4 ms·

I really appreciate this article. Searls has put to words a concept that has long bothered me on an intuitive level. Namely that all of these bullshit marketi

by Amadou 13y ago

I really appreciate this article. Searls has put to words a concept that has long bothered me on an intuitive level. Namely that all of these bullshit marketing techniques create a cognitive load that is not in proportion to any value that I as a customer receive from them. I think it is self-evident that when it comes to matters of taste there is no really "right" answer, but these middle-men are all about muddying the waters for the (short term) benefit of their clients at my personal expense. That is really in contradiction to the premise of a market-based economy - that every transaction benefits both sides. These techniques are all about shifting as much of the benefit to the seller rather than improving the outcomes for both participants.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> Namely that all of these bullshit marketing techniques create a cognitive load that is not in proportion to any value that I as a customer receive from them. The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive", even though they end up wasting money and bullshitting the customer. It's a prisoner's dilemma. That's one reason why advertising makes so much money. Advertising is one of the rare industries that generates demand for itself.
- gingerlime 13y ago
  > The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive" I was wondering the same thing, although Searls takes an example of Trader Joe's and tries to illustrate how avoiding marketing actually helps this business. I'm not from the US, so have never heard of Trader Joe's. I can't help but wonder how competitive it is compared to other businesses who do employ those huge marketing / big data operations. I am also curious how the customer experience itself differs between companies in this market.
  - justincormack 13y ago
    For a European example, this profile of Zara is interesting. Its very much lean startup applied to retail, so about what customers want not manipulating demand http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-int...
  - jbarham 13y ago
    > I'm not from the US, so have never heard of Trader Joe's. Probably most Americans haven't heard of Trader Joe's since most of its stores are in Southern California. But it's a really cool grocery chain, and I say that as someone who generally hates shopping. Still one of the things we miss most about California since we moved to Australia.
    - nkurz 13y ago
      Probably most Americans haven't heard of Trader Joe's since most of its stores are in Southern California. You must have blinked! They started there, but have expanded rapidly across the US in recent years. They now have 400+ stores in 35 states: http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/locations/all-llocations.pdf http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/locations/all-llocations.pdf
    - NateDad 13y ago
      There's a bunch in Massachusetts, at least.
    - cenhyperion 13y ago
      They're kind of everywhere now. I was introduced to them when I was living in Chicago 5 years ago.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Trader Joes has a very loyal customer base, sometimes described as fanatical. Based on their continuing expansion ( http://www.traderjoes.com/stores/index.asp http://www.traderjoes.com/stores/index.asp ) they appear to be very successful. They are owned by Aldi Nord. In my case it wasn't really that I was attracted to shopping at Trader Joes, so much as the bullshit at all the other grocery stores pushed me away. For example, a couple of them now have advertising videos (with loud audio) running right in your face as you stand in the checkout line. That sent my aggravation level through the roof. The very last time I was in one of those stores I literally abandoned my cart in the line and walked out because of it. I simply could not take it. Trader Joes isn't perfect, but they don't come across as contemptuous the way the extreme bullshitters do. I think there is at least a lesson here about the "arms race" of marketing bullshit. For decades, maybe centuries, stores have run sales. They are a level of bullshit, it adds to the cognitive load by making customers decide to buy now or wait for a possible sale in the future. But it's low-level enough that few people are annoyed by weekly sales. It is only in the recent ~20 years that we've seen a major escalation of bullshit at grocery stores. Technology has enabled things like loyalty cards, targeted marketing, individualized flyers in the mail, purchase-specific coupons on check-out, blaring videos through-out the store, etc. This marketing bullshit may well be feeding itself. But the greater the bullshit, the more obvious to the customers just how much better opting out would be. At some point it becomes obvious to the majority of customers that "the only winning move is not to play." At least I hope so because that end game means the real bullshitters get punished for it, rather than rewarded as hcarvalhoalves postulated.
- WildUtah 13y ago
  "The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive", even though they end up wasting money and bullshitting the customer. It's a prisoner's dilemma." I like this way of putting it. It really is a classic prisoner's dilemma. That doesn't help anyone to make money without wasteful and irrational practices but at least it explains exactly what is going on. It's not a new issue, unfortunately. Plato wrote about it [0]. [0] http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html (or at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672 )
- kabouseng 13y ago
  Advertising and Human resource departments...
nkurz 13y ago
these middle-men are all about muddying the waters for the (short term) benefit of their clients at my personal expense. I'm not sure. It often seems they muddy the water for their own benefit, at the expense of their client, with any damage to you the shopper being merely incidental. I thought this was one of the things Searls' was getting at in the article: In fact, advertising and marketing have always been good at bullshitting themselves. Consider, for example, the old saying (often attributed to John Wanamaker, who is not known to have actually said it) "I know half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half." The correct answer is that most of it is wasted, and the industry has known that for the duration. They just don't want to talk about it.
Zuider 13y ago
>...but these middle-men are all about muddying the waters for the (short term) benefit of their clients at my personal expense. I think that they are misleading their clients just as much as prospective buyers. The resultant cloud of garish, rainbow hued fog intruding between buyer and seller reduces the efficiency of the market, and brings only short term illusory benefit to the advertising industry (at least until their credibility dissipates). It boils down to "Bullshit, damned bullshit, and marketing".

