Mockery + price fighting - a positive strategy or fight for survival?

This posting has little or nothing to do with the 50-plus but a lot to do with marketing and hopefully has an amusing twist.

There is store chain in the UK called Dixons. It is from an old era when you could get the best discounts on the high street. Times have changed but memories persist of its rather dowdy stores, even though the company has evolved from bricks, to bricks and clicks, to clicks and clicks.

The recession has made it OK to shop for rock bottom prices and the new Dixons ad campaign is relying on this emotion to overcome our hesitancy to deal with a somewhat shop soiled brand.

The campaign mocks the affluent culture of two of the UK’s premier stores, John Lewis and Selfridges, by suggesting the consumer use them as an expensive showroom and “Then go to Dixons.co.uk - the last place you want to go”. You can either see this as inspired advertising that has tapped into the post-credit crunch consumer psychology or a last ditch attempt to keep trading.

Some wag from the advertising world created a spoof version that appeared in Campaign, the Ad World’s trade mag. Something to make you laugh and think. Many thanks to Reg Starkey for telling me about the campaign and the spoof. Dick Stroud