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Satan's guide to Marketing 101
Sep. 15th, 2004 12:11 am(portions originally posted by me on a closed mailing list)
I'm settling into the Indian way of life again, and as I do that, I
occasionally perceive everyday happenings very differently from those around
me. Sometimes, it's a cultural maladjustment, and some other times it's a
phenomenon that only an outsider can recognize.
I don't know if the following incident fits this classification, but it's
certainly been on my mind for the past couple of days.
( Read More... )
Sometime last week I happened to watch a Kellog's commercial on the telly.
The 30 second commercial opens with a perfect faced young mother rifling
through her purse mumbling something about not finding a phone number. The
scene shifts to a bright and precocious boy of about 8 energitically
performing cartwheels on the floor. The cartwheeling doesn't stop for a
moment, but the boy gets a look of sheer delight on his face. Stretching the
logical limits of mathematics, physics and probability, the kid stands
upright and recites a series of mathematical operations like so... 32 into
(sic)[1] 2 is 64 divided by 8 is 8...you get the idea. Voila! The mother
pulls out a scrap of paper with the phone number on it, which is, you
guessed it, 3226488...
The beaming mother knows the secret of raising a boy genius, why it's his
daily dose of Kellog's gasp cornflakes at breakfast, of course, fortified
with Iron and Vitamins...!!
Besides the pig headed script and the boy doing cartwheels (I don't think I
ever did cartwheels in my life, even as a kid, I certainly believed in
gravity), what else is wrong with the picture? Why, of course, Kellog's corn
flakes just doesn't make you any brighter than you already were. If you were
as dumb as a brainless amoeba to begin with, even with the power of Kellog's
you aren't going to grow intelligence. Why then do the highly paid marketing
mavens, almost surely from the Indian Institute of MoneyBags (IIM(B)) write such nonsense? Because, it isn't nonsense, welcome to Satan's Marketing 101. The correct name for such a spot is "Aspirational marketing"!
The sucker who's supposed to get taken in isn't living anywhere near me, no,
not in my college educated neighborhood. There's probably a poor decent hard
working family struggling to make ends meet in a neighborhood not too far
away with 1/10th the mean income. Barely educated parents trying to get
their kids the best in life and with bright eyed belief in a better future.
What suckers, they surely need to get taken in...
This hypothetical wife and husband have no sense of what corn flakes are
[2], it could be manna from heaven (America) if they believe the marketing.
Their daily Indian breakfast of rice gruel or rice cakes (idlis) and
vegetables is probably just as nutritious, and certainly orders of magnitude
more affordable. When they substitute the Kellog's "American dream"
breakfast, they say yes to a second helping of misery. If the kid is
anything like me, he probably wouldn't like corn flakes any more than I did
when I had it the first time. But of course, the nutrition, but of course...
Note that the Indian kid in the commercial has no problems with eating
cereal, nope, none at all. Nothing like the tantrum throwing American brats
on the telly today who need strawberries and fruit loops to go with their
cereal. Cereal is so tasty, yum, yum! Naturally, the kid has to be a boy,
never a girl, only the best for the boys in India. [3]
Thank you for reading a spanking profit filled edition of "Satan's guide
to Marketing 101"
Cheeni
[1] 'into' means multiplied by in Indian English
[2] The Indian consumer class either knows what cornflakes are, or doesn't
(usually the case), it's as much a process of education as sales when you
market the product.
[3] I find this commercial has an uncanny similarity with American Kellogg's commercials of the early 20th century.
P.S. If I sound derisive of America, I don't mean to, I only despise the
marketroids' America (Heaven Annexe).
I'm settling into the Indian way of life again, and as I do that, I
occasionally perceive everyday happenings very differently from those around
me. Sometimes, it's a cultural maladjustment, and some other times it's a
phenomenon that only an outsider can recognize.
I don't know if the following incident fits this classification, but it's
certainly been on my mind for the past couple of days.
( Read More... )
Sometime last week I happened to watch a Kellog's commercial on the telly.
The 30 second commercial opens with a perfect faced young mother rifling
through her purse mumbling something about not finding a phone number. The
scene shifts to a bright and precocious boy of about 8 energitically
performing cartwheels on the floor. The cartwheeling doesn't stop for a
moment, but the boy gets a look of sheer delight on his face. Stretching the
logical limits of mathematics, physics and probability, the kid stands
upright and recites a series of mathematical operations like so... 32 into
(sic)[1] 2 is 64 divided by 8 is 8...you get the idea. Voila! The mother
pulls out a scrap of paper with the phone number on it, which is, you
guessed it, 3226488...
The beaming mother knows the secret of raising a boy genius, why it's his
daily dose of Kellog's gasp cornflakes at breakfast, of course, fortified
with Iron and Vitamins...!!
Besides the pig headed script and the boy doing cartwheels (I don't think I
ever did cartwheels in my life, even as a kid, I certainly believed in
gravity), what else is wrong with the picture? Why, of course, Kellog's corn
flakes just doesn't make you any brighter than you already were. If you were
as dumb as a brainless amoeba to begin with, even with the power of Kellog's
you aren't going to grow intelligence. Why then do the highly paid marketing
mavens, almost surely from the Indian Institute of MoneyBags (IIM(B)) write such nonsense? Because, it isn't nonsense, welcome to Satan's Marketing 101. The correct name for such a spot is "Aspirational marketing"!
The sucker who's supposed to get taken in isn't living anywhere near me, no,
not in my college educated neighborhood. There's probably a poor decent hard
working family struggling to make ends meet in a neighborhood not too far
away with 1/10th the mean income. Barely educated parents trying to get
their kids the best in life and with bright eyed belief in a better future.
What suckers, they surely need to get taken in...
This hypothetical wife and husband have no sense of what corn flakes are
[2], it could be manna from heaven (America) if they believe the marketing.
Their daily Indian breakfast of rice gruel or rice cakes (idlis) and
vegetables is probably just as nutritious, and certainly orders of magnitude
more affordable. When they substitute the Kellog's "American dream"
breakfast, they say yes to a second helping of misery. If the kid is
anything like me, he probably wouldn't like corn flakes any more than I did
when I had it the first time. But of course, the nutrition, but of course...
Note that the Indian kid in the commercial has no problems with eating
cereal, nope, none at all. Nothing like the tantrum throwing American brats
on the telly today who need strawberries and fruit loops to go with their
cereal. Cereal is so tasty, yum, yum! Naturally, the kid has to be a boy,
never a girl, only the best for the boys in India. [3]
Thank you for reading a spanking profit filled edition of "Satan's guide
to Marketing 101"
Cheeni
[1] 'into' means multiplied by in Indian English
[2] The Indian consumer class either knows what cornflakes are, or doesn't
(usually the case), it's as much a process of education as sales when you
market the product.
[3] I find this commercial has an uncanny similarity with American Kellogg's commercials of the early 20th century.
P.S. If I sound derisive of America, I don't mean to, I only despise the
marketroids' America (Heaven Annexe).
