A very brilliant marketing scheme that has millions upon millions of people lapping at its bowl is having the customer market your product/company for you. In fact, I’d bet almost every single person reading this pays a company or two money to help that company advertise.
“Balderdash!” you say? Hardly.
I don’t even know where to begin with this one, but let’s start with an easy one that most of us contribute to: emails from your cell phone. Phone manufacturers have the default mention of their brand and/or model of phone placed as a tag at the end of emails sent from those phones. “Sent from an iPhone” or “This email was sent from a Blackberry.” Who really cares where it was sent from? What does a brand name have to do at all with an email you sent? Well, nothing, except for product advertisement. The first thing I do with cell phones is to get rid of that default message. Again, the brand name/product has little to do with me as a human, so why do I need to advertise for the company considering I’ve paid for the product?
Ed Hardy and Louis Vuitton with garish logos all over, Apple stickers on the backs of cars, the license plate frames from your car dealer…the list literally goes on and on. One thing that can happen is that we are often fooled into believing that displaying these logos/brand names somehow elevates us as people or that they make us belong to a special group or that they make us feel better than others. But if we really examine that phenomenon closely we can see that this is simply marketing that takes advantage of pride. Sometimes catch phrases are added that contribute to the “mystique”, the “power”, the “holier than thou”, and on and on. When these catch phrases become commonplace in everyday talk then the company has succeeded (“Vegas, Baby!” is the most obvious example).
There’s nothing wrong with being proud of something you own in some rare cases (i.e. not just because it makes you feel better or different than others), but in my opinion it can quickly go too far. What happens, again, is that companies like Apple, Louis Vuitton, Lucky jeans, and the immense amount of others, make people feel like they’re part of an exclusive group when in reality they are not: millions of other people own these products. To either fit in with the crowd or to fancy ourselves unique or elevated, displaying logos is a natural extension of that and is why it’s one of the most ingenious marketing methods out there. It becomes part of our identity, and as I’ve said before: real identity has little if nothing to do with what you own. Mind you, this is most often subconscious. I completely understand why the companies would encourage this — it makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint! If you don’t care what others may think then a logo need not enter the picture. But if you’re buying something to have other people notice and/or see you in a certain way then you’re much more likely to put the companies on display.
So next time you proudly display your cell phone brand name at the end of emails, put a huge corporation’s logo on your car, buy a shirt with a giant Lucky Brand across the chest, etc., you might just think about what it is you’re actually doing. You’re really not making yourself any more unique (we don’t want to be remembered for the things we owned, right?) and you’re paying a corporation to advertise for them. Personally that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not whining about corporations and all of that — they exist and that’s how it is; I’m simply talking about steps you can take if you’d like to not so closely walk arm in arm with them.
Most often a product has nothing to do with you nor does it represent you as an actual human — I believe that subscribing to this belief is very freeing. It’s not a statement that you are making; Very simply it is just you paying a company to advertise for that company.
One of the side effects of being realistic is that the placebo effect tends not to work. While this enables you to be more of a critical thinker and to see how things like marketing trump reality, some may argue that it prevents one from enjoying parts of life. This would be true if one derived one’s pleasure entirely from external things, which is what marketing often compels us to believe happens when you buy certain products and services. Obviously there is usually at least some amount of pleasure and enjoyment involved when we buy something and use it; but it’s interesting to take a look at how the placebo effect works in relation to marketing vs. reality.
Here’s a great example: Airborne. Many, many people claim that this miracle pill helps you get through/prevent colds. Since it’s been scientifically proven that the placebo effect (def: a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment) works, in many cases this claim might actually be true. But the fact is that Airborne does nothing special to help prevent colds, which is why the company has had to pay millions in a giant lawsuit. “There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment,” said Center for Science in the Public Interest senior nutritionist David Schardt after reviewing Airborne’s marketing claims. “Airborne is basically an overpriced, run-of-the-mill vitamin pill that’s been cleverly, but deceptively, marketed.”
We can apply this to so many other things besides drugs and medical treatments.
