Creating false needs or how you market a product

[nadinbrzezinski]

well, the IPAD is here finally, whew... but I could have said this about WIndows Seven and a few other products that are very obvious in how they tell you that YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED THIS WIDGET.

Now with the IPAD the pattern has been actually extremely obvious. First off, it is a REVOLUTIONARY product (tm) I tell you. When in reality it is not. But all those positive reviews are exactly that, a creation of need. Now this is not about Mac, after all they are doing what any business does, create a need. But pay attention and try to learn something about how this is done.

1.- Create expectation by telling us just enough of what this new wisdget will do.
2.- Send preview copies so our reviewers can go on the air and show saith new product.
3.- Create buzz by having pre-orders
4.- When the day finally comes, hope (and it did happen) that you will get a line of eager early adopters, at your doors.
5.- Have AP or whoever is writing the story, interview a few of these lucky ones.

Oh and finally create enough hubub that even passer by cannot miss that there is sometihng going at your business.

This is not Apple but marketing 101. How many of you are going... hmm I wonder? And this is how they sell you all you consume. It does not matter whether this is the IPAD, or Windows Seven or what have you. This is a classic model of marketing. They are meant to create a need where one does not exist.

And no I am not picking on Apple, before the fanboys come over, this is pretty standard. But if we, as a society, are to move away from our consumerist society, you need to be knowledgable on how media sells you stuff.

So use the latest example as a prime model of how you are sold what you generally speaking do not need.

Oh and if you decide to buy one, (insert widget here) make sure it is because YOU need saith widget, not because there is a created need for saith widget. Oh and realize that even the most aware of us on how we are manipulated from day to day, fall prey to it as well. No I did not go buy and IPAD, in case you wonder... but I have fallen pray many other times.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Just like 95% of the 'feminine' hygiene products advertised.

I don't even understand what some of them are for!

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I am a woman and here is one use for them

that woudl turn off many folks, yes even women. They make WONDERFUL trauma packs. And yes I have used those as such.

:-)

You should have seen the face of one of my interns. Come in with a patient who had a bad gash on the side of the head, with one of these in a pressure bandage, very effective... but the kid was a prude.

That said, the feminine hygiene products are quite self explanatory, but the family planning are a little more obscure...

[Captain Hilts]

9. True! The hula hoop BC ad had me pretty confused at first, then there

were the ads for competing products that made it possible to have fewer periods - they promised the same thing, but the warnings at the end of the ads were completely different. Weird stuff.

[Berry Cool]

92. Actually, that's how feminine hygiene products first came about.

Women used and washed out plain old rags, for the most part, until the nurses of World War I figured out that the "cellocotton" then being used to bandage soldiers' wounds came in handy for the absorption of more than just one kind of blood. Voila! Menstruation would never be the same.

[rucky]

64. What do you think I used before the Swiffer was invented?

[Captain Hilts]

94. Ya got me - I laughed!

[Arctic Dave]

2. Yep, pretty textbook.

Works the same with everything.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I read some of the reviews and I went, damn this is

so damn textbook.

There is a reason why MAC marketing is studied at places like management and business schools.

[Gman2]

27. We had bus after bus of Japanese studying Fedmart, before they went extinct.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Yeah but Mac is using techniques first explained by Barnays

back in the early part of the 20th century. The techniques have been honed to an art. So even if Mac goes away, expect this to continue. Mostly it works.

By the way FedMart did not fail because of it's marketing.

[Go2Peace]

37. I worked in a fortune 100 marketing department. They **create** markets now. They don't "fill"

an existing need.

Marketing psychology has advanced to the point they can create a demand for an item that the public may not think they need at the time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Exactly and the first to espouse that idea

was Barnays.

He spoke about creating false needs to fill the needs of business.

Granted, it's evolved a tad since he wrote his marketing materials...

:-)

[Gman2]

60. But there is only room for two or three shiny objects. Sorta zero sum game.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. And that is the modern economy in a nutshel

and so far away from what Smith envisioned, which was NOT a zero sum game... either.

