Two weeks ago I blogged about Myer’s latest shopping offer for Family and Friends. Indeed it looks a good deal — 10% to 20% discount on wide range of goods. Moreover, as the offers are “exclusive” to the family and friends of the Myer employees, flyer needs to be presented, so it must be genuine right? From the circulated PDF file:

… team members, their families and friends will have access to a range of exclusive offers. In addition to these special offers, family and friends of Myer team members will also be eligible to receive Myer team member discount on any purchase, including the special offers, for the offer period.

However, according to this comment on OzBargain, there seems to be nothing special about the Family and Friends offer flyer.

I went to Myer today. Myer actually had the printed copy of the discount flyer on their information counters. Plus if you are a Myer One card holder (free to sign up), you will receive the special offer too.

Hey that sounds a bit dodgy, does it? It is supposed to be exclusive to family and friends, but a few of them managed to leak out the emails. However everyone and their dogs and cats have that flyer in their hands, and it has been freely given out at the Myer store? Where is my exclusiveness?

Then I read this article on Crikey today — Myer goes viral — and customers are happy to catch the disease. From the article:

To paint the picture; Myer seeded an email into the market that, for a very limited time, offered up to 20% discounts to “Family & Friends”. Our spies report busy stores on the weekend. So why did it work?

… The Family & Friends offer appeared to offer something only to those close to the company. It made the recipient feel that they were in on something a bit special. However, while Myer team members needed to produce their staff discount card, all anyone really had to do was to produce a copy of the email. In reality, the discount was available to anyone with a printer. It made the message stickier, and is an example of a simple message that enough people find irresistible.

Busy store indeed, and so is the part about irresistable. We did not go because we have nothing to buy, but a few of our friends insist to visit Myer in Sydney CBD on Sunday afternoon just to “catch the sale”.

However, do you reckon that this type of viral marketing “dodgy”? Telling you that it is an exclusive offer to those who are close to the company, but in fact the deal is available to everyone? Then you look at the discount — they are actually not that great. I believe Myer actually runs that sort of discount regularly without tucking under the “Family & Friends exclusive offer” banner.

I have been fooled. Oops. That was a typo — I have been tooled. So are my friends who went to Myer that day with all the excitement.

I wonder whether viral marketing has any negative effect. Actually there is one — I actually feel more reluctant to shop at Myer and post any Myer deal now because of their marketing tactics. When the next “exclusive offer” email comes in, how can I tell that it is really genuine sale, or just another marketing ploy that plays on people psychologically? I don’t think I can tell. I might as well throw that into bin.