The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

I’m re-reading Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ for the third (fourth?) time, and it’s obvious to me that brands will never again trigger off the blind trust they used to, however hard we try as marketers.

All that we can do as marketers is to accept that we are all cynical post-Nader shoppers, and then work around that reality, like Paco Underhill does, on page 166 of ‘Why We Buy’ —

Another reason touch and trial have become so important is the waning power of product brand name. When consumers believed in the companies behind the big brands, their belief went a long way towards selling things. Now, we are all individualists.

For that matter, we are all post-Nader shoppers — we’ll believe it when we see/ smell/ touch/ hear/ taste/ try it. Depending on what we’re buying and what it costs, there’s a healthy skepticism (or is it a nagging doubt) in our heads that must be put to rest before we can buy at ease. We need to feel a certain level of confidence in a product and its value, which comes only through hard evidence, not from TV commercials or word-of-mouth.

For those who came in late: I have gone off consumption, not because of the absence of money or an overdose of ideology, but because I’m tired of buying things; and if my year-long experiment results in a multi-million dollar book deal, what a bonus that would be!

But, as I said, that’s only part of the story.

For a while now, I have been trying to deal with a dichotomy in my life (tweet).

As an individual, I don’t read the newspaper, watch TV, or listen to the radio, I haven’t “shopped” for six months, and I try not to travel beyond a 10 km radius (tweet).

As a marketer, however, I love the art and science of marketing, I adore brands, and I’m hardwired into the idea of capitalist free markets driven by consumerism.

So, when I observe people wanting to spend less, swap instead of spend, go local, go organic, stop buying things, or generally say no to brands, I’m torn into two halves.

One part of me (me-as-a-person) knows exactly what they are talking about, because I feel equally overwhelmed by the brands + media + retail triumvirate.