, my long-suffering boyfriend (soon-to-be husband) does most of the cooking.

This is partly because he’s a great cook, and partly because I’m a terrible cook. We are a perfect match!

To try to make up for my distinct lack of domestic goddess capabilities, I take responsibility for doing the supermarket shop every week. Which, being a sometimes busy and sometimes lazy person, I like to do online, via a site called mysupermarket.com.

I like this site because you can easily compare the price of, say, a bag of white seedless grapes with a box of white seedless grapes, and see which one is cheaper that week per kilogram. It also adds up the cost of your trolley in different supermarkets, so you can see whether it would be cheaper to shop that week at Asda instead of Tesco, due to the special offers that particular supermarket is hosting that day.

Now, I’ve been using this site for years and when I first started, supermarket discount codes were plentiful. A quick search on hotukdeals.com would reveal a dozen valid codes, each offering either free delivery or £5 off, shared on the forum by kind frugal tipsters like you and me.

Sadly, it seemed the supermarkets have wised up to this practice, and nowadays it’s rare to find a valid voucher code for anything other than your first online shop.

So what?

It always irritates me when firms treat their new customers better than old ones (and vice versa).

The supermarkets are being very clever here because it’s a lot of hassle to start afresh on a new account. You have to do individual searches for each item you want to buy, and can easily miss things off the list. I find it can take as much as 40 minutes to do a comprehensive online shop if you start from scratch.

By contrast, if you log in to an account you have used previously to do an online shop, all the items you have bought are saved as ‘favourites’ and on mysupermarket, you can literally start from your last trolley, no matter which supermarket you bought from.

So it takes seconds and just a few clicks to stock up on regular purchases.

Rachel Robson rounds up five ways to cut your food bills.

This means that, apart from switching brands here and there wherever there’s special offers or cheeky price cuts, I can generally whizz through my entire weekly shop in about 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, because I am a loyal customer using an account I have used before, that means I don’t qualify for any vouchers. Boo hiss!

The good news

The good news is, last week I discovered a way to get around this.

In fact it had been staring me in the face for years. I’m sure some of you already know about this, but for those of you who don’t, here’s how to use a ‘first online shop’ discount voucher without going through all the hassle of setting up a new account and filling your trolley from scratch for the first time:

Use the favourites stored in mysupermarket.

Remember, mysupermarket stores all your favourites, regardless of which supermarket you have used previously. So if you change your account details with Ocado, your favourites with Tesco will still be there, and you can instantly switch your trolley into Ocado with the click of a button.

I tried this at the weekend when a £15 off Ocado voucher fell out of a newspaper. (There is also a permanent £15 off your first shop voucher  on the Ocado website.) I love shopping at Ocado, which offers the same groceries as Waitrose – I just hate paying for the crazy prices they charge. And I felt it was wrong that new customers should benefit when I could not. So I made up my mind to use that voucher one way or the other!

 

In the end, all I had to do was set up a new account with Ocado using a different email address to the one I’d already registered. That took approximately one minute. Here's how I did it:

Registering as a new customer

Amazingly, Ocado allow new customers to register with an existing delivery address and name. The only thing the supermarket doesn't allow you to do is to register with an existing email address.

But you don't even have to go through the hassle of setting up a new email account if you have a gmail account, because Ocado fails to recognise gmail.com's plus addressing system.

This means you can simply use your existing email address at gmail.com (which can already be registered with Ocado), but add, for example, '+ocado1' to the bit before gmail.com. So if your existing address was lovemoneyreader@gmail.com, you'd change it to lovemoneyreader+ocado1@gmail.com. This will be interpreted by Ocado as a new email address of a new customer - even though all the emails it sends you will go to the inbox of your existing address (lovemoneyreader@gmail.com).

After using this feature of my gmail account to complete the registration process at Ocado, I went back to mysupermarket.com and took another minute to change the log-in details for Ocado on there – and hey presto! I was a new Ocado customer and could use the voucher code.

This meant that including delivery, my trolley at Ocado actually cost me 10% less than the exact same shop would have cost me at Tesco – and the quality of the fruit and vegetables was far higher.

Not bad for two minutes’ work...

Sneaky supermarket tricks you need to know

Joanna Robinson

 
Gabrielle Marks/Flickr
 

It might seem like the economy is on the up but we’re not out of the woods yet – we’re all still trying to stretch our pounds as far as we can. With the the weekly shop still making a significant dent in our hard-earned cash and the  supermarkets up to all kinds of tricks to get us to spend more money, what better time to learn how to beat them at their own game?

• Make your food go further
• Tricks to look out for
• Savvy Shopping
• Find the best deals on MySupermarket

Make your food go further

First off, if you make some adjustments at home you won’t have to go to the supermarket as often, which is one easy way to solve the problem!

• Keep a good supply of canned, frozen and dried foods you know everyone in your household will eat. That way, even when your fridge is looking a little sad, you’ll still have options and won’t have to rush out for extras.
• According to the excellent Lovefoodhatewaste website a shocking one third of the food we buy in the UK gets thrown away. They explain that it’s largely related to dishing up portions which are too large. You can check out their portion planner to avoid this. They’ve also got some brilliant recipes for using up your leftovers, and they’re not complicated, so think before you throw!