Marketing in the form of packaging can make us believe that something is better or more worthy than it actually is. If you were, say, in Whole Foods and you saw a can of tomatoes with beautifully rendered fonts and a lush illustration of the vine-ripe crimson fruit, you very well might pick that one over another can with plain white packaging and simple black block letters, even if someone told you that the two had exactly the same thing inside. The placebo effect will convince many people that the canned tomatoes in the beautiful packaging taste better than the same canned tomatoes in the plain white can. This is one way (in addition to creating a specific atmosphere, among other things) that places like Whole Foods get you to pay way more money than you should be paying.
Another great example is politics, like I’ve described before in an earlier post. People become so attached to their “team” that even when it’s against their very own interest they will vote for that person/party. Here the placebo effect tells them that they did the right thing, despite actual facts proving the very opposite.
And recall from an earlier post of mine: many will pay hundreds for a pair of jeans that are barely different from a pair of $60 jeans. Remember the experiment that I told you about? Proof in the pudding. The placebo effect made these college students believe that the jeans with the more expensive label and price were better, when they were in fact the exact same jeans as the cheaper brand.
So is the only choice to be either ignorant and “happy” or skeptical and glum? Not in the least! If you believe that so-called “happiness” comes from buying stuff then maybe so, but personally I feel more content being a critical thinker, though the easier route would be to not pay attention to any of it. Occasionally I wonder if that would be better, but when I see the statistics of how many people in our capitalistic society suffer from depression I realize that this is not the case at all.
Marriage.
Whether or not you agree with it, most of us reading this will do it at least once in our lives — and there’s not a single thing wrong with that if it’s what you want to do. However, if you do decide to participate in this ritual that’s singular to our species then you might want to take note of the colossal marketing machine that goes into the cultural institute; it’s truly overwhelming. (This is a realm that many people will defend venemously. Please note that I am in no way making the statement that marriage is bad — I am only pointing out how effective the marketing side of it is. If this makes you uncomfortable then you might not want to read on.)
I’m going to focus mostly on the most obvious of marriage-related marketing fabrications: Diamonds.
This is a subject that I could devote pages to, but I’ll summarize the politics of it as quickly as I can:
Diamonds are hardly rare; in fact, the exorbitant cost of diamonds has much more to do with a chokehold on the market than the gemstone itself. The De Beers company has had a monopoly control of almost the entire diamond market for virtually all of the 20th century, and as much as 60% after the year 2000 (when Russia and Canada got in on the action). Up until 2000 they had monopoly control over worldwide production of diamonds and therefore created their astronomically over-priced worth. They withheld and still withhold immense stockpiles of the gem to prevent over-saturation of the market which would bring prices down.
“How else would 2 months salary last a lifetime?” - De Beers ad.
The tradition of a man giving a woman a diamond engagement ring is entirely the result of a De Beers advertising campaign that started in the 1930s (and continues to this day), to encourage diamond sales. The advertising firm N.W. Ayer created an international marketing campaign that put forth the completely new idea that a diamond was a necessary ingredient for marriage. Not only that, but they convinced people that a man was required to spend a huge percentage of his salary on said diamond. That’s right, the myth of a man needing to spend an entire two month’s salary on a fairly common gem to somehow prove his love was planted exclusively in 1947 by an advertising campaign from the world’s singular diamond cartel.
Think for a second of how shocking this is: marketing for diamonds has forged an actual falsehood into a solid tradition of our society and others’. Think I’m exaggerating? Remember: the tradition of the diamond engagement ring did not exist before the De Beers ad campaign in the early/mid 1900s.
Now think about how many other so-called traditions that were/are simply ad executives’ inventions yet are engrained in your every day life. Also consider how much of our culture is actually created when advertising becomes one of the central founts of said culture. Think about why a man has to spend two months worth of his salary on a rock that is not actually very valuable and has no historical tradition behind it besides an ad campaign from the industry that supports it. Think about the accepted “fact” that a diamond engagement ring is a necessary part of the marriage process. All of this is the direct result of marketing, and shows precisely how it can take such a firm hold in any culture, especially in a capitalistic culture such as ours. If you’ve taken part in it, not to worry: every single one of us is affected by marketing in one way or another.
I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with most of this diamond business, but I believe that closely examining the effect of marketing helps get to the core of why we remain so fascinated with things like this shiny rock. I also believe that marketing is one of the prime reasons that marriage often becomes more about the material aspects of the ceremony than about the what the ceremony itself means. All you have to do is take one look at a magazine like this to see it clearly in action:
Again, none of this is me putting down marriage or marriage ceremonies in the least; I’ve been to some truly beautiful ones myself. I don’t subscribe to the idea that being aware of these things is being negative. I instead see it as being realistic, and if one is confident in one’s own set of morals and ethics then one can examine these things in more of an objective manner as opposed to reactive. Plus, if you’re truly aware of the marketing machine that we all live in then you can’t help but notice that not one single stone (or rock) goes unturned.