It is amazing because the shiny also has to change with the day of the week, and today's shiny is tomorrow's trash.

[Greyhound]

68. Complete and utter bullshit! Nobody controls me, I make my own decisions!

I love my Hummer because it is safe and I frequently have to run over little obnoxious foreign cars that get in my way on my way to and from the mall. My 400" super-hi-res plasma display is absolutely necessary in order to appreciate my 15,00 watt Extreme Home Theater Experience®.

I am my own man and nothing says that so much as my collection of "Big Boy Toys®" that I display every weekend as I wash them in my driveway with my ShamWow®!





















:sarcasm: I think...

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. For the record

we had an oops with the clothes washer and had to get rid of a lot of soapy water off my carpet.

I can testify the Sham Wow does work, ALMOST like advertised. Reality is I did not have to replace the carpet though.

:-)

And at that moment that was the only thing that occurred to me that MIGHT work... so marketing DOES work.

[Greyhound]

73. I've heard that.

But it's the (completely ineffective ;)) advertising that gets $20 for a $2 cleaning cloth.
:kick:

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. You know what I love about them though

they wash well.

:-)

And since I do have them I use them.

[Taitertots]

85. The Sham Wow ads are the biggest fraud ever

He literally doesn't clean anything up in the entire commercial. It is just 5-6 scenes cut together where each cut goes to a different cleaner carpet piece.

[Go2Peace]

96. I was astonished to look at a toy department in a major chain recently

everything is lined up by trademark. The isles were filled up with primarily about 10 types of toys for each gender, and one small isle for alternative toys that did not fit.

Imagine what Children are learning about Capitalism. What will the stores of the future look like?

[Foo Fighter]

71. Marketing psychology indeed.

But some fall prey even without the marketing. Case in point: I commute to work by bike. Every single time a certain friend stops by my place and spots my panniers, I hear "Those look like really nice bags. I really need to get some of those." My friend doesn't commute and rides a bike maybe 40 miles/year at an absolute max yet somehow feels that they absolutely HAVE TO HAVE those panniers, they NEED them, that their life is somehow incomplete without them.

It's the same story with virtually every product you can think of under the sun. I once asked my friend "Is there anything you DON'T want?" The answer was "No."

That answer astounded me. Frankly, I just don't get it.

Note: My friend is also shit-up-a-creek in debt. Typical story:doesn't make much, credit cards maxed, major HELOC with no way out and absolutely nothing to show for any of those expenditures. Well, except for being EXTREMELY stressed out worrying about how to pay for them and/or whether to go into foreclosure.

On the flip side, anybody that tries to market to me is wasting their dollars. I only buy what I need and don't replace things unless they break or wear out. Are there a lot of things I want? Yeah, I guess. Well, a few things anyway. Are there a lot of things I need? No. Absolutely not. And therein lies the difference. If I don't need it, I'm not buying. Plain and simple. I don't care what you're selling. I'm just not buying. IMHO, it's too bad more people don't see things that way. It would make their life simpler and a LOT less stressful.

[nadinbrzezinski]

74. We're the same way

the only thing I bought that we really didn't need was an extra netbook. We strictly did not need it, since I am typing from my macbook. But I travel to Mexico City every so often, and when the economy tanked I knew this thing was a trouble attractant. Macs are cool. So I got a cheap, disposable, computer for travel. And this year, it actually has gotten more use than the Mac.

Not kidding, I had to go to Cleveland to take care of parents for a month, so I took the netbook, not the macbook.

And you are right, are there are lot of things I want? Yep... but that I need, not that many.

One hobby round these parts is to do media analysis and fun of commercials as well. Some of them are damn right funny... I mean they are PUSHING one thing, but they at times have A WHOLE DIFFERENT Message.

The other is gaming, but we are to the point where we have enough games, so there are a few new cool ones, we are not into buying another game.

