Freebies that fall short.

When my father turned 60, he organized a little get-together to celebrate. We pondered with my mother and my brother to come up with something cool as a gift. It turned out to be a challenge because the man of the day already had his storage full of everything imaginable

Finally, we decided to install a remote camera in the cottage yard to take pics of the wildlife while he was away. It would be interesting to see what else moves around the yard as well.

After quick googling, we found an online store they sold exactly those cameras that had high reviews on tech sites. They had some accessories like a big memory card and a rain shelter for the camera in the bundle as well. So it sat into our budget, and we chose it.

The package was delivered to our door shortly. Luckily the old man was not home at the time.

I examined the camera package. It felt robust, just like a wildlife camera should feel. The bundled memory card was there as well, but then the slap came straight to the face. The 30€ rain shelter was a jigsaw cut acrylic that we confused as packaging material first.

The last piece of the bundle crushed our feeling of quality in an instant. Even though we got the rain shelter for free, we felt cheated. The outcome would have been far better by not shipping the acrylic abomination at all. Nothing destroys the feeling of quality as your lack of interest in details you demonstrate.

Software or photography. Services or products. B2B or B2C. Your business domain makes no difference here.

If you base marketing on freebies, make sure they deliver in quality that matches your actual product.