Does negative marketing work?

I understand marketing and advertising. I know that Realtors leave their signs up, with a sold sign, after they sell a house because it reinforces that they will sell your home or find you one. It is a good way to get clients. Toy companies will create a cartoon with the sole purpose to develop a market for a toy line. It is the best advertising possible for a toy line. Stores always place the candies or other impulse products right by the cash register so you see them as you wait in line. This all makes sense; it all reaches a specific market.

Suddenly I am seeing more negative ads. The ones that tell you, "don’t drink and drive", "don’t smoke it kills you" and "put on a life jacket when boating." I have to wonder how well these work. It is easy to understand positive marketing and advertising because it is targeted to our needs, wants, desires and impulses. How effective is advertising at keeping us from doing something?

I completely understand and support why the Canadian Government is using negative ads and restrictions to reduce cigarette sales. I even use negative conditioning with my kids, young as they are. I tell them cigarettes are yucky; they make your teeth yellow and your breath stinky. I hope it has an impact on them when they are older. I have watched all the changes forced onto the tobacco industry, both to the companies that manufacture and sell cigarettes.

First it was the regulations on what they could show in ads, they could not be targeted to the young anymore. Then they could not advertise or sponsor events and activates any longer. You had to show id to buy cigarettes and can be charged for buying for or selling cigarettes to minors. Soon the negative advertising started with comments and pictures on the actual cigarette packaging. This did not seem to work very well. Though I did like the TV ad that showed teens how smoking changes their appearance, makes their skin shallow and their teeth stained, that it ages them. That one seemed to work by targeting vanity not health. There came kids against smoking ads, famous people against smoking and now people who are dieing of lung cancer or have lost people to lung cancer ads.

The newest negative marketing strategy came as a shock. Behind the counter at a corner store appeared to be at first glance empty shelves where cigarettes had been. Nope it was metal doors hiding the cigarettes. You can still buy them, but you cannot look at them. This is to try and reduce impulse buying I guess, or the out of sight, out of mind idea. It is going to be interesting to see how it works. It is becoming expensive to sell cigarettes with all these restrictions and fines. I wonder if it is still worth it to stores to sell them. I think that eventually it will not be cost effective and they will stop. If stores stop caring them then the Government will have effectively reduced sales of tobacco products with out actually banning it. But is it going to work?

Monsters are everywhere, some hidden in plain sight.

I was part of the SCA for years, however I have not been going to events for about four years. Now I am glad. I found out a few weeks ago a story about some one I knew. This story was confirmed last weekend. So what could this story be?

Well when James moved down here one of the household showed great interest in him, as he was a fighter. He joined the household, the Marines (known as the squids). I had known most of these people for years. Bruce was part of the group. I had known him for about 5 years. When we went to Pensic and camped with them we had some issues. Bruce and James did not get along and this caused us to pull away from the household, but James was still part of it. We came home from Pensic with a very common souvenir, I was pregnant. Once we had our son we found we just could not manage merchanting at events and a baby, so we decided to stop doing events for a bit. Our son is now 4 and we started looking at the SCA again. It turns out that it was a good thing we had stopped going.

It turns out that Bruce is a pedophile. He was preying on children in the SCA and had been doing it for years and years. Kids I knew! The children of people I had known for years. He was charged and is now in jail. My response when I found out was shock, not that he did it, but that he was still living. I knew some of the people hurt by this and the people around them. I have no idea how Bruce made it out alive.

I know that people think I am over protective of my kids, maybe even paranoid some times. Now I don’t think I am. I am glad that I have never let any one take care of my children outside of daycare/pre-school. Why, because this monster was in my home, with my baby. I used to spend time in their home every week and see them at fight practice. His wife offered to baby sit! I cannot think of how I would be feeling now if I had let her baby sit. I think about how I knew this man for years and never much though any thing about him, he was just one of the fighters and an ok guy, friendly but not my type. James disliked him and that is a big reason for why we had stopped hanging around that particular group of people.

There was nothing about this man to put up flags. He was for the most part known as a friendly helpful guy with a bit of a temper but over all a good guy. I never saw him act inappropriately with any one, let alone a child. There was nothing to let any one know who he really was, or what he really was. How can you tell? The reality is that you cannot tell who is the predator, the pedophile, the child molester. How many people do you come in contact every day? Can you tell if some one is a pedophile? I cannot, but I do know that they are out there. I am going to stay over protective of my kids. A pedophile can be behind any face, even one you know.

The joy of making cake with your kids, well making any thing with your kids

I tend not to let my kids help me make things because we just don’t have a lot of room in the kitchen and it is not the safest place to be with a little kid. However a few days ago we finally found Dunkin Hines Cream cheese icing. I love that stuff. I have tried a few other icings but the only thing that is as good (and maybe better) then the cream cheese icing I make myself is the Dunkin Hines one. The local store does not carry it any more, but we found a store that does. We picked the kids up and told them we would make cake. Sure enough as soon as the kids were done snack, it was “lets make cake”.

