(Bill,i live in france & im a very poor worker whit a family.
Im in depression whit a diabets, & my wiffe are very sick(hepatit,diabetis, ect….)
have you 100 £ for eat for my family?
by post office or Paypal)
patrick.yvelines@hotmail.fr)

…but that’s not exactly what I said. I think the Denny’s free Grand Slam breakfast campaign was a stroke of genius, but “giving away free stuff” isn’t always all that effective.

In Denny’s case, the costs of doing this were probably not much higher or lower than a CanAm-wide advertising blitz. And they’re an established chain, so I suspect that rather than bringing in new customers, their goal was to secure customer favour at a time when many customers are looking for ways to cut back. They’re competing for their established customers’ business in a contracting market. I think they’ll get good results from this campaign.

But on the other hand, think about how many pens, pads of paper, etc. you have sitting around your office from someone who perhaps got the idea that you made your purchasing choices on the basis of who gave you the best free pen. (Or perhaps they think that having their name under your nose every time you jot down a number will make you think of them when they need something — which could be, but every time I clean out my desk, I find pens with company names that I couldn’t associate with any product or service.) I’ve never once been influenced in a purchasing decision by a free pen — have you?

But, on the other hand, I do some resume writing, and years ago, in the early 90s, I used to give my clients a couple sheets of laser-printed labels with their resume packages. Although I won’t claim I planned it all out this way, these label sheets did a lot for my business in that my customers loved them (few had their own laser printers in those days). Right away, I was getting calls: “Did my friend phone you? She did? Oh good, I gave her your number. Say… since I gave you a referral, do you think I could get another couple sheets of those labels?” ??? This never would have occurred to me.

But on the other hand, I’ve always found it annoying and pushy that when I buy high-end cosmetics, they make a big deal of giving me a “free gift.” First, I know it isn’t “free.” It’s a marketing campaign, which comes out of the company’s operating expenses, which is figured into the price. I’d rather pay less. Second, they usually select the samples in the “free gift” to suit some sort of average. Trouble is, I’m not average. I have trouble finding cosmetics that don’t make me look garish. So when I take the “free gift” home and try the samples, and I look like something out of Night Of The Living Dead, that can’t be good, right?

But on the other hand, the words “free shipping” can and have influenced my choice between two or more similar vendors.