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Chuggers Are a Menace

Duncan Barkes thinks that face-to-face marketing does a brand no favours. Is he right?

By Duncan Barkes

21 Aug 2011, 18:41

I consider myself to be a reasonably decent chap. Polite, well-mannered, and rarely guilty of verbally attacking total strangers. However, my patience was sorely tested last week as I tried to go about my urgent business whilst being stopped by people who wanted my cash.
 
They were not beggars (is that word still allowed to be used?) or somebody flogging a copy of the Big Issue. No, one was a charity worker and the other was selling broadband and television services. You may well be thinking, so what? Well, I think this form of 'face-to-face marketing' has got to stop.
 
Part of my work these days takes place in Central London. Like many commuters I frequently make a mad dash for the train home. Walking in London in the rush hour is never a pleasurable experience but recently it has become akin to dodging the bullets in a sniper's alley. Except these bullets do not rip into your flesh, instead they hit you with a sales pitch and then tear into your wallet.
 
Naming and shaming is never pleasant, but I make no apologies for doing it here. Save the Children is a well-meaning charity, I certainly have no gripes about their objecitves or intentions. However, I seriously question one of their fundraising techniques. I would love to know which of the charity's fundraising team thought it was a good idea to place a load of youngters wearing Save the Children vests on Victoria Street in London, a few yards away from the main railway station, in the middle of the evening rush hour?  

I understand the need to place these 'chuggers' in a location where there are plenty of people passing through, but stopping folk (myself included) as we leg it to catch the 18.02 is foolhardy. When I politiely told the chap who stopped me that I needed to catch a train, I was subjected to what can only be described as someone doing the hokey cokey on acid as he jigged around me, waving his clipboard and desperately trying to pursuade me to stay and hear more of his patter.
 
Victoria Station was also the location of another frustrating incident. Virgin Media seem to be on a kick at the moment to sign up more subscribers. Over the last few days they have had a stall-like construction with TV monitors, slap bang in the centre of the main concourse at Victoria. Walking quickly past it, trying to make the 17.32 fast train back to Sussex and bag a much sought after seat, this bloke in a polo shirt with acne blocked my path and asked me if he could have a few minutes of my time. Knowing that such chaps are only doing their job, I cheerfully replied I did not have time as I was trying to catch a train. His reply of "Do you really, Sir?" left me wanting to punch his lights out.
 
My knee-jerk flippancy aside, there surely has to come a point when such marketing techniques have a negative effect? Having worked in marketing in both the private and charity sectors, I fully appreciate that organisations have to use various methods to maintain their market share or funding.
 
Sales gurus and fundraisers tell me that using face-to-face marketing can be highly profitable which is why it still continues. Maybe, but I would wager that such aggressive practices will not do their company or brand any favours in the longterm.
 
I for one will not donate to Save the Children in the future or bother with Virgin Media. Harsh, perhaps, but if someone wants my cash or custom, I expect them to at least use their brain and not ask me when I clearly have no time to spare. It is hardly rocket-science, is it?