No more.
First you set (I think -- this is the sccenario I imagine) a bunch of MBA interns (or maybe graduates but if they're graduates, they don't undestand the use of focus groups) -- to come up with a new marketing strategy.
Your new marketing strategy reminds me of a 13 year old girl who thinks that if she puts on a pair of Ugg boots (when it's 85 outside), she now is "stylish" and "looks great."
You came up with this "at the corner of Happy and Healthy." That's not too bad. I like being happy and healthy. One tends to lead to the other in fact, and it's easily remembered.
But that wasn't enough. You have to pound your customers. So I go in with three prescriptions for a chronic condition, and as I leave, having had Medicare pay for them, a 19 year old tells me ...
"Be well."
'Scuse me? If I were well, would I just have handed you three prescriptions?
Or I come in and buy a roll of cellophane tape and I'm told "Be well." I don't know why it grates on me, but to me it's worse than "have a nice day" without any of that latter phrase's saving graces. It's possible that after I leave your store I *will* have a nice day. It will stop raining, or the rain will clean the streets, or someone will look at me and give me a dazzling smile that lifts my soul, and I will pass it on to the next person, and lead to a chain of people having nicer days.
But you can't just tell people to "be well," and when they're leaving with a fistful of prescriptions (which the kid at the cash register doesn't even know about), it's stupid. If the pharmacist says "I hope you feel better soon," that's a nice thing to say. "Be well" is a buzz phrase your interns thought up. If they tested this on focus groups, I don't think they did a focus group of people with Lupus, or leukemia, or COPD.
Then there's your incredibly intrusive "membership" cards or whatever they are. Doesn't matter that they're free. I needed a memory card, and it was $17 without the card but $11 with it. Good savings.
But you know what your competition -- CVS -- does? If I have a sales item but no card, they have a generic one at the cash register and I still get the sales price. Not with you. With you, I have to tie that sale to a lot of personal information or pay $17. And I can't just decline, because your clerks then debate it with me.
We have an awful lot of data being collected about us already. Personally I have faith that it won't all be turned over to our government for nefarious purposes, but it's still intrusive and nosy. Go to Europe and shop for your day's dinner. You go to the baker and get French bread. You go to the cheese shop and get cheese and butter. Go to the butcher and choose your meat. Go to the greengrocer and end up with a great salad. And you didn't have to leave your name and address for any of it.
A loaf of bread is not an airplane ticket. It's not a terrorist weapon. I'm all in favor of knowing EXACTLY who is buying plane tickets, but Walgreen's -- get out of my life. Stop collecting data, and I think I'm going to have little cards printed to pass out to people who tell me to "be well" until I get heard at Walgreen's, because I can't email you without leaving very detailed personal information, either. Since that's what I was going to complain about, that's fairly ironic!
Gotta stop writing. I need a quick quart of milk, so I'm going to run up to CVS. Buh-byeye, Walgreen's!
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