Preventing food waste should be one of your top priorities; as well as making a significant environmental impact, you’ll theoretically be saving a third on your food bill!

Look out for their tricks

Obviously you can’t avoid the supermarket forever, (now isn’t that a nice thought?!), but you can be aware of all the marketing ploys and save some serious money on your shopping trip whilst helping your health and the environment.

Sweets and goodies near the checkout

Convenient isn’t it? Supermarkets love to prey on tired, hungry and irritable shoppers. But don’t get caught out like this. Never go shopping when you’re hungry. It might sound obvious, but you’ll end up buying things you don’t need, and more often than not they’ll be unhealthy and expensive.

Pretty packaging

Ooh, the Tesco Finest cheddar cheese looks delicious….but wait a second, it’s all about what’s on the outside.

The reason we don’t tend to buy a supermarket own brand produce is because they purposely package it to appear bland and unappealing. However own, basic or mid-range brands more often than not offer better value for money than Tesco Finest or Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference for instance.

As well as costing less, they’re also often equally as tasty. Why not test a few out on your family and see if they can tell the difference? OK, it doesn’t work in every case, but you’ll get to know which items really are the best value.

Special Offers

We all love a special offer. Big writing and colourful signs make us feel like we are winning and the supermarket is giving us something for free. This is NEVER true. Suppliers pay the supermarkets handsomely to have their products placed in a prime position and on special offer because they know it will get customers to buy their product, even if they wouldn’t usually.

Buy-one-get-one-free offers can be useful, but only if you were going to buy the product anyway. Buy two for £X can also be good, but always remember to look at how much the item costs individually. Then if the saving when buying two is significant, it’s probably worth getting the deal – only if you needed the item in the first place though!

If there isn’t much of a saving, ask yourself if you really need two. If you don’t, don’t get it.

Getting 50% extra deals, or a certain percentage, can seem appealing. However, these offers often tempt you to buy a brand you wouldn’t normally get. If this is the case, always look at the price per Kg or per 100g. This will allow you to compare exactly how much you are paying for the amount of product. You’ll often find that even though you get more with the brand on offer – you are actually paying more per Kg or 100g.

There is an easy way to avoid these – have a shopping list and stick to it. If items are on special offer and seem like a bargain, people are often coerced into buying them. If it isn’t something you use often, or something you were planning on buying anyway, don’t be tempted!

Real Offers – product reductions

Supermarket stock that doesn’t shift gets reduced – we’ve all seen it. These are not like the bargains supermarkets brag about, they are genuine bargains.

Take advantage of them by finding out when your local supermarket gets rid of its stock (this is usually later in the evenings or on Sundays). Much more produce will be sold at bargain prices as it reaches its use by date and most of the things you buy you’ll be able to freeze so you won’t have to use them straight away.

Dirty display tricks

Did you know that supermarkets stack their shelves tactically? They put the most expensive items right in your eye-line to make you spend more. Look above and below and you can often get better deals. This also works on your kids sitting in the trolley. Items are positioned so they reach out and grab the top of the range products. It’s no coincidence that the finest range of organic cereal is at their eyeline when you’re looking for own brand cornflakes…

The first way to get around this is look at the whole range and compare the prices. Don’t grab and run.

Secondly, if you can, leave the kids at home. That way they won’t distract you from finding the best value items or get their hearts set on the most expensive items.

Also, men are apparently more susceptible to eye catching displays in supermarkets – so be strong guys, or suggest that perhaps after all the weekly shop is a job for the ladies.

To show just how sneaky supermarket displays are we did a little research at our local Tesco.

	Biscuits	Butter	Bread	Crisps	Cereal	Toilet Roll
Top shelf	65p	£1.29	61p	46p	85p	£1.96
above middle	£1.28	£1.31	99p	30p
Middle shelf	£2.54	£1.92	£1.14	51p	£2.32	£2.05
below middle	£71p	£1.65	£1.19	40p	£2.12
Bottom shelf	26p		72p	28p	£1.53	£1.99
Maximum saving	£2.28	63p	58p	23p	£1.47	9p

This table clearly shows just how much more expensive the product in the middle of the shelf (right in most people’s eyeline) is. So give your neck some exercise and shop around on the shelf.

The supermarket maze

Believe it or not, all supermarkets follow a similar overall layout. Fresh produce; fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy are all stocked around the outer limits of the store whereas pre-packed, processed and frozen foods are placed in the centre of the store.

They do this on purpose. It means that to get to the stuff you need for your diet, you have to look at all the stuff you don’t. Then as you work your way through the aisles, you buy stuff you don’t need. You therefore spend more and they make more. Cunning isn’t it?

They also keep staples such as bread and milk towards the back of the store in an attempt to get you to walk past almost everything else to find them. Plus, if you’re looking for tea bags, it’s no coincidence that biscuits are just next to them. Supermarkets pair up like for like products knowing that you’re more likely to end up buying both.

You can beat them at their own game. Help your health and your wallet – stick to the perimeter. If you have to go into the middle, use the aisle signs to go straight to the product you need. Then you won’t be looking at unneccessary items.

