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Tim Carvell and David Shayne

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The Art of Strategic Annoyance

By Tim Carvell
Posted Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000, at 11:48 AM ET

Dave--

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Nope, I never went to summer camp. Or, rather, never to a sleepaway camp. I went to day camp, and hated it: To me, it was like an 8-hour session of PE. I grumbled so loudly that my parents didn't send me back the next year. Which is how I wound up sewing sneakers for Nike for a summer at the tender age of 10. Oh, sure, the days were long, the factories were dark, and the machines claimed both my pinkies, but at least I never had to play dodge ball again.

As for the smoking story, what's gone unreported in the Times is the tobacco companies' proposed "compromise" wording for the warning label: "Smoking will kill you. On the other hand, we are all mortal." Actually, diseased lungs and rotting teeth could be quite attractive packaging, particularly if you put a little cowboy riding in front of them. In any case, I'd imagine that Canadians can shortly look forward to many fine gallery displays and public-television programs on the sexiness of lung disease, underwritten by the good people of Philip Morris.

The cigarette-packaging thing reminds me, in an indirect way, of a larger issue I've always found interesting: the deliberate effort to frustrate or annoy the consumer. I once talked to an architect who told me that the key to designing a successful shopping mall is to include lots of angles, so that you can't see clearly from one end of it to another--that way, the customer walks and walks, always convinced that the store he's trying to find is just around the next corner. In the meantime, of course, he might stop in at any one of a dozen other stores. Similarly, the Publisher's Clearing House, I remember reading, makes its contests difficult to enter ("Go find the red stamp and put it on the entry form. Now find the yellow sticker and put it on the envelope. Now include a tail feather from a bald eagle. Now sing!") for two reasons: First, obviously, is so that the customer will spend more time combing over the materials and is therefore more likely to order one of their magazines. But the second reason is that they've found that there's a much higher response rate for every bell and whistle they add. And finally, there's Vegas, where every aspect of a casino's design is meant to keep you inside--hence the confusing layout, the paucity of exit signs, the lack of clocks, etc.

In other news, did you see the story in the far-left column of yesterday's Wall Street Journal? My editor pointed it out to me; here's the headline and the lead:

A Dancer, a Dream--Still, It's a Long Slog to Broadway's Lights

SEVILLE, Spain--When the Gypsy street legend Torombo dances, his feet are on fire and his head is often in the clouds. For he dreams and when he dreams, he dreams of this: Broadway.

Oh dear God.

Tim

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