Executive Briefing
It’s time to stop these stupid e-commerce tricks
Growth-hack-y tactics are eating away at your brand. And if you’re playing the long game, that’s a real problem.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:00 am
“FREE GLUTEN-FREE PASTA,” said the Instagram ad, from a direct-to-consumer brand I hadn’t seen before. “Try our twist pasta 3-pack, on us.”
Sure, why not? Being gluten-intolerant — and always on the hunt for new products — I clicked the ad and submitted my email address on a landing page, tapping a button that simply said “Get my free pasta.”
It seemed like a generous offer, but sampling new food and beverage products is still tricky these days. (Some brands moved their in-store sampling budget over to online advertising during the pandemic.) And because the offer claimed to be limited to 1,000 orders, I thought for a moment that it might just be a subsidized way to quickly get a new pantry staple into would-be customers’ homes.
Nope!
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Hi, I’m Dan Frommer and this is The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.
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