Elite 11+ shopping and chat thread part 2½

tbw

curlgirl wrote: »

register your card on nectar.com

I thought I was registered with them - if I go onto Nectar it shows all my transactions (Amex, Sainsbury, Daily Mail) that have earned points.

mrsmac10

ASDA reductions

My asda had all their slimzone foods rtc 10p

Got the steam packets of veg and cauliflower rice as they can fit in small random spaces Got 11 meals and sent 9 of them home with DS he may or may not get then in his freezer

We are dining in style for 10p each tonight :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

tbw

Amanda4242 wrote: »

Same thing happened to me. I did a live chat with a nectar person yesterday and it turned out I hadn't ticked the box on sainsburys website. Make sure you have ticked to receive offers on both sainsburys and nectar. I am hoping that this works and the offers will start pouring in!!

My card shows up on the Sainsbury site but I can't find the link to tell them I want Nectar and Sainsbury offers - the links relate to banking, argos etc.

bcw123

After noon re virgin train offer 1000 nectar points which finish today can you book 2 journeys on 2 transactions and get 2x1000 points

Freewheeling

Afternoon all! I popped into town at lunch time and got the Thorntons calendar, (more) selloptape , Nero coffee and also a KK doughtnut. I haven't tried out the Costa code yet.

locarr

zippydooda wrote: »

FYI

3 waitrose mags this month

is that a new health mag, Zippy?

TrulyMadly wrote: »

Free beer for you and a friend

https://www.bombardier.co.uk/

Better still

https://www.bombardier.co.uk/promotion/

Thanks me and my "friend" both got a bottle

Amanda4242

tbw wrote: »

My card shows up on the Sainsbury site but I can't find the link to tell them I want Nectar and Sainsbury offers - the links relate to banking, argos etc.

If you log in to Sainsburys.co.uk and click on your account at the top, then go to Preferences at the bottom you click on each part you want to hear from. Hope that helps.

zippydooda

locarr wrote: »

is that a new health mag, Zippy?






Thanks me and my "friend" both got a bottle

Same one as two months back. My store still has them

Savvybuyer

• I'm just looking at this page - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46191729 - and the picture of Premier Foods products and I am thinking there's nothing in the basket, or spilling out of it, that can't be replaced by some value range item, so why buy any Premier Foods branded item at all?
  
  Therefore, obviously - one thing leads to another - and I do an internet for "Why do people buy brands?" and it leads me onto this: https://proformasi.com/blog/why-do-people-buy-name-brands/
  
  And prepare for Savvy's commentary.
  
  Apparently, it's because of the psychology of brand names (and I notice they have emphasised the word "names" - so it's all about words, the name of something rather than any intrinsic quality of a product and superficial feeling rather than any actual worth) and about the messages already in the brands - in other words what people are being told rather than anything that actually exists.
  
  The link continues about "...a successful brand image" [my emphasis] - so it's all about image, about appearance rather than reality - being built on consistency (nothing that exercises me more than things that are inconsistently applied or done) of messages (again) - but of course once again I turn everything around and find fault or criticism and my criticism to consistency of message is that it is therefore a boring on-message predictability that says nothing at all but clearly doesn't reflect company representatives' true personal opinions but is merely said as an exercise of conformity to what their emploer company wants to portray. Don't expect any rebellion therefore - or any relly revealing or true opinions.
  
  So, it's all about messages and about people being "guided by needs and emotions", to which I groan and think I am guided, certainly by something I need - I don't need brands - but thankfully not much by emotion.
  
  "A brand is a person's gut feeling..." I have none.
  
  The article then asks us to consider the psychology of brands.
  
  "Relying on a brand name is efficient." No, it's not, it costs more money (unless there happens to be a glitch on a branded item somewhere). I would therefore dispute this claim and say I think relying on a brand name is inefficient not efficient.
  
  "People want to fit in. For that reason, they sometimes buy brands because those brands will lead to social acceptance." I have no wish or need to fit in anymore and I am not going to attempt to do so. As for the useless and boring concept of "social acceptance", I am not here to gain social acceptance.
  
  "Some people will buy a certain brand to support their personal or professional image. It makes them feel important." In other words, an exaggerated sense of their own self-importance that does not exist but merely serves to make them feel good being wrapped in a lie over the truth of their own lack of any importance. An attempt to pass themselves off as having an importance that they do not have but which other people fall for by perceiving them as worth soemthing just because of a brand.
  
