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> Molekule air filters as superior technology based on nothing more than having seen their Instagram ads. Is this any different than people buying any luxury p

by gist 7y ago

> Molekule air filters as superior technology based on nothing more than having seen their Instagram ads. Is this any different than people buying any luxury product based on marketing? Look at any designer clothing item. It's all based on (close to 100%) what people feel as a result of marketing and branding. The actual product sure is sometimes higher quality and better but not to the extent that it costs. Take a women's pocketbook for $5000 (Gucci). It's a pocketbook. Woman buys it because of marketing and image. Same here I say (Tesla is another example and note that Bill Gates still buys Porsche because that was the car in the era he was raised in).

erentz 7y ago
Their marketing claims are complete lies about the effectiveness of their product for the purpose of filtering air. People shopping for air purifiers/filters are often enough doing so because they have health problems such as allergies. Not because they want a buzzing cylinder to sit in the middle of their room as some piece of art.
oefrha 7y ago
Not the same thing. People buying luxury clothing or accessories are basically buying into the fashion and/or status symbol. Whereas people buying high end air filters are probably expecting functionally better air filters.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> Take a women's pocketbook for $5000 (Gucci). It's a pocketbook. Woman buys it because of marketing and image. OK, but if the $5,000 pocketbook secretly incinerated anything you put in it, you'd probably get some frustrated customers. A Gucci pocketbook may be overpriced, but you're at least getting something that works.
- 0_____0 7y ago
  > pocketbook [that] secretly incinerate[s] anything you put in it is it weird that i kind of want to build this?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    No. It would be a great art project!
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    If someone didn't want to build it, I would wonder what website I had accidentally wandered onto that looked vaguely like HN.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    Sounds like a great Bond gadget.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
The actual product sure is sometimes higher quality and better but not to the extent that it costs. In many cases, people pay the extra because, yes, it's only fifty percent better and costs ten times as much, but there are no products that are fifty percent better and only cost fifty percent more. If you want fifty percent better, you will have to pay ten times as much. If you can afford it and you don't want the lesser quality product, this is realistically your only option. Price often doesn't scale linearly. Neither do, say, academic grades. The difference between an A and a B is often more work than the difference between a B and a C.
- calvinmorrison 7y ago
  Sounds like a good business opportunity. In general many brands are involved multiple price point markets. Eg: a liqour company sells a high quality expensive bottle and also remarkets under a different name to say Costco for example. Sometimes it's a very similar product, sometimes they don't want to associate thier name with a worse product though they are owned by the same company
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    And sometimes it may very well be the same product. Expensive alcohol, clothes, handbags, etc. are very often bought as status symbols - i.e. as evidence you can afford to burn all that money on what's at best an incremental improvement over the mid tier. Still, that's something entirely different than straight up lying about the objective qualities of your product. Especially medically-relevant ones. In all seriousness, for that coronavirus mention, I'd like to see someone jailed.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I don't really approve of that. I know it goes on, but I'm not giving my seal of approval to that. It's just a pet peeve of mine that dressing well is often mocked as frivolous. It often has a gendered component to it, like women are silly creatures. I knew a professional couple that both worked at the same place in different departments. She talked about going shopping and both of them spending hundreds of dollars on office clothes over the weekend. The following Monday, she got teased at work for wearing a new outfit. No one said one word to her husband about his new office attire, though he had spent at least as much as her. My annoyance about how socially acceptable it is to act like nice clothes are merely stupid status symbols is in no way intended to justify deceptive marketing, especially for medical stuff.
danShumway 7y ago
The difference is that Gucci doesn't claim that their pocketbooks will protect you from Coronavirus. People paying for a Gucci know what they're getting: a pocketbook that conveys a particular fashion, status, and personal brand. People buying Molekule air filters don't know what they're getting. If Mlekule air filters could be picked up at $5 at your local 7-11, this would still be predatory false advertising. The price doesn't matter.
p1necone 7y ago
Designer clothing and pocketbooks still succeed at being clothing and pocketbooks respectively. It sounds like this air filter doesn't actually achieve the goal of being an air filter. (Also the entire point of designer clothing is to look pretty, and everyone accepts that so it seems like a poor example).