From “bling” to “tree hugger” to “goth” to “wealthy” to every single thing in between and beyond, identity is an immense target that many marketers aim for — in a world packed with billions of people many folk feel the need to rise above the monotony, conformity and repetition that they see. What is comical to one person is a deep and meaningful personal identity to another, and some spend inordinate amounts of money to create it.
What most fail to see is that in our search to be unique by buying things to appropriate a certain image or belong to a certain group, we are merely playing into conformity as much as anyone else; and companies and marketers are right there to help us lap it up; I mean, you really can’t blame them, can you? It’s an incredibly easy bull’s-eye and most folk don’t even realize that it’s happening.
A relative was telling me that in the 60s the hippie look was big amongst herself and her friends, and that there was a very specific image associated with that. These social rebels would don Levi’s jeans and other brand name accoutrements in their move to be unique — and it’s quite obvious who profited from that. Remember the grunge movement of the 90s with flannel and Doc Martens? Remember how Converse came back into the scene and became the foot mode of choice for certain identities? I’m not saying that there’s anything inherently wrong with wanting to be unique or rebellious, or for a company like Levi’s or Doc Martens to profit off of that; I’m just trying to show how marketing is completely intertwined with personal image and how little most of us realize that.
It is actually interesting to think about why we have the need for such a unique image. When you think about what you really like about your closest friends do you think about what sunglasses or what kind of shoes they wear or what computer they use or what car they drive? Most likely not. Why would someone want to plaster the back of their car with catchy bumper stickers declaring their political beliefs? (And as discussed in a previous post, this is something that political marketers make great use of). Putting an Apple logo on your rear window? Showcasing a hand bag with Louis Vuitton written all over it? This all gets far more philosophical than I want to delve into here, but I’m just making the point that identity (group and/or individual) is very closely conformed with marketing and merchandising. So is it really unique and individual? In my opinion, almost always no. Plus, the image that many people like to portray is merely a fantasy of what/who they feel they would prefer to be, and marketers play directly to that, as well.
Pay attention to ads that are going after a specific image: from middle-aged family man to young Hollywood partier to alt rock “rebel” to hipster to Bible worshipping family…it’s never-ending. Also note how many brands you like to proudly display because you feel they define you as a person — we all do it or have likely done it at some point. A brand or image does not define who you actually are as a person - it can only contribute to an exterior image, often falsely in relation to what’s going on at a human level.
About ten years ago I had a friend at UCLA who told me about someone she knew there that put together an experiment for a psychology class where she bought nearly identical pairs of plain, cheap jeans and took the labels off of them. She then replaced the labels with different brands such as Seven, Levi’s, Lucky, etc., and asked other students to pick which one was their favorite; It’s not difficult to guess what the majority chose. Different brand names of jeans brought certain images to peoples’ minds and how they would affect their identity to others, even though they were all exactly the same brand and style of jeans. The more expensive labels won out by a far majority over Levi’s or The Gap (both of which have their own cadre of people who can relate to the image that they portray).
The whole identity thing has become quite comical to me as I’ve become more aware of it over the years.
One of the ways that marketing is so effective on so many people is that it can literally “imprint” a concept/idea/emotion into our heads that may have nothing to do factually with the product in question. This is, of course, Marketing 101, but you’d be surprised at how much all of us are reeled in by it.
How does this imprinting work? It’s a combination of inconspicuous (sometimes combined with conspicuous) messages, images, and/or words.
On the back of a New Yorker from a few months ago I saw an ad for Subaru. In it we see an attractive silver sedan against the backdrop of a gorgeous, stirring, slightly stormy, heavily Photoshopped sunset skyline in front of which is a bridge with a road that has the word speed written all over it (the blurred headlights and tail lights). The image is clean, precise, and seductive; yet in reality it has little to do with the car. The Subaru Legacy is merely a collection of metal and plastic shaped, formed, and constructed in a certain way — it has nothing to do with the inviting picture combined with the overtly insinuating phrase “Can a drive have an afterglow?”.
