Marketing Myths II

Marketing isn’t cool . In fact it performs the opposite function really. Depending on your definition of cool. 1998 Limp Bizkit cool band to those riding the crest of the inbound Nu Metal wave. 2003 Limp Bizkit (and particularly Fred Durst) not cool at all. What happened? Marketing, MTV, Total Request Live, Video Hits, Album Recording schedules pushing them till Wes Borland to my great admiration walked out with the excuse ‘it was cool to feel what it’s like to sell out for a while but I’m done with it.’ Or whatever it was he actually said, anyway Fred Durst cried and that made me happy.
You can divide products into to categories esteem and informational. Esteem are the products people want to buy, make them feel good and generally enjoy. These products have to be likeable, unlike the Toohey’s Extra Dry in that tongue add you need people to like the ad, like the product if you want to sell some. Informative are things like homeloans, washing machines and lawnmowers. Things people have to buy but don’t want to so you can have adds that just shout ‘Cheap! Cheap! CHEAP!’ at people and it can be just as effective/sometimes more effective than trying to make it appealing.
Unlike products people can be divided into four categories on two axis of Esteem and Opinion Seeking creating four quadrants but there’s only one that really matters which is someone with high self esteem and low opinion seeking is called ‘an opinion leader’ and then there’s basically everybody else. Opinion leaders are the people that walk into an op-shop buy whatever article of clothing put it on and go to a social function, where there friend in easily identified brands says ‘Why are you wearing a cowboy shirt?’ and the opinion leader says ‘Cause I fucking like it.’
An opinion leader is cool and self assured and generally find their personal fashion taste, preferences in music is constantly ruined for them because marketers hunt them down, take photo’s of them, sew a brand onto whatever they’re wearing , mass produce it and sell it to everyone else.
A good environment to see this happen is Ballarat where like most regional centres fashion for teenagers is the exclusive property of Surfbrands, which never really made sense in Ballarat or Bendigo or Alice Springs. You buy a bucket hat from St Vincent’s then Rip Curl sew a brand on it and sell a $90 version to everyone else. It’s a cashcow fashion because it’s renewable, highturnover industry where brand loyalty is high. The big joke is that if your not cool , you never will be because it’s one of those esteem/attitude things. Sandra D is still Sandra D in lycra. You can’t be cool playing ‘Magic: The Gathering’ in all the latest fashions if you have to ask what’s cool you probably aren’t. Not really, sure you might be laughing at that girl wearing a petticoat over army cams but if she’s an opinion leader, marketer’s will find her, and introduce what makes her cool to the mass market, making it uncool.
That’s it the function of marketing in esteem products, find something enjoyed by opinion leaders, package it for mass market, kill product.
Why the opposite of cool? Surely your just spreading coolness around for all to enjoy and nobody is humiliated by wearing Dunlop Volleys and black explorer socks combo’s again right? You would have noticed that opinion leaders have Low Opinion Seeking, they don’t ask the guy in the store what’s in when they buy a pair of jeans. They don’t look around to see what their friends are wearing (unless it’s a hilarious novelty shirt like ‘Pobodies Nerfect’) they don’t identify with most people. There Maslownian need for affiliation isn’t barking in their ear right now. If ridiculed over there decision to where their pants back to front they don’t even offer up argument. And they don’t get punished for it either. ‘They pull it off’ is the common expression. Other people just don’t. Coolness is desirable for it’s exclusivity, I want to be cool as an edge in the social pecking order. I wish I’d never signed up to that ‘Magic: the Gathering’ Club but they gave me a free I’d tag. Someone has to be uncool or being cool is of no value. You would have noticed that when you wore the cool gear and talked about radio head in the yard you actually became no more popular with the ladies/guys than you already were. You just don’t feel as uncomfortable.
I hate it, I was an op-shopper for a while. Then I noticed I was trying just as hard. So I came across the technique I’ve been using ever since, not a guaranteed success or coolness but does pull you out of the game so you can be lazy (I’m a thinker not a doer). I pulled out my rip curl gear from when I’d given conformity a go and just wore it. It was a couple of seasons old by that point and for some reason you never get last seasons surf gear in op-shops and combined it with my op-shop wardrobe because they’d both been cool once. Then I simply never bought another shirt or pants for the next 5 years. My oldest serving shirt is from Grade 5 it’s a mambo one though you can’t tell now.
Whering stuff that has already been cool means it’s legitimately cool (unless it was a fad like anything from the 80’s) and works particularly we’ll with music. I never have anyoing conversations about Faith No More or cream with 16 year old try hards because they’ll never get back into the charts. Nor do I feel compelled to listen to a Simple Plan, no I don’t know what it’s like you angry unhappy young dudes. So I guess I’m an opinion laggard jumping on the band wagon way waaaaay too late. I hear codpieces where all the rage in the 1600’s.
What’s the point? What was the point I don’t draft these things afterall, oh yeah that marketing isn’t cool. That’s right really I guess I was just disappointed to turn up to my classes for marketing and see people dressed up for it in the middle of the day with white white teeth and fake tans and pointy shoes with stiletto heals and made in Italy ties. Marketing really is just pouring over statistical data and trying to communicate benefits as artlessly as possible so your product doesn’t get misinterpreted by consumers. So don’t do marketing if you want to be cool, you’re trying to sell stuff to the mass market at the lowest cost. You’re never on the cutting edge of cool you’re chasing that wave not riding it. You destroy cool so don’t glamorise your analytical office job. I hear PR courses are worse.
I’m a condescending prick.