For a change I decided to let my oldest help with the actual making of the cake. He likes to help and well it is fun. So he picked out what cake mix, poured it into the bowl, helped Mom pour the water. I did the oil and eggs, but he had the job of counting the eggs and spoons of oil. So he was even part of that. Then he got to mix the cake. Well he held onto the mixer with me, but as far as he was concerned he mixed that cake. Then we each buttered a cake pan. Then he started trying to eat the batter before I could get it into the cake pans. Lots of laughing with that. I made sure I unplugged the mixer; no taking chances with his little hands getting in the wrong place. Then he got one beater and his sister got the other to clean off, letting me get the batter into the pans and oven. Now that was fun. What made it fun was the look on his face as he got to do all this. You could tell it made him feel good about himself and well we got to spend some time doing some thing together. It was great.

The cakes cooked as we ate dinner. When the cakes were done we let them cool and then got them onto some large plates. Now the real fun began. Out to the living room where the kids table is, two cakes, two kids, one can of icing, two butter knives and a spatula, a little container of sprinkles and a half bag of coloured little marshmallows. Was it fun, oh yes. I took the spatula and put half the can on each cake and let them go. With a little help from me. Once the cakes had icing all over, the sprinkles went on and then marshmallows, most of which ended up in mouths not on cakes. Then my daughter used her butter knife to try and cut chunks out of the cake and started to eat. I gave them each a fork and the race was on. They had icing all over themselves, big bald spots on the cakes and smiles like you would not believe.

Finally I figured that they had enough fun (sugar) and took the cakes away, but then gave them each a piece from their cake. Mind you they ate the icing and left the cake. Each day they got a piece from their cake, and it was great. We still have a small piece left but it will be eaten tonight. The kids loved making their own cakes. I hope to be able to do this, or other things with the kids way more often once we move. We will have more room and a place to actually do things like this. It is so easy to forget to make time for things like this. Sure it took more time then if I did it by my self, but would it have been as much fun, no. Was it worth it, yes, just the looks on their faces as they got to make their own cakes, how good it made them and me feel is worth the little extra work.

Toddler left in sweltering car


I have to say that I am sick to my stomach after reading this. How can any one even think about leaving a child in a car any time, let alone in this heat. There is no excuse for this. I would like to see them charged with attempted murder for this one. Maybe if there were some real consequences for this, like going to jail for some time, people would think twice before doing some thing like this. Obviously the loss of the child is not a big concern for this couple. Any one could have taken this child from the car, and the heat could have killed the child.

The real sad part is that it happens all the time. I know people who work in security at a local Casino and others at shopping malls. It is not unusual for them to save a kid or a pet at least once a week, some times more. Most people would say, I just ran in to get some thing or I was only gone for a minute. A few years ago, also outside a big store, I was picking up my husband and pulled up behind a car with two little kids in the back seat. It was a hot summer evening, and I sat there for 20 min. watching the two little kids before some guy came out of Chapters and got into the car and drove away. If I had a cell phone, I would have called to cops. As it was I had tried to find a phone, and had tried to get some ones attention to call the cops. I did not want to leave the kids to get some one to call for help, but I had started trying to get my husbands attention in the store (they were closed and doing the nightly closing routine they would not even come to the door to find out what I wanted). I was trying to get them to come to the door and find out what I wanted when the guy got in the car and drove away. The kids seemed to be ok, but a little upset but I wish I had a cell that day. The car window was open a little, but again any one could have taken those kids, and the heat could have harmed them. Who cares so little about their kids that it is ok to leave them unattended any place.

I know, lots of people do, they just don’t think about it. Their needs come before their kids or their kid’s safety. Right now we are keeping an eye out because we have been informed of a 5 year old who is left in our “park” all buy himself on a regular basses. We are waiting to see this ourselves, and trust me a phone call will be made if it is true. It is not safe here to leave a kid alone, at least not a 5 year old.

Any way read this story and tell me what you think, and then send it to your family and friends. Again, if we do not do some thing, things will not change. We need to let other people know about this and how unacceptable it is.

Here is the link to the story so you know where I got it from: http://autos.canada.com/news/story.html?id=95c59f46-577a-413f-b8dd-17b140c8a486

Toddler left in sweltering car
Parents were shopping at Best Buy
Dalson Chen, The Windsor Star
A Windsor couple will be investigated by the Children’s Aid Society after they left their two-year-old boy sweltering inside a locked and sealed car while they went shopping at Best Buy Monday night. Sgt. Tony Garro of Windsor police said an off-duty firefighter discovered the child apparently unconscious in the backseat of a grey Saturn in the parking lot of the electronics store at Walker and Provincial Road around 7:30 p.m.