Connecting an alluring image with the idea of sex has always worked wonders for marketers, and here we can see it in a more subtle light. The car itself has darkened windows, which creates a slightly mysterious and provocative situation for the reader. This ad is clearly not geared for a bunch a party crazy college co-eds; I would say that it’s aimed directly at 30 to 50-something folk who the marketers want to make feel that owning a sedan can be exciting and inspiring — just like good ol’ sex can.
The tagline at the very bottom reads: “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.” Wrong again. Love has nothing to do with it, I’m sorry to say. It bears repeating that it’s very important to note that not one of the things “imprinted” on us has anything to do with the car itself; just the image, emotion, and feel that the advertiser wants us to pick up on.
I was pulled in briefly by this ad before my mind kicked in and thought for itself — and I’m hyper aware of this stuff. So it can and does happen to all of us.
Most of us probably prefer to believe that we are immune to marketing, that we can see through the fog of advertising, and that we are individualistic and independent enough to make our own choices. While this may be true in some specific areas of our lives, my belief is that marketing takes up a significant part of our ability to think clearly and make decisions, whether we realize or not; sometimes it takes pointing out something near and dear to our hearts to make that apparent.
I’m sure you remember the 2008 Presidential election. Those on the left marveled with incredulity at how many on the right fell straight in line with marketing techniques such as Swift Boat-style attack ads, the creation of personas that people can relate to (Palin, for example), and catch phrases that leave logic and reason out of the scenario and instead focus on stirring up emotion. When marketing can nudge emotion over logic and reasoning then it is at its strongest. You can see how emotion literally takes people over when you go to a sports game or a political rally or a protest or any other number of things that are decidedly based in anger, fear, love and/or hate. What those on the left may fail to recognize is that they, too, fell swiftly in step with a brilliant marketing campaign designed by the Obama team. (I want to note that this post is independent of political beliefs — I’m simply using specific examples to illustrate how all of us can be taken up by smart marketing).
The Obama campaign worked because it appealed directly to the need of so many for a change in the White House, and it appealed to that need at a deep emotional level. Words like Hope, Progress, and Change were used widely in an iconic-looking illustration designed by Shepard Fairey:
Many of us had little idea of what issues Obama actually stood for, and he had very little history to base our opinion of him on. The fact is that when you see such a direct and inspiring poster it stirs your emotional pot up, one way or the other. The slogan “Change we can believe in” and the chant “Yes we can” were both used widely to great effect. As in any effective advertising campaign, specific facts often get lost: what change, exactly? What hope exactly? Anyone can believe in any kind of change, but when it’s focused as brightly and effectively as it was on Obama it can turn into a mass movement, which it did. The majority of Americans got caught up in this brilliant marketing campaign which was fueled by a desperate need for a completely new President and political direction.
Another method of appealing to the emotional side is to cater to the negative. This is where angry radio & TV show hosts full of bile and vitriol succeed. As far as marketing goes, smear campaigns are highly effective tools for moving huge blocks of voters; like I said earlier, hate, anger and fear are just as strong roots to tap into as hope and desire. Both the left and the right participate in this type of marketing, even going so far as to state outright lies or muddy the waters of the truth so as to obscure fact by riling up emotion (shown here in a photo allegedly circulated by the Clinton campaign):
When you see this photo what emotion does it immediately stir? For many people it digs straight into the river of fear with such thoughts (conscious or unconscious) as: “I don’t want a terrorist in the White House.” This is first-rate marketing, indeed!
What I’m trying to illustrate here is that most of us are victims of marketing, which is very clearly illustrated in the political world. Very few of us really know the issues at hand and most tend to vote/support with our emotions, which are easily stirred by well thought out advertising. There is no difference between an ad like this:
and an Obama poster. We can easily dissect the above example by engaging in critical thought: A proven maverick? What does that actually mean? Nothing — they are words specifically chosen by focus groups to tap into voters’ emotions, bypassing logic and incisive thought. Next we can think about how carefully this photo of Palin was chosen (just like the image of Obama in the Hope poster)— think about what kind of emotions it would stir up in certain people and why this particular pose, facial expression, and look worked to move people’s minds.
I believe that if more people were specifically aware of how marketing works and how they are affected by it then we might have a very different political landscape, for the better.
