Remember those Life Call / Life Alert commercials, with the old lady saying: "I've fallen and I can't get up?"

These commercials are probably very effective for older audiences and recently my family made sure my grandmother, who lives alone and is in her late eighties, has this service.  It seems like a great service. 

However, I question the placements of their ads.  I've seen the same Life Alert ad 3 nights in a row during Family Guy on TBS.  Each time it was sandwiched by commercials geared towards younger audiences. (I think the Mummy movie trailer and a beer commercial).  Do you think this is the target audience for Life Alert?  Family Guy viewers?  I doubt it.  But even if they're going for the influencers (kids of people who would buy), they're missing the mark.  Maybe their grandparents, but I doubt their parents would need it yet.  Who's handling these ad buys? 

Enjoy the old ad in all it's glory. 

So for the first time ever (or at least since I was 5 or 6), I didn't shoot off one firework this year around the 4th of July.  A little background about me and why this is a big deal:

1. For three straight summers in college I spent 20 days managing / living in a fireworks stand (I didn't actually shoot any off then either – that may have been dangerous, but I did shoot after the "season" was over).
2. For a long time, my uncles were in charge of the "big" fireworks display at my grandma's lake house.  Which meant for as long as I can remember I've been shooting off 2in mortar shells every 4th of July.
3. My family loves fireworks.

Guess what?  I didn't miss the faulty bottle rockets going off a few feet after the left the bottle (or my hand).  I also didn't miss having burnt thumbs.  This year, I was watching from afar, holding my 5 month old son enjoying other people doing the work. 

What does any of this have to do with marketing? It's a tangent – but it does, because I want to know why offers of "Buy 1, Get 7 Free" actually work.  

The fireworks stand I managed in college was actually reputable and we didn't do crazy giveaways or manipulative pricing, we just sold everything for a low price and most people respected that (although they sometimes needed an explanation). However, some people never got it.   

Other stands always seemed to do the same thing – following some absurd advertising structure that usual starts as:
Buy 1, Get 3 Free, then progresses to
Buy 1, Get 4 Free, then finally
Buy 1, Get 7 Free

All of which is bunk because they are charging you the same price (per item) as I was, but actually making the consumer buy 8 of each item instead of 1. 

How did they work this?  Simple math.  Other than the basics (bottle rockets or firecrackers, which they are selling as a loss leader), the rest of their pricing is rigged so you pay for all 8 items (or at least close enough – that they make up the difference on volume).  An example, I would've sold a big "cake" firework for $10 for one.  They would probably sell it for $75 and you receive 8 of them.  So you paid 9.38 for 8 versus $10 for 1.  But you're forced to buy 8 of them, which is stupid because you just blew most of your budget on extras you don't want.  Even if they sold it for $60, you're still paying way more than you should and spending a larger percentage of your budget on that one item.

My question is why don't people understand this?  I would always get consumers (I use the word loosely here), asking me "Hey – What's the deal here, how many free do I get?", to which I would explain the  math above (hopefully in a simpler manner) and say, "we give you the freedom to only buy 1 and buy what you want", instead of being conned into buying 8 of every item.  Most people would get it, but then again, 20% or more wouldn't and would leave the stand.

Driving to and from our weekend trip I saw the usual fireworks signs out, including one near my house where it said" Buy 1, Get 7 Free" and I'm still baffled to this day why people actually think this is a deal.

I guess you can fool all the people, all the time or at least enough to make a profit.