There’s a NEW JOBopeningat WELL-come!!! APP-licantsmustpossessanin CREDibleaBILitytoputthestressonthe WRONG wordinthe SENtenceandSOUND likeatotal PLONker!!!! ENJOY shoppingat WELL-come! Or ELSE!
I remember the days when I found muzak in supermarkets irritating. Muzak anywhere, really, especially Kenny G. But with the wall of talking sound that has taken over The Wellcome Chain Of Overstacked Supermarkets (the WALL of TALKingsoundthathas … etc) recently, I’d do anything to get Kenny back among the shelves.
I don’t know how the management thinks that listening to these insanely upbeat, non-stop talking and advising (“when you STACK foodinyourfridge ALWAYS STACK thebarbecuedtoddlerson the SAME shelfastheSEVEREDheads. ENJOY stackingfoodinyourFRIDGE!”)Â will make people buy more stuff.
In my local Wellcome I see people running frantically around, just chucking any old thing into their shopping trolleys while dashing for the tills, trying to cover both ears with one hand to keep the relentless, penetrating noise out. But it’s impossible, the speakers are turned on too loud and the voice too intense.
It enters the brain like a dog whistle for humans and makes you dizzy, confused and unable to remember what you came into Wellcome for in the first place.
This morning I went in there to get some toothpaste and the SCMP and came out with a bunch of barbecue forks, a pair of socks and four litres of bleach.
Management of Wellcome: People know how to shop. They can find the bargains. They know how to put things into their fridges. Having some bint scream into my ear how I should “enJOY shoppingatWELL-come” doesn’t make it enjoyable. Some peace and quiet or even Kenny, might.
Well, of course  not enjoyable. How can being in a supermarket ever be? But it might make it tolerable.
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I know in the past, when this form of advertising had been implemented in many supermarkets in America, some bright spark of an itellect decided to it would be useful to superimpose subliminal messages in the music.
One reason for doing this was to advertise products in the supermarket without the customers actually be awre of this, thus making them buy the products.
Maybe there is some subliminal messages be conveyed in Wellcomes music? The best recording I hear is a mixture of Chinese and Western voices that tell you how buying ceratin products in park and shop are healthy for you and how to cook them.
But it’s not music. That’s my whole point – it’s talking. Or rather, incessant yapping and shouting, in the most unbelievably weird tone of voice.
Music would have been heavenly. The worst recording is of a “married couple” talking about bargains and then shouting out the last sentences in unison. Ahhhrghhh. I’ve tried, but can’t not listen to it.
Yes Park’n'shop is almost as bad, so I shop at markets when possible; would rather give my money to private enterprise than big conglomerates any day anyway. It’s just that the market i Mui Wo is so damn far from where I am.
I was in the Hung Hom Wellcome and forgot to bring my iPod. (I have a friend who believes they were invented just so people could go grocery shopping in HK). Anyway, I noticed that many people, particularly the elderly, were busy picking up every single item, scrutinizing it for several seconds, putting it down, picking another up, etc. I wondered if the world had gone mad. Then I heard the announcement blasting: The store was probably trying to re-stock and re-shelve, and in a brilliant HR-saving move, was offering a “special prize” to any customer who could find the expired items and bring them to the front.
Now I know why people pay three times as much as necessary to shop in City Super; It’s quiet. It’s well worth the money. Wellcome nowadays is like Lo Wu shopping center: There is such an onslaught of nagging that you end up not buying anything.
City’Super (bizarre punctuation and all) may not be totally serene but at least they play some interesting music/muzak (Osibisa anyone?). PNS takes the biscuit, however; I once heard an announcement urging all customers to ensure that they got their regular cervical smear, closely followed by instructions on how to clean and prepare squid…
Ha ha ha! Cervical smear, squid … yes, not too far a leap there.
Also IFC, although I hate malls, has beautiful muzak- a little flowing, dramatic… makes you feel you’re in a film while looking at socks.
But what’s this PNS?
PNS = Park’N'Shop!
Oh God.Of course.I was just thinking in more up-market terms there for a moment. What a plonker! But PNS is marginally more tolerable than WELLLLLLLLLcome. It is!
Get on with you! You thought she meant PMS. By the way, whatever happened to good old PMT? Is it worse if it’s a syndrome?
You know VERY WELL that “syndrome” is MORE MODERN. And therefore worse. Or more prevalent. Or something.
Nice article
That reminds me. As a student, I had a bread gig.
That means I worked in a the bakery department in a supermarket.
They used ‘freshly baked bread’-aroma in the airco. This is why, until today, I cannot stand the smell of anything vaguely related to bread. Or it must contain alcohol.
Not a single loaf of anything was actually made over there. There was a fake oven. Fake bakers. I just realize now I probably got the job because I looked like a baker. Fake pictures demonstrating old school baking.
Once in a while, there were announcements about crispy, fresh bread “straight from the oven” after which hordes of people would impatiently line up (sometimes they would start fighting over who came first) to get a piece of the action. That was of course in the pre-draw-a-number-for-just-about-anything-era.