We’re Putty In Marketers’ Hands
Today we’re going to play a little word-association game. I’ll give you a phrase, you tell me the first thing that pops into your head. Ready? Here it is:
“New and …”
To those of you who did not instantly reply “improved,” I can only say, welcome to our country. I hope you enjoy your visit.
The rest of us know that “new” precedes “improved” like “peanut butter” does “jelly,” like “I Love” does “Lucy,” and like “special” does “prosecutor.” It’s a phrase, a faith that Madison Avenue has sold us with a vengeance. Sold us until we sometimes seem to accept it without question.
I boarded this train of thought last week after hearing a segment on a radio show wherein a medical expert was discussing the latest advancement in, ahem, bandage technology. Namely, antiseptic in the gauze pad.
But the expert was not impressed. Extra antiseptic is unnecessary for most wounds, he said, and for those few where it might be needed, it’s cheaper and more effective just to keep a tube of ointment on hand. A little dab’ll do ya.
Made sense to me. But I must confess: If I’d seen antiseptic bandages on the supermarket shelf before I heard this guy, I’d have snatched them up and marched them to the register.
Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me like you wouldn’t have done the same thing. We’re American consumers. We’re programmed to seek out the new. Sure, we fancy ourselves too hep to the wiles of Mad Avenue to get caught paying something for nothing. But who is it who spent all that money for shoes with air pumps in them?
In a commercial culture, “new” is a magic word. We children of the space and information ages were raised smack in the middle of one of the greatest periods of innovation and transformation the world has ever known. We have lived on the very crest of New - from transistor radios to Pentium processors. And New always brings with it the implied promise of improvement - work that is less worklike, play that is more playful.
Small wonder Mad Avenue learned to slap “new and improved” on all its wares, always promising a cleaner toilet, a brighter shine, better wetness protection.
But that old incantation has become increasingly transparent. Even desperate. Was there really a crying need for baking soda toothpaste and gender-specific disposable diapers? Will the tub truly sparkle more from using a cleanser that contains citrus fruit? And how, exactly, does one improve a bandage?
Frivolous questions, granted. Yet they cut to the core of the pitchman’s creed: They who stand still are lost. The business of business requires relentless forward motion, unceasing headway, unending advance. From good to better to best to beyond. New new new.
Thing is, there inevitably comes a time when forward motion leaves you no place to go. What do you do when there’s no more progress to be made?
Why, you fake it, of course. Roll out the new model whatzis with all the pomp and pageantry you can muster. Let the din of bells and whistles and the ka-ching! of cash registers drown out the fact that the new model is essentially the old model in a new box.
Pity the poor consumer.
We bring it on ourselves, though, when we let them get away with their shenanigans. And nothing says we have to. Remember the compact disc was introduced 14 years ago? Drawn by its pristine sound, buyers rushed to embrace the new technology. A few years ago, a cynical music industry tried to duplicate that success with something called the mini-disc - essentially a smaller version of the old CD.
It sold like snow boots in Hawaii. Which reminds me that the public fertilizer detector works pretty well sometimes. Just not well enough, apparently, to keep antiseptic bandages off the market.
Unfortunately, said detector is about all the defense we have. Truth in advertising will happen right after truth in politics. Of course, it’d be nice if we could at least stop them from using that magic incantation which has such unfair power over us. They’d never agree to that, though.
“New and useless” doesn’t have quite the same ring.
xxxx