  "A well-known brand comes with a packet of features you expect to get: quality, value, a feeling about yourself."
  
  Quality - except that, time after time, value-range items turn out to be healthier and therefore arguably better quality than any of the brands.
  
  Value - except that brands are not, as they generally cost much more money, therefore offer poor value and are subject in effect to a "brand tax", where people pay more simply because it is the brand. In fact, cheaper alternatives are often equivalent or can be better and all of the cheaper alternatives, by definition, are therefore better value (for money).
  
  A "feeling about yourself" - yawn. I am not into feelings.
  
  "It’s pre-programmed, built-in, ready-to-go."
  
  Pre-programmed. A bit like people who buy them?
  
  "The work has already been done to script what’s being said when that brand speaks. The messages are largely already resident in the consumer’s brain." So, nothing challenging at all. It's also a "script" - an acting, a pretence, a useless way of conformity and the way things are done just because they are done.
  
  "A recognizable brand represents to the consumer what he or she has already absorbed, probably over years of impressions about the company." Years of impressions - gives the game away: it's all about impressions again and not about reality of what is.
  
  "Generally speaking, consumers are prepared to pay more for a brand they recognize because they have come to trust that it provides value."
  
  Why would you be prepared to pay more? To me, rationally it makes no sense, but then people are generally irrational, as a cheaper alternative will always work just as or nearly as well or acceptably enough - after all, some people do buy those alternatives so the generally cheaper alternative products can't be completely wrong and are subject to food safety etc. regulations just like the brands - and if truth be known some or many own-label products are made by the very same people that make the brands, sometimes in the same factories or on the same production lines, though doubtless there are subtle differences in ingredients so we can't say they are the same - indeed, for me, the own-labels are often better - and raw ingredients are the same no matter who makes something. Of course it would undermine trust in Premier Foods brands if Premier Foods were to be revealed as making any of the own labels or which products (I have no idea, they may or may not make any but surely, if not, somewhere else would be no less good?). Consumers are prepared to pay more, bizarrely to me,
  "because they have come to trust that it provides value" - again, to me, a trust placed in something that does not exist as, to me, they don't provide value at all if they cost more. However, it is all about impressions and perception, in other words it doesn't matter whether they have value or not.
  
  "The world’s most successful brands have, for the most part, distinguished themselves based on undertones of value. Mercedes, Rolex, Apple, Under Armour have, over time, all created a perception of consistency, quality, and value." Indeed, precisely the case: a perception. "And beneath it all, emotions are being evoked".
  
  This isn't to say that the brands are no good: indeed the contrary, as great efforts are made to maintain brand goodwill and, with consistent service and experience generally delivered, you won't really go wrong with a brand. It's just that there may be way better and cheaper alternatives that people would be better buying. However, that's no good as people will still buy the brands (although my perception is that there has been at least some shift towards own-labels as people look to save money, but even then that's not always the 'correct' choice).
  
  It speaks volumes that brand owners know how to influence people and appeal to their emotions in buying and generally persuading them to spend more for paying for the advertising that influences them. It doesn't always lead to the 'best' products winning or technological advances actually always being made. My favourite example of this is the "Programme Delivery Control" or PDC method of the early 90s. "What?" I hear people ask. Exactly. It was an efficient and technically better method of videoing (back in the old days when we had video recorders) television programmes and playing them back conveniently. It lost out to a system called "Videoplus". The 'problem' was that no-one understood what PDC meant and the full name was cumbersome and not understood too. With the name - once more, it's all about name and words - "Videoplus", people knew what it was. Again, the word plus - which makes me believe that people thought that it was video and that they were getting some extra, something plus, even though the truth probably is that they weren't and weren't getting as much as PDC (what's that? and then most people yawn). So few people bought the technically superior PDC and it lost out to what was arguably a worse option, Videoplus.
  

Anon

bcw123 wrote: »

After noon re virgin train offer 1000 nectar points which finish today can you book 2 journeys on 2 transactions and get 2x1000 points

You can do only one on one account to get the points (plus LNER if you have that offer) - normally a trip between Edinburgh Haymarket and Waverley are around £1.20 for a child on their own. Make sure you book on their branded train.

HTH

Anon