Planting the Seeds
Judging by the crowds at Home Depot this weekend, I wasn’t the only one who used the beautiful weather Saturday and Sunday to do some yardwork. Granted, my yard isn’t that big (8 feet by 35 feet), but for someone who HATES yardwork, I was trying to get it all done as quickly as possible.
After taming the ivy that covers a huge brick wall on one side of the yard, Sunday’s task was to tear up the ugly, spotty, weed-covered lawn (if you can even call it a lawn), and prepare it for grass seed. After lots and lots of hacking with a rake, digging with a shovel, and hauling out bag after bag of weeds and dirt, I finally spread grass seed and watered it liberally. Now it’s time to keep the dog off it and cross my fingers.
The grass seed I bought — made by Scott’s — is supposed to be idiot-proof. It includes mulch and fertilizers, and even changes color to tell you if it has enough water (not a problem with all the rain coming down today). Apparently, it will even grow on bare concrete. We saw a television commercial for the grass seed Thursday night, and took it as a sign since we were talking about working on the yard. The commercial even provided a website link to print out a $5 off coupon for each bag of seed. Perfect!
Not so perfect, as it turns out. The grass seed may work great, but there’s some mixed signals in the marketing and advertising. The commercial obviously drew my attention, and printing out the coupon couldn’t have been easier. But when I took the coupon to Home Depot, they said “We don’t take coupons off the Internet.” Excuse me? If I wasn’t knee deep in dirt, tired, and frustrated, I would have either switched to another brand or gone to another store. But like a sucker, I bought it anyway.
This is the most recognizable lawn product brand there is, and a HUGE chain of home improvement stores. If you’re going to launch a costly advertising campaign that includes an incentive like a coupon, you should probably make sure a huge chain like Home Depot is going to accept it. And if you’re Home Depot, you should make sure you accept manufacturer coupons (and have enough of it on-hand — when I went back for an additional bag Sunday, they were out).
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*(Just kidding).
Entry by: Steve