‘Convenient’ bags and packets – loose is cheaper

When you’re whizzing round the supermarket thinking about ten other things at the same time, it’s easy to opt for pre-packed items.

But, buying items like fruit or vegetables loose, is invariably cheaper than buying them in bags or packets. This is because the supermarket has to pay someone to pack them. They also have to pay for the materials and the overheads for the factory where they pack them which all adds up to a bigger price tag.

Do it yourself for free. You’ll also help the environment by saving on packaging and producing less waste.

Weight comparison

Supermarkets have to give the price per weight or volume of each item. It’s written underneath the price in much smaller writing. This is great for shoppers as it means we can look at how much the item really costs per 100g or kg. This way we can easily see how much we are really paying for an item and it helps us compare.

However, to trip you up, supermarkets tend to show the price per unit in different amounts for similar products. For example they might mark own brand orange juice as 52p per litre and then they’ll mark Delmonte orange juice as 8p per 100ml. This is meant to confuse you and stop you being able to compare prices.

It’s easy to beat them if you know your metric measurements though. A litre is 1000ml so that means that a litre of Delmonte costs 10 times 8p – 80p. This is actually more than the own brand, but it seems like it’s less when you just look at it because of the smaller unit measurement.

Don’t let them fool you. Get measurement savvy and get the most for your money.

Our Shopping Trip

To put our tips into practice, we went on a shopping trip of our own to see how much we could save. Here’s the impressive (if we say so ourselves!) results:

Shopping at Morrisons (all prices accurate on 16th Jul 2009)

Shopping List	Most Expensive Option	Cheapest Option	Saving
Peaches	£1.98 pack of 6*	£1.28 punnet of 6	70p
Royal Gala Apples	£1.15 for 5 (approx 650g) pre-packed	90p for 5 (approx 650g) loose	25p
Tomatoes	69p for 6 (approx 400g) pre-packed	67p for 6 (approx 400g) loose	2p
Red Onions	79p for 3 (approx 525g) pre-packed	52p for 3 (approx 525g) loose	27p
Granary Loaf	£1.09 from the instore bakery	95p off the shelf	14p
Cheddar Cheese	£4.42 for 500g – store luxury brand	£2.73 for 500g – store budget brand	£1.69
	Total – £10.12	Total – £7.05	Total – £3.07

*Advertised as ’50% extra free’!

You get the idea -  we  saved a massive 30% on our shopping bill, and that’s just one small shopping trip. So if you spend about £100 on your weekly shop, you could be saving as much as £30 a week! That’s a serious saving over a few months or even a year.

Top Shopping Tips

Here’s just a few extra tips to help you save as much as you possibly can:

• Before you go shopping have a look on Mysupermarket. You can compare prices of any items at all the major supermarkets, so you’ll be well prepared when you reach the shops.
• Try not to visit the supermarket when all you need is 2 pints of milk – you’ll just end up buying things you don’t need, as well as wasting time and petrol.
• Try eating one or two vegetarian meals a week and you’ll be able to cut back on the meat you buy and save a small fortune.
• Buy fruit and vegetables that are in season – not only is this better for the environment, it’ll help your wallet too! Produce shipped from overseas incurs more transport costs and is therefore always more expensive.
• It’s not always cheaper to buy in bulk if you end up throwing loads of food away. However you can buy staples (like rice and pasta) in bulk since they work out cheaper, last for ages and you know you’ll always use them. Its worth checking out the bargain basement supermarkets such as Aldi, Lidl and Netto for these kind of products as well as for things like salt, sugar and flour.
• Once you’ve been round the supermarket and got everything you think you need (want), go through the basket just before you get to the check-out. Do you really need that jar of cajun fish relish? Or was it just displayed enticingly? Take out items that you don’t really need before you get to finally pay for your goods.

Got more of your own savvy shopping tips? Share them with the other Moneymagpies on our forums.

Sneaky Backlink Indexing Trick

Looking to create backlinks to improve your sites rank? 

Backlinks will improve your website ranking. You need backlinks on high Page Rank sites to help boost your own site’s rank. This is easy to do. For example, you can simply post comments on other people’s blogs. 

Here is a trick you can try to hide your backlink within a smiley. 

Create a backlink that is hidden through the use of a Smiley……..

If you click the smiley above – it will go to a website.

If you are looking to create a backlink on a blog you can usually post this in the comment section etc, or use it on a forum post. Usually the backlink will go undetected. It will simply look like a normal smiley.

This is a great trick – and I don’t encourage using it if it is against the sites Terms of Service. But – up to you. Use it as you see fit.

For Newbies – Here is the code;

For Forums;

[ U R L = " h t t p : / / w w w . g o o g l e . c o m " ] : ) [/url]

For WordPress Blogs;

<a href=”http://google.com”>:)</a>

This is a good way to hide your backlinks. Whether this is Blackhat or Whitehat – I don’t know. But – either way – check out the site’s Terms of Service unless you want to be banned. 

Remember – creating backlinks is going to help your site significantly, so spend the time doing it. 

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Please leave a comment and a link back to your site.

Hat Tip: gerrywalter.com