A Windsor police officer, left, questions a man who's child was left unattended in a locked vehicle for a period of time. An off-duty firefighter noticed the two-year-old child sleeping in a vehicle parked outside the Best Buy store in east Windsor. The unidentified person notified emergency agencies who responded to the scene. The car's window was broken in order to rescue the child from the extreme heat. The child was transported to Windsor Regional Hospital for examination. Windsor Police a
Photograph by : Jason Kryk, The Windsor Star

“It baffles me when people do this,” Garro said. “It’s hot enough just walking outside and standing there, let alone being trapped in a car with the windows up. It’s like being in a greenhouse.” The city has been under an extreme heat alert since the weekend, with nighttime temperatures on Monday remaining above 30 C. Garro said that when he arrived at the scene in his police vehicle, he noticed the outdoor temperature of the parking lot was around 95 F (35 C). Asked how hot it could’ve been inside the Saturn, Garro said: “I imagine it wouldn’t take long to get into triple digits. Within minutes.” Firefighters arrived first in response to the off-duty firefighter’s 911 call. After knocking on a window and getting no reaction from the toddler, they smashed open the front driver side window to unlock the car and get him out. “The child was very, very hot and sweating,” Garro said. An ambulance took the boy to the Metropolitan Campus of Windsor Regional Hospital for treatment. Speaking on Monday night, hospital spokesman Ron Foster said the child was still being examined. Garro said he believes the boy is okay. According to Garro, about five minutes elapsed between the firefighter’s call and the child’s rescue. “We don’t know how long the child was in there before the firefighter actually observed it.” Asked what was the parents’ explanation for leaving the boy inside the car, Garro said: “They just said he was only in there for a couple minutes.” Garro said a report was made to the CAS and investigators will look into the matter. It’s the second time in the past month that Garro has had to deal with a parent leaving a child inside a locked and sealed car in the same parking lot. Garro said there was a previous incident of a mother who left her 18-month-old child while she went into the Real Canadian Superstore that’s next door to Best Buy. Garro said the public must be aware that “any child or animal left in a car locked up that way can pass out and dehydrate,” and it’s also dangerous to leave a defenseless child unattended.
©The Windsor Star 2007

I am brainwashing my children

Since my kids were born every time we come across a smoker I tell them, “Smoking is yucky, it makes your breath stinky and your teeth yellow”. I am hoping that this will have some effect on them. They are 4 and 2 now. I should know in about 4 to 5 years if it works on my oldest.

My logic is that telling people that smoking is bad for them and can kill you does not seem to be working. Take a look at all the Dr.’s and other health professionals huddling outside to get that puff they need. They know better and yet they cannot get away from the hold nicotine has on them. My goal is to keep my kids from even trying smoking so nicotine never gets them. If health does not work maybe vanity will. Look at the extremes people go to so they look good, the money they spend. Maybe they will not do some thing like smoking to look good. A lot of people started smoking because of the images of sexy sophisticated or cool people smoking, lets turn it around and say if you want to be sexy, sophisticated or cool then you don’t smoke.

Why is this so important to me, well on my fathers’ side every one has died of lung cancer from smoking. Yes, every one of them. My father died at 49, his father died about the same age, his mother died in her 60’s and all the uncles and aunts also died of lung cancer. They are all gone, my kids and I are the last of the line. My mother smoked, and most of the people I used to know smoked, so although I never smoked I breathed in second hand smoke for about 25 years. Do I worry about cancer, hell yes! I am worried that I will end up with it and may not see my kids grow up. My husband’s father is currently dieing of lung cancer, and has already lived past the time they gave him. We don’t know how much longer he will be here. My husband is an ex-smoker and he stopped when his Dr. told him he had to stop smoking and drinking or he would die.

I don’t want my kids to smoke; our family history shows this is a bad thing. So I can put up with the dirty looks smokers give me when I tell my kids “Smoking is yucky, it makes your breath stinky and your teeth yellow”. I hope other people start telling there kids this.

What type of person are you – the one who risks all, or sacrifices the dream for your kids?

If you have ever had just one of those days, worried about keeping a roof over your head and food in your kids you will understand the video Pursuit of Happyness. In some points it hits too close to home, other times they tell it like it is. Its bad, but they don’t show as bad as it is for those who are homeless. They touch on it and let you have a good idea, but you will never know unless you live it.

This is a great movie for every one who struggles every day, looking for a light, or a better pay cheque at the end of the day. Some days it is hard not to give up and cry, it was nice to see some one win. Me being me, living the life I have had, I have to feel for the other 19 people who did not make it. Who gave their best and still did not get the job, not because they were not good at it or did not give their all but because there was only one job. What makes some one succeed is the ability to pick them selves up and going on any way. That is what Chris Gardner played by Will Smith did. He did not succeed at what he was doing but he kept on going until he found some thing he did succeed at.

This was a very hard movie to watch at times. It hit that fear of loosing every thing, and struggling to find a bead for your child to sleep in, food for him to eat, a safe place to be. At the same time it took a lot for Chris Gardner to put every thing into this one thing, to work for nothing for 6 months for the chance at a job, when he did not have money to live. What type of person does that. I don’t know if I could take that chance at the expense of my child. I think I would have had to find a job just to pay the rent, and gave up that dream to survive. What type of person are you – the one who risks all, or the one who sacrifices the dream for your kids?