Fat Tire’s first prize: an obsolete bike. The rationality of costly signaling.
Fat Tire Beer is holding a contest, and first prize is an old-fashioned bicycle. It is a cumbersome and heavy one-speed bike that lacks most of the useful features found on modern bicycles. What does it have going for it? Nothing much worth my while. I buy my bicycles for performance, features and functionality, not looks.
Image by Erich Vieth
Others would say that the Fat Tire bicycle has an unique style worth coveting. I know a woman who recently paid a large amount of money for a “retro” bicycle much like the one in the photo. She bragged about her bicycle only in terms of what it looked like, and seemed to get irritated when I asked her whether she would miss some of the useful features found in most modern bicycles, features such as multiple gears, high-tech gear-shifting, feather-light frame, and front or rear suspension. It appears that Fat Tire Beer is looking for customers like the woman I just described, people who are obsessed with the looks of a bicycle rather than its functionality.
I recently posted on Geoffrey Miller’s terrific new book, Spent. At page 97, Miller discusses the “signaling value” of many modern products. Miller points out that modern corporations work hard to avoid competition based upon objective features that can be compared. Fat Tire Beer, for example, did not choose to offer a modern bicycle that could easily be compared to the many other bicycles currently being sold. Instead, the company chose to offer an old-fashioned bike that would signal a certain trait for the owner and his/her friends/acquaintances. Modern corporations
Use advertising to create signaling systems–psychological links between brands and the aspirational traits that consumers would like to display. Although these signaling links must be commonly understood by the consumer’s socially relevant peer group, they need not involve the actual product at all. The typical Vogue magazine ad shows just two things: a brand name and an attractive person . . . there is a hidden rationality at work–the rationality of costly signaling. What matters in most advertising is the learned association between the consumer’s aspirational traits and the company’s trademarked brand name–the fountainhead of all profitability.
Therefore, don’t waste your time trying to figure out what obsolete styles of bicycles have to do with beer. The bicycle featured on the label of Fat Tire Beer has nothing to do with the taste or quality of the liquid in the bottle. Rather, buying Fat Tire Beer is an opportunity for a consumer to display to others that the consumer can afford a premium beer. The bicycle on the label gives consumers a further opportunity to suggest that tradition is more important than functionality. Those who buy Fat Tire Beer let the beer do their talking for them: “I’m a person who values tradition over functionality.” That’s my guess.
I wouldn’t accept that cumbersome and sparsely-featured contest bicycle even if someone offered it to me for free, because I know less-costly, less wasteful and more effective ways of convincing others that I often value tradition. It involves hard work and no gimmicks. It requires that you willingly put your life under a microscope, that you repeatedly show rather than tell, and that you show your values in ways other than through conspicuous consumption.
- Ubiquitous conspicuousity
- Naked Bike Ride 2008 - St. Louis - to protest our dependency on oil and celebrate our bodies
- What we buy versus what makes us happy
- A big suburban shopping mall is dying, yet I’m not shedding any tears
- Shopping for Sex: wasteful consumerism and Darwin’s theory of sexual selection
Beer ads puzzle me. “Fat Tire” just makes me think of my midriff. And I’ve always been amused by the local brewery campaign that regularly features large horses followed by streams of yellow liquid into a mug. That says it all.
Beer puzzles me. I’ve tried and tried for decades to learn to like it, but it’s just bitter. I want bitter, I’ll drink two day old coffee and at least be more awake, but beer has always hit me like carbonated Blah. And yes, I have tried all manner—pilsner, pale ale, mailbock, marzen…about once a year I’ll go to a microbrewery and try another, just in case, but I have yet to find one that tastes worth tasting again.
But what really puzzles me is hearing that certain domestic packaged beers are actually crap to a true beer connosieur and seeing so-called beer-lovers buy this stuff a case or two at a time and just drink one after another after another in one night…
Beer culture, at least in this country, disturbs me.
Mark: If you could just sit back and reminisce about riding a big old fat-tire bicycle when you were little, you might find yourself enjoying Fat Tire beer.
I drink a beer about every six months, whether I need it or not, so I can relate.
Erich, that must be it. I never rode a fat tired bicycle. I didn’t have a bicycle till I was 13. That crucial delay must have warped me for all future normal behavior.
I recently quit drinking, however I would like to recommend Anderson Valley Summer Soltice. Scrumptious beer!
http://www.avbc.com/
“It appears that Fat Tire Beer is looking for customers like the woman I just described, people who are obsessed with the looks of a bicycle rather than its functionality.”
It appears that Fat Tire Beer is looking for Harley Davidson customers. HD has reached the pinnacle of this philosophy, and even boasts, “If I have to explain, you won’t understand.” To me, such a statement is right up there with, “You have to have faith.”
And yes, I am a motorcyclist. And a bicyclist. But not a drinker.
I was at Tour de Fat in Chicago this year. Two things:
They gave away not one bike but two. The first was a raffle prize. I think it fit your description, but I didn’t get as good a look. The second was in exchange for the winner giving up his car. It was a pretty nice commuter bike, with multiple gears, panniers, and an upright posture–sort of an American reinterpretation of a Dutch bike. It was also quite stylish, all in black.
I’d say there was a bit more going on than a worship of tradition. In communities across the country, there are people renouncing cars, due not just to the environmental impact, but also the cost. There’s a vibrant, forward-looking culture emerging around this trend. New Belgium Brewing is cashing in.
