Business

I always find it surprising when a business appears to deliberately offend a segment of potential customers and yet that happens so often that it doesn't seem to be an accident.

• There was a recent stink about Burger Kings in Texas with a "Global warming is baloney" sign. Given how passionately people feel about that topic, they are clearly choosing to offend a large portion of their potential customers.
• Today I ate lunch a place called "Cluck-U." I was in a lunch rut and wanted to try something new, but wasn't sure I wanted to give my business to a place with a name like that. I did and was very pleasantly surprised. The food was excellent, but the customer service was better than I've seen in restaurants that charge 3-4 times as much. And yet, they chose a name that is likely to offend and I thought about it for a while before deciding I would not be offended and give it a try. I'm sure many others are not so open to given them the benefit of the doubt.
  
• I remember seeing the semi's pulling the Guaranteed Overnight Delivery (GOD) trucks. They were deliberately offending a segment of potential customers. They went out of business in October of 2008. I can't imagine they were that dull as to think that everyone would find that name clever. I can't imagine they could afford to lose the customers who were offended. I certainly would never ship anything with them.
  
• Last year Chesapeake Bay Magazine put a woman clad in a rather small bathing suit on their front cover. It was a big surprise since it is a magazine primarily staffed by women and had always been one of the only boating magazines that was safe for those who are fans of modesty. There were a lot of offended people who sent in offended letters. The cover didn't surprise me as much as the editorial in the following issue where the editor mocked those who were offended. A sizable portion of the magazine's customer base had been offended. He then proceeded to make fun of those who were offended, dividing his paying costumers into two halves - us and them - and mocking them. It is a small magazine that doesn't seem like it can afford to do that.
• The biggest offender is Hollywood. It is so bad with them that Michael Medved wrote a book about it called Hollywood Verses America. They revel in offending even being willing to take significant losses.
  

It is a fascinating and disturbing phenomenon. I am no business person but it has never made sense to me. I can't imagine there is such an infinite supply of customers, in any business, that a business owner can deliberately chose to offend a group. Maybe they are so successful that money is no object. If so, maybe I need to go into business - I'm really good at offending people.