by Amadou 13y ago

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> Namely that all of these bullshit marketing techniques create a cognitive load that is not in proportion to any value that I as a customer receive from them. The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive", even though they end up wasting money and bullshitting the customer. It's a prisoner's dilemma. That's one reason why advertising makes so much money. Advertising is one of the rare industries that generates demand for itself.

gingerlime 13y ago
> The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive" I was wondering the same thing, although Searls takes an example of Trader Joe's and tries to illustrate how avoiding marketing actually helps this business. I'm not from the US, so have never heard of Trader Joe's. I can't help but wonder how competitive it is compared to other businesses who do employ those huge marketing / big data operations. I am also curious how the customer experience itself differs between companies in this market.
- justincormack 13y ago
  For a European example, this profile of Zara is interesting. Its very much lean startup applied to retail, so about what customers want not manipulating demand http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-int...
- jbarham 13y ago
  > I'm not from the US, so have never heard of Trader Joe's. Probably most Americans haven't heard of Trader Joe's since most of its stores are in Southern California. But it's a really cool grocery chain, and I say that as someone who generally hates shopping. Still one of the things we miss most about California since we moved to Australia.
  - nkurz 13y ago
    Probably most Americans haven't heard of Trader Joe's since most of its stores are in Southern California. You must have blinked! They started there, but have expanded rapidly across the US in recent years. They now have 400+ stores in 35 states: http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/locations/all-llocations.pdf http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/locations/all-llocations.pdf
  - NateDad 13y ago
    There's a bunch in Massachusetts, at least.
  - cenhyperion 13y ago
    They're kind of everywhere now. I was introduced to them when I was living in Chicago 5 years ago.
- Amadou 13y ago
  Trader Joes has a very loyal customer base, sometimes described as fanatical. Based on their continuing expansion ( http://www.traderjoes.com/stores/index.asp http://www.traderjoes.com/stores/index.asp ) they appear to be very successful. They are owned by Aldi Nord. In my case it wasn't really that I was attracted to shopping at Trader Joes, so much as the bullshit at all the other grocery stores pushed me away. For example, a couple of them now have advertising videos (with loud audio) running right in your face as you stand in the checkout line. That sent my aggravation level through the roof. The very last time I was in one of those stores I literally abandoned my cart in the line and walked out because of it. I simply could not take it. Trader Joes isn't perfect, but they don't come across as contemptuous the way the extreme bullshitters do. I think there is at least a lesson here about the "arms race" of marketing bullshit. For decades, maybe centuries, stores have run sales. They are a level of bullshit, it adds to the cognitive load by making customers decide to buy now or wait for a possible sale in the future. But it's low-level enough that few people are annoyed by weekly sales. It is only in the recent ~20 years that we've seen a major escalation of bullshit at grocery stores. Technology has enabled things like loyalty cards, targeted marketing, individualized flyers in the mail, purchase-specific coupons on check-out, blaring videos through-out the store, etc. This marketing bullshit may well be feeding itself. But the greater the bullshit, the more obvious to the customers just how much better opting out would be. At some point it becomes obvious to the majority of customers that "the only winning move is not to play." At least I hope so because that end game means the real bullshitters get punished for it, rather than rewarded as hcarvalhoalves postulated.
WildUtah 13y ago
"The problem is that companies don't exist in a vacuum, and soon as one adopts these marketing techniques, everybody has to adopt to "stay competitive", even though they end up wasting money and bullshitting the customer. It's a prisoner's dilemma." I like this way of putting it. It really is a classic prisoner's dilemma. That doesn't help anyone to make money without wasteful and irrational practices but at least it explains exactly what is going on. It's not a new issue, unfortunately. Plato wrote about it [0]. [0] http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html (or at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1672 )
kabouseng 13y ago
Advertising and Human resource departments...

nkurz 13y ago

these middle-men are all about muddying the waters for the (short term) benefit of their clients at my personal expense. I'm not sure. It often seems they muddy the water for their own benefit, at the expense of their client, with any damage to you the shopper being merely incidental. I thought this was one of the things Searls' was getting at in the article: In fact, advertising and marketing have always been good at bullshitting themselves. Consider, for example, the old saying (often attributed to John Wanamaker, who is not known to have actually said it) "I know half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half." The correct answer is that most of it is wasted, and the industry has known that for the duration. They just don't want to talk about it.

Zuider 13y ago

>...but these middle-men are all about muddying the waters for the (short term) benefit of their clients at my personal expense. I think that they are misleading their clients just as much as prospective buyers. The resultant cloud of garish, rainbow hued fog intruding between buyer and seller reduces the efficiency of the market, and brings only short term illusory benefit to the advertising industry (at least until their credibility dissipates). It boils down to "Bullshit, damned bullshit, and marketing".