A "Response" to a "Letter" that I "Received" in the Mail.

To whom this may “concern”:

             You must be hurting for business. I wonder what type of business you might hope to attract, offering me, a “neighbor in our community,” (though I am not really because the home of your dealership is “2910 White Settlement Road, Fort Worth, TX 76107”) a $1000.00 savings card in the form of that most iconic of Western monetary metaphors: the credit card. Exhaustive first sentence, am I right? Well, there is a lot to be said, so buckle up.

             When I open your “advertisement” and read, in Bold and in Blue it says Congratulations! When I read the fine print it states that I should “Immediately remove the attached $1000 Savings card and place it in your wallet. This card is valuable and may be applied toward the purchase of service, parts and accessories. Card is valid at all Autobahn locations.” Now, I wager that if I were to ask that the $1000 dollar savings be applied directly to the bill of exactly $1000 dollars you would regret to inform me that the advertisement clearly implies something else, and I would have to agree, but only because I have been desensitized by the sheer multitude of advertisements employing fraudulence and “implication” in their marketing strategies. And, that’s precisely what you have done here. You have implied that I have $1000.00 to spend on a vehicle while also implying simultaneously that said $1000.00 dollars is a percentage of the cost you would absorb on a much larger bill. But we all know that you really wouldn’t absorb anything, you just wouldn’t profit as much as you would on a pre- or post-Savings Card day, (then again, if I were to fall victim to your ploy, maybe your salespeople could wiggle their way into my psyche and get me to add on a few “extras” in order to cover the pseudo-absorption that you so tepidly “suggest” above, though I do pity the fool who wanders into such a psyche. It’s like four-thousand people playing Chinese checkers in a hybrid world that can only be explained as a Jackson Pollock/Salvador Dali lightshow and buffet). To the untrained eye, (though I’m not sure such eyes still cast their impressionable gaze upon the world, because, like me the rest of our culture has also figured out this so-called “strategy”) you suggest that the recipient of this “letter” has received a special privilege; you suggest that some “lucky individual” has gained an advantage. Can you not see the artifice here? Can you not see the imbedded lie? Must you be reminded that at its very core a lie is not such a distant relative of suggestion? Perhaps you should evaluate your strategy and stop lying not only to your intended audience but to yourselves. But, this is a utopian idea; I know that you will do what you must, for you are a “business,” and the end goal of any business is to profit. Romantic ideals notwithstanding, perhaps you employ a different “strategy,” one that might include integrity and honesty as its foundation. Maybe you would attract a different crowd. In fact, I think that such traits are actually more profitable in the long run of things, whether in business or in general. Nevertheless, this is merely my suggestion.[1]

 The “letter,” the one sheet of paper, the smidgen of ink, the envelope, the postage, (and the time) cost me roughly 50 cents. I am curious just how much your “advertisement” cost you? How much did the research and development, the paper, the ink, the plastic, the very production, and the postage really cost you? But, a completely different question can be and perhaps should be asked by replacing the “How” with a “What.” Perhaps the more appropriate question, then, is thus: What did sending out such an advertisement really cost you? I will be candid: I think it cost you credibility. And, for a “business” such as yours this is the most damaging and damning of consequences. All I can say is that you did it to yourself. Congratulations!

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[1] Note: One might pay particular attention to the numerous quotation marks and italics used throughout this “letter.” It should be pointed out here that said literary devices are symbolically significant and as such are full of all sorts of implications.