Maybe this is irrelevant to the point of the post, but Fat Tire is a pretty good beer. My opinion is not related to the name or how an old bicycle might relate to the name. Someone mentioned it was their favorite beer and my wife and I tried it and we both enjoyed it. I’m not much of a beer drinker myself, but I really liked it. It won’t change your life or anything, but you shouldn’t let its name or the association with old bicycles or motorcycles, stop you from trying it.
Thanks, John. I never meant to disparage the beer itself in my post. I should someday go try one!
Erich, Yes you should try a Fat Tire, or any New Belgium brew, excellent products. I am a function over looks type of guy too, but there’s nothing wrong with the mentality of Harley Davidson type people (I am not one btw), they love what they do, they take care of their bike and usually understand the mechanics of it pretty well. If more people were like that, there would be a lot less waste as we drive more reliable and simpler vehicles. It costs more fossil fuels and spews more emissions to build new vehicles than it would have to maintain the older ones that get slightly worse gas economy [citation needed]. Just my $.02
BTW - I also dislike the bike they are giving away, I would much rather have my mediocre mountain bike.
Cheers
Erich,
I know many people who would prefer the obsolete retro bike over a modern lightweight multi-speed any day, not for the looks, but for the simplicity.
Niklaus: I know many people who choose things that look simple rather than investing a little bit of time to simplify one’s life. That Fat Tire bike certainly does LOOK simple, and I think that you’re correct that this simple look appeals to many people (including the woman I mentioned in the post). A lot of those simple-looking bikes end up not being used, though, because they are too difficult to pedal up hills. And it doesn’t take much to learn to use a gear-shifter. Maybe about a minute or two. If those luddites would invest that minute or two and buy a bike that probably costs less than those retro bikes, they would really simplify their lives by really using their bikes rather than their polluting motor vehicles.
BTW, here is a store where you can get simple “cruiser” bikes. Notice, though that many of these do have multiple gears and none of them have all of the extra decorative metal found on the Fat Tire bike. http://www.chubbyscruisers.com/shop/cruisers-mens-c-8_10.html
My niece did complain about how often I changed gears while filming this video. She is of the pick a gear and stay there persuasion. I am more of a maintain a regular cadence fellow.
Mark — you should take a vacation to Belgium. Just pick any cafe (bar) within walking distance of your hotel…. and start in on the menu. (Some menus have many hundreds of beers.)
While drinking — you may want to try some real frites (I hope you like mayo+mustard & mayo+garlic & may+ketchup & mayo+mayo..
.), and for dessert you can then have some REAL waffles (gaufre de Liege) with nuts & fruit & honey… yum!
You may want to hire a personal trainer while in Belgium - to work off the excess weight you’ll undoubtedly gain!
Dan
Great video — it shows how ‘cool’ even the most prosaic activities can look when seen through a different lens.
I agree with you about cadence — isn’t that what the damn gears are for?
(Except when ‘working out’ — I’ll change my pace as well as power — to exercise fast twitch as well as slow twitch)
Tony,
While I would love to see Belgium and feast upon all the marvelousness of their native cuisine, trust me on this: beer and me don’t match up.
But I have also heard of the phenomenon of mayo on fries. I don’t put anything on my fries but salt and pepper. Ketchup repels me on anything—especially hamburgers, on which I also detest pickles.
But genuine Belgian waffles….we had a restaurant in St. Louis once that did them right, and they are to die for. But ’tis true—one must high one’s spreading derrier to yon gymnasium to pump and grunt and thus sweat mightily to strip the fat from your girthful…um…girth.
mark: I do understand — it’s simply that there are so many beers, and the US (even micro breweries) barely scrape the surface of the possible. There are very few ’sweet’ beers in the US (don’t know of any, in fact) but there are whole catalogs of beers that aren’t bitter in Belgium (and elsewhere).
Each to their own. (It would be awfully boring if we all had the same tastes)
My personal predilection, for fries and for burgers, is also simplicity (although I do like spices: mexican, indian, asian — yum!).
I detest mayo in any form (my wife makes “the best potato salad on three continents” but I cannot eat more than a little, due to the mayo). However, I think it important to convey that in Belgium mayo is difficult to avoid!
I’ll also allow Americans their love affair ketchup - which I also detest - whether with fries or on a burger.
My wife saves me from ever having to ingest mayo, since she can eat enough of that gloop for any three regular people. My son ingests ketchup as if it were water on a hot day!
So I am free to avoid those condiments from hell, without upsetting anyone for whom they approach the nature of a sacrament.
i hope.
New Belgium Brewery is in Fort Collins Colorado and it’s a little different out there then here. There are bike paths painted right into the roads all around town and more people including the students at CSU, families, workers just everyone rides their bikes everywhere whether it’s 90 degrees or 32 degrees. Fat Tire is a really good beer and so are all the others they brew. I recommend trying Fat Tire and going to the brewery and hearing the story of how New Belgium came to be and then the whole Fat Tire bike will make a lot more sense to you. It truly is an amazing story especially in the short amount of time New Belgium has been around. For those that understand New Belgium and the Fat Tire bike we know it’s not a gimmick to get people to drink beer we know the significance behind the bike and its meaning to New Belgium.
Hi, I actually just won this bike in a Fat Tire contest. Not everything is about functionality and form. I am so excited that I actually won something and its a really cool bike. Reading your article just seem to suck the fun out of everything, Im only sorry that while searching for the bike on-line I stumbled across your pointless and dry article…I think you need a beer!