by gist 7y ago

erentz 7y ago

Their marketing claims are complete lies about the effectiveness of their product for the purpose of filtering air. People shopping for air purifiers/filters are often enough doing so because they have health problems such as allergies. Not because they want a buzzing cylinder to sit in the middle of their room as some piece of art.

oefrha 7y ago

Not the same thing. People buying luxury clothing or accessories are basically buying into the fashion and/or status symbol. Whereas people buying high end air filters are probably expecting functionally better air filters.

ceejayoz 7y ago

> Take a women's pocketbook for $5000 (Gucci). It's a pocketbook. Woman buys it because of marketing and image. OK, but if the $5,000 pocketbook secretly incinerated anything you put in it, you'd probably get some frustrated customers. A Gucci pocketbook may be overpriced, but you're at least getting something that works.

0_____0 7y ago
> pocketbook [that] secretly incinerate[s] anything you put in it is it weird that i kind of want to build this?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  No. It would be a great art project!
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  If someone didn't want to build it, I would wonder what website I had accidentally wandered onto that looked vaguely like HN.
- p1necone 7y ago
  Sounds like a great Bond gadget.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

The actual product sure is sometimes higher quality and better but not to the extent that it costs. In many cases, people pay the extra because, yes, it's only fifty percent better and costs ten times as much, but there are no products that are fifty percent better and only cost fifty percent more. If you want fifty percent better, you will have to pay ten times as much. If you can afford it and you don't want the lesser quality product, this is realistically your only option. Price often doesn't scale linearly. Neither do, say, academic grades. The difference between an A and a B is often more work than the difference between a B and a C.

calvinmorrison 7y ago
Sounds like a good business opportunity. In general many brands are involved multiple price point markets. Eg: a liqour company sells a high quality expensive bottle and also remarkets under a different name to say Costco for example. Sometimes it's a very similar product, sometimes they don't want to associate thier name with a worse product though they are owned by the same company
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  And sometimes it may very well be the same product. Expensive alcohol, clothes, handbags, etc. are very often bought as status symbols - i.e. as evidence you can afford to burn all that money on what's at best an incremental improvement over the mid tier. Still, that's something entirely different than straight up lying about the objective qualities of your product. Especially medically-relevant ones. In all seriousness, for that coronavirus mention, I'd like to see someone jailed.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I don't really approve of that. I know it goes on, but I'm not giving my seal of approval to that. It's just a pet peeve of mine that dressing well is often mocked as frivolous. It often has a gendered component to it, like women are silly creatures. I knew a professional couple that both worked at the same place in different departments. She talked about going shopping and both of them spending hundreds of dollars on office clothes over the weekend. The following Monday, she got teased at work for wearing a new outfit. No one said one word to her husband about his new office attire, though he had spent at least as much as her. My annoyance about how socially acceptable it is to act like nice clothes are merely stupid status symbols is in no way intended to justify deceptive marketing, especially for medical stuff.

danShumway 7y ago

The difference is that Gucci doesn't claim that their pocketbooks will protect you from Coronavirus. People paying for a Gucci know what they're getting: a pocketbook that conveys a particular fashion, status, and personal brand. People buying Molekule air filters don't know what they're getting. If Mlekule air filters could be picked up at $5 at your local 7-11, this would still be predatory false advertising. The price doesn't matter.

p1necone 7y ago

Designer clothing and pocketbooks still succeed at being clothing and pocketbooks respectively. It sounds like this air filter doesn't actually achieve the goal of being an air filter. (Also the entire point of designer clothing is to look pretty, and everyone accepts that so it seems like a poor example).