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By Erich Vieth on November 06th, 2009
Advertising, the good old-fashioned way
Check out this collection of vintage magazine advertising, for a chuckle.
Tag: "advertising"
By Erich Vieth on July 20th, 2009
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.
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.
By Erich Vieth on June 23rd, 2009
Note to file: sex still sells
Calvin Klein pushes the envelope again and the network news once again feigns concern. Some of us with daughters continue to worry about long-term serious damage rather than momentary titillation.
By Erich Vieth on May 01st, 2009
What’s the count?
What’s the count?
No, not the balls and strikes! I’m talking about the number of advertisements you’ll find in a baseball stadium (click on the image for a much bigger and clearer image).
I was recently invited to go to a Cardinal baseball game for a work function. I was amazed at the number of ads. There had to be more than 100 large ads visible from the seats. And I’m only including static ads, not the videos they pump out on the big screens.
By Erich Vieth on November 21st, 2008
Sao Paulo bans most outdoor advertising
According to Time Magazine, the Mayor of Sao Paulo banned most outdoor advertising two years ago, “in a bold effort to rid the city of what he called ‘visual pollution.’” You can check out some images of the new Sao Paulo at the Time link.
I have a special interest in pulling the plug on much [...]
By Erich Vieth on May 06th, 2008
How to keep customers coming back for things they don’t need.
How do you keep customers coming back? Keep them constantly dissatisfied.
That is the topic of this article in Orion Magazine. The author is Jeffrey Kaplan. Here’s are a few excerpts from this well written article. [Note: you might be blocked from going straight into the article. If so, go to the Orion link and [...]
By Erich Vieth on December 21st, 2007
“Push capitalism” turns us into full-time consumers and non-citizens
Bill Moyers recently interviewed Benjamin Barber, a renowned political theorist and a distinguished senior fellow at Demos — a public policy think tank here in New York City. Barber’s most recent book is Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (2007). What’s the focus of this book?
[T]he global economy produces too many [...]
By Erich Vieth on July 31st, 2007
Make FOX feel pain for global warming lies
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPNWRti8CfY[/youtube]
