Marketing 101

   The first vehicle Bagholder drove in his youth was a 1975 limited edition Buick Electra 225.  The longest 4 door hardtop GM ever built. Steel bumpers, 3 gallons to the mile, it was an absolute tank. I remember vividly, sitting at an intersection waiting for a green light when I was rear-ended by a Datsun, doing maybe 20 mph.  If it wasn’t for the loud noise of the crash, I would not even have known we were hit.  When I got out of the car to survey the damage, the first thing I saw was a completely mangled Datsun, broken windshield, radiator steaming, and the bumper caved in with fluids spraying everywhere. In fact it was everything we could do, for us to push the Datsun off the road, into the corner gas station. The buick, meanwhile, didn’t even have a scratched bumper.

    Fast forward to a couple months ago when the newest driver in the Bagholder clan, a 16 year old, took a right turn a little too fast in a 2015 SUV, and went skidding into an embankment. No other cars involved, and nobody was hurt, but the damage to the SUV was extensive.  One of the issues which left the car un-drivable, was the bumper was dislodged and hanging down. Upon close inspection, Bagholder realized the bumper was nothing more than a brittle plastic shell supported and insulated with styrofoam. A $40,000 vehicle, with styrofoam bumpers - in the parlance of our time, WTF? In todays world it seems we drive vehicles with the appearance of bumpers, but none of the functionality. How American …. all image, no substance.

     Its not just cars either, declining quality is everywhere you look. Mrs. Bag, an avid hiker, thinks nothing of spending a few hundy on some hiking boots. You would expect, for that kind of scratch - you would get the kind of quality boots which would last a decade or more. Instead, Mrs. Bag is (conservative estimate) on her 6th pair in the last 5 years.  When she confronted the manufacturer directly about this issue, she was told the previous generations of the same boots used more rugged parts. And because boots routinely ended up in landfills, those rugged parts took much longer to breakdown than the presently used, more biodegradable parts.  So we have a shoe company purporting to care more about the environment than producing a durable quality product.  Bagholder would love to know how exactly is the landfill better off with a cheap broken pair being deposited every year, rather than a worn out durable pair once a decade. But I digress…

  A large percentage of people both outside our borders and within would say we are nation full of materialistic consumers.  Being materialistic however, implies the “items” purchased are what matters most to the consumer.  The widespread and consistently declining quality of things dictates something else must be at work here.  Perhaps its not the “item” which matters.  Could it be the actual buying of an item, is more important than the item itself?  Hitting the “buy it now” button on Amazon, and opening the package upon arrival, both come with a twinge of power and a hit of dopamine; even if the contents of the package is nothing more than a cheaply made plastic piece of crap.

   Wasn’t too long ago companies would build a product, advertise the price, function, and where to get it - and that was that. Somewhere along the line, corporations figured out they could sell a lot more product by advertising self-esteem, in place of their product. Think about it, the last Chevy truck commercial you saw - were they selling a truck, or selling manliness?   Makeup companies hire the best looking models they can find to make women feel inadequate, and then imply if you buy our product, the feeling of inadequacy will go away. Are beer commercials really selling beer, or are they selling a world where it appears your ho-hum life can be traded in for a world where parties with hot women are the norm?

  When you get right down to it, we are not buying trucks, makeup, and beer. What you are being sold is adequacy, status, popularity, virility, happiness, with a side of positive self image.  We are not buying some product we need, we are buying what we want to be.  If it meant you were actually going to party with hot women, buying that 12 pack might be worth it. The fact this type of marketing works as well as it does, goes a long way towards explaining why 90 million people in this country are on anti-depressants.  We have been told for decades happiness and positive self-image can be bought. Nothing could be further from the truth. Happiness and positive self image are life choices you make, they are not somebody else’s to sell you.

   The most frightening aspect of this corporate marketing strategy is they are not even selling positive self image. In fact they are only selling the appearance of positive self image. Not unlike the SUV & Buick from above, one had actual bumpers and one had the appearance of bumpers.  Real accidents were necessary to see the difference. The continual decline in the quality of products is not likely to end any time soon. It is highly likely corporate America (and the Don Drapers of the world) will continue to market the appearance of self image, and consumers will continue to click the buy button, expecting happiness. Truth be told, there is no need for corporate America to go to the trouble of putting out a quality product if most of America prioritizes acquiring a product over using it.

Buy less, Live more.