Out shopping this morning, we noticed a brand new Smart car plonked in the aisle at Moonee Ponds Central shopping centre (a small mall, if you like the American way!). Adorning the four pillars surrounding the car were entry forms for a free competition — presumably to win the car from this visual setup of the entry forms.

On the way out of the centre, I helped myself to an entry form to bring home to read further. This DL size (one-third A4) entry form actually had the headline “Enter for a chance to win… $1 Million” — so it wasn’t a free entry for the car afterall.

And, after reading the full page of fine print (33 lines of it) — the winner doesn’t win $1,000,000 — they win $10,000 (just one percent of that amount splashed across the entry form).

They then get a 1 in 200 chance to pick a bag that may contain a cheque for $1 million. Or, in other words, there’s a 99.5 percent chance of them NOT picking the bag with the million dollar cheque in it.

But — here’s the best part: they must answer all of the questions on the entry form to be included as a valid entry. The information that the entrant MUST disclose to Trendwest is as follows:

1. Age group
2. Combined household income
3. Number of children under 18 years
4. Name and Address
5. Day and month of date of birth (not year)
6. Phone — home and mobile/cell
7. Email address

For that, there’s just one $10,000 winner (plus 91 minor prizes, from 2 32″ LCD televisions down to small-value vouchers. 40 of these are single entries to Dreamworld — with Dreamworld undoubtedly expecting you won’t visit on your own, so you’ll spend well beyond the value of a single entry ticket anyway).

But here’s the best part: the entrant consents to “being contacted by Trendwest for an indefinite period regarding promotional offers, products and services.” (the bolding is my own, funnily enough).

And, reading lines 20 through 25 of the 33 lines of fine print, that also includes having that supplied information disclosed to “Trend Alliance partners and media companies for future promotional, marketing and publicity purposes.” If that wasn’t enough, try this line: “Entrants may be contacted by phone, mail or email for the purpose of promoting out/partner’s/supporting merchant’s various products and services.”

Would you hand over all of that private info for the chance to be bombarded by these companies INDEFINITELY?

Nowhere was there mention of a Daimler Chrysler smart car — so I’m curious as to why it was sitting in the aisle — each corner of the car had a “free entry” pillar — so from any direction, it appeared the entry was related to the car. Maybe I’ll ask the “Jnr Sales Consultant” whose card was sitting on the entry pillar next to the pad of entry forms.

According to the privacy policy on the Trendwest website, you may even have to pay a small charge to find out what information on you is stored in their database. Of course, you can only ask in writing — but you can also request, in writing, to have your personal information removed from Trendwest’s database. Thankfully!

Is it illegal. No, it’s not. You’re not compelled to enter. Of course, you’re not compelled to gamble at all — that’s why the government relies as much as it does on gaming revenue, because people do gamble.

Collecting names and personal information in this way is perfectly legal — afterall, you’re voluntarily consenting to both give that information and go into the draw.

But I wonder how many entrants realise all of that fine print, standing in the middle of a busy shopping centre walk way at an entry pillar (let alone that they’re entering a competition to win $10,000 — not $1 million — that’s only a 1 in 200 chance for just the one entrant).

Would this (fictional) conversation with an entrant be possible just after they enter the draw?

Me: Hi, I noticed you just entered that draw over there.

Entrant: Hi, Yes.

Me: What is the prize?

Entrant: That lovely car.

Me: Actually, it’s not the car, although there’s an entry pillar in each corner. On the entry form, it’s actually a chance to win a million dollars.

Entrant: Oh wow.

Me: But, actually, the grand prize winner only wins $10,000 — or just one percent of a millions dollars.

Entrant (confused): Huh?

Me: Yes, if you win, you get $10,000. Then you get a 0.5 percent chance of winning $1 million, if you’re the winner — or, in other words, a 99.5 percent chance of not winning.

Entrant (frowning): Hmmm.

Me: Best of all, are you aware that you just consented to being contacted by mail, phone or email indefintely?

Entrant (shocked): What!?

Me: And not only by the promoter, but by their Alliance partners and media company. It’s all in that fine print on the back of the entry form. Are you still happy you entered that draw?

Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), indefinitely!

Recently I’ve taken to watching Derren Brown on UKTV on Foxtel. Derren uses a range of techniques, a lot of which I don’t know in detail, to create situations that often look like magic. Some of these are showmanship, distraction, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnosis, psychology — he is fascinating to watch. There are times though when, if you have an awareness of the technique, you can see exactly what he’s doing and understand what the result will be before it happens.

And, sitting downstairs watching golf on Fox Sports, an ad just came on for the Ab King Pro (abkingpro.com.au has a condensed version of the tv ad playing as a Flash movie file). Here again you can see some visual NLP techniques in action:

• The positive benefit visual messages for AbKingPro are in vivid colour (yes, I’m Australian, so it’s colour, not color!)
• Compare that to the “other methods” for abdominal workouts (Ab King Pro’s competition) that don’t give you the results you deserve — which are shown in mono/black and white
• And of course, visual “testimonials” are shown in colour to associate “real people” getting real results from the machine and system

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The mono vs colour images are a deliberate NLP technique to help re-inforce positive and negative associations. I remember some years ago in a Tony Robbins program (probably Personal Power II) using the same visual techniques to help make positive life changes. I think, from memory, it was part of an NLP programming technique that Tony Robbins effectively uses called the Dickens process. Actually, Robbins would describe it a little differently: his advanced techniques stretch beyond NLP to a style of success programming called Neuro Associative Conditioning. Whatever it’s called, it’s a way of making successful changes.

To me, seeing this in action in the Ab King Pro ad is very obvious and apparent, but for those viewers who don’t have the same awareness of the approach, they’re likely to be more influenced by this tactic in terms of buying an Ab Kind Pro machine than they’d otherwise realise.

So it’s good to know another way sellers/vendors use an NLP approach to influence you to make a decision!

Is that wrong? No, not at all. Obviously the approach works, from testing and results from various ad versions. The Ab King Pro ad is on tv all the time, so it must return a profit to the advertiser. That’s fine and makes sense! But, personally, I’m not influenced to make a purchase using this approach. All I really see are the sales techniques being used, not just the message being presented.

One of the audio statements that didn’t make sense to me in the ad though was the voice-over bloke saying you can use the machine whilst watching tv — and this is a screengrab of the image they show when making that statement:

This shot shows the machine near its most upright position. From there, it goes back down below parallel in a stretch move.

How can this woman actually SEE the tv when using the Ab King Pro? Her field of vision looks way too high — she’d have to lift her head to see the screen, but then, for most of the range of movement of the machine, the tv would be well out of visual range.

To me, this claim devalues the rest of the statements the seller makes about the product. I’m not convinced this woman can actually watch tv whilst using the machine — my interpretation of the visuals doesn’t support the audio statement. So, I’m LESS likely to believe any other statement that is made about the machine.

The claim and the proof in the Ab King Pro ad, as I perceive the ad, are not congruent.

Of course, my reasoning and thought process relates to my type of personality: I’m more likely to challenge a statement I hear or see, that’s just me. I’m more rebellious by nature: even when asked to drive forward at a drive-thru, my immediate thought is to drive down that road in reverse!

Back to the woman shown above in the image and in the ad.

Personally, I’m somewhat confused by this approach. This segment of the Ab king pro ad leads me to wonder about the truth of the rest of the ad — it’s certainly not building any trust with me as a potential buyer. Perhaps my reasoning is being used internally to justify why I wouldn’t buy this machine. That’s why I might place more emphasis on this statement, and justify to myself how the seller hasn’t built trust with me.

But, perhaps, as most viewers are not specifically aware of the mono/colour NLP approach, this part of the presentation also subliminally affects their thinking, without them being able to define what is giving them negative thoughts/influences about the product. They also might find internal reasoning to justify putting aside this audio/visual conflict, by saying to themselves that such a benefit (watching tv) isn’t important to them.

Ah, the myriad of considerations of buying behaviour!

One thing’s for sure, I’d love to have Derren Brown’s bank of knowledge sitting in my head!