Do I Need To Join AA? (Amazonaholics Anonymous, that is) Wednesday, July 15, 2015 by: Cherise McVicar, CEO Watermark Worldwide, LLC Tags: Amazon, Marketing, Entertainment, Universal Studios, Minions, Costco, Whole Foods Market
Let me start my confession with a disclaimer: I’m honestly NOT a typical “consumer.” I don’t go to the mall to browse. I rarely window shop, and I’ve never been a catalogue buyer. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against shopping, per say, or those of you who find the siren song of the local mall irresistible; I simply don’t like being a victim of marketing. I’m a marketer myself. It’s my job to convince others to embrace brands and use entertainment in order to sell products, but I’m not a fan when someone else does it to me. Bees aren’t supposed to eat all their own honey, right? Thus, I typically elect not to participate in big sales, coupon collecting or the holiday rat race, and I bemoan the fact that Halloween has become a holiday where people decorate as if it’s Christmas, all placing the same giant inflatable monsters and spiders from Costco on their lawns. No thank you. Being the Type-A task master that I am, I generally subscribe to the “seek and destroy” method of shopping. You know my kind – I’m the one who goes shopping only when I absolutely have to. In those times, I’m not unlike a hunter stalking its prey. I make a list of needs and then go out and do the deed; check the box; done deal. In fact, in my more corporate days, you could find me “power buying” a dozen outfits in my one brief free hour between kickboxing and a dinner meeting (conveniently located at the same mall, of course). Goal accomplished; enough said. Fast forward to today. Meet My New BFF! Enter the behemoth they call (cue Hans Zimmer-style music swell) Amazon! They are not called “Babbling Brook” for a reason, mind you; it’s THE AMAZON! It might as well have real piranhas in it for the speed at which I’ve been devoured. I started with a few purchases here and there. It was quick and easy, painless and rather satisfying. But somehow, like the frog in that cautionary tale who was slowly boiled to death in water that was gradually heated, I slowly but surely set aside my beliefs and became a marketer’s dream. Yep, I unwittingly abandoned all of my “just say no to marketing”- principles, tumbled from my historic high-horse and now the joke is on me. Drawn like a moth to the flame; a lamb to the slaughter; a fly to honey or a magnet to steel (you decide which idiom you prefer), I dove head first into the Amazon, and am going down for the third time. Never have I been so comfortable parting with my hard-earned dollars. It’s instant gratification at its finest. Just One Click (copyright Amazon?), and I’m in the Ama-zone! (Blast you, Bezos, and your ubiquitous boxes. More about those later.) Adding the Amazon Primal Punch Unfortunately, it kept getting worse. Standard shipping not fast nor exciting enough for you? Why not try Amazon Prime’s two-day shipping? It’s just a “trial” membership, right? Yep, that’s how they getcha: Prime is a “gotta have it” part of everyday life. Now, do you see how Amazon is so, well….BIG (hence the name), and I have become so small in comparison? It’s David vs. Goliath, Joe vs. the Volcano (no doubt available on Amazon Instant Video?) or any other unfair pairing, real or fictional, you can imagine. No matter how hard I try to fight it, I can’t seem to get off of this runaway train I have dubbed, “The Amazon Express” (Sorry, Amazon, you can’t own all the clever phrases.) Please, Mr. Postman? Next they had the audacity to add Sunday deliveries. Deliveries. On a Sunday? Gone is the once-holy “day of rest”, trampled by a small army of Postal Service workers wandering in the desert, carrying