[Foo Fighter]

79. I'm not so sure about that.

I didn't buy a laptop until a few months ago and I'm a sys admin. Could I have used one for the last 10+ years? Yes. Did I get one? Not until just recently.(My work can't provide me one for security reasons.)

Same with a cell phone. I only got one when my mother went into a nursing home so they would be able to contact me at all times. Aside from that, I got by without.

I have no idea what commercials are like as I don't watch TV except to catch the weather so I know how to dress for my commute. Even with that short exposure to TV, I had a pretty big list of meds to "ask my doctor for" at my last physical. She got a big kick out of it. I can't imagine what it's like for those that watch TV from the time they get home until the time they go to sleep.

Not into gaming. Like I said, if I don't NEED it, I don't buy it. "Needs" consist of food and shelter. I can get by with spending next to nothing on clothes, although bike clothing can get rather spendy for cold-weather commuting.

Aside from those very basic needs, anything beyond that is a luxury and the expenditure is weighed as such. Only when the want turns into a need (e.g, I froze my friggin feet off on my commute and need to do something about that so I don't end up with frostbite) does it get re-categorized. Of course, there is the occasional splurge but those are generally for wants that fall into the category of soon-to-be needs, like when the winter hits and studded tires on my bike would be a REAL good thing so I don't slip on the ice and break my neck. Buying them in the off-season saves a LOT of money so I'm OK with buying things like that when I don't actually need them, knowing I will need them very shortly when the weather turns.

[nadinbrzezinski]

80. Well I am a writer and hiring somebody to do my typing

like I did when I wrote my thesis in the antediluvian period is not something we can afford. And I work at home. So the computer falls in the category of needed for work.

:-)

Kind of like your snow tires.

The Macbook was a floor model, so it ran oh about 500 less than a closed box thingy, and the netbook was bought on Black Friday, after the one I originally got crapped (finally). It fell in Mexico City six months before and the motherboard was cracked. As I said, netbooks are disposable electronics, though it did get recycles.

I do look to save money, even when we splurge.

Our other luxury... we like to go out for lunch from time to time.

And the games, well we spend a lot of time talking to each other while painting the minis, so it is a social thing too.

[tabatha]

62. Why did Fedmart fail? Just curious.

Used to shop there before it disappeared.

[nadinbrzezinski]

63. Very bad internal decisioins and

very fast expansion that meant they could not cover all that overhead.

In simple English, they messed up, royally. Watch out, Starbucks seems to have stepped off that brink just in time, because they were doing the same thing.

[Gman2]

67. Maybe, and it had competition that undercut price. I forget the name.

It was pre walmart, but warehouse, with no tax, or something like that. It was a victim of the race to the bottom. There is only room in logic for one lower priced competitor. Till one is dead.

As for the union, a sweetheart contract, that resulted in two tiered wages, caused the quality to suffer. As did moral.

[nadinbrzezinski]

70. Yep... and a lot of very bad

decisions.

One might have been survivable, but the series of mistakes that were made were not.

Of course mistakes are what you see from the CEO office, not the working bees.

[WeDidIt]

3. I have no need for an iPad

It's woefully inadequate for my needs beyond an eReader and is far more expensive than a Kindle.

I'm buying a Kindle, and I've waited two and a half years to finalize that decision.

[jody]

5. Your tongue in cheek OP is a useful entry for an Austrian School economist to point out

that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of the evolving market extremely difficult if not impossible.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Unfortubately I am not being tongue and cheek

this is very serious, and the modern age started in the 1910s, with a cousin of a certain major figure in the history of psychoanalysis. (Barnays and Freud respectively)

[backscatter712]

7. Someone's been reading Herbert Marcuse.

I myself have been reading One-Dimensional Man for my Contemporary Political Theory class. ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Last time I read Marcuse was thirty years ago

so not quite. This is just amazing to me, we have a TEXTBOOK example... here

[backscatter712]

17. Electronics and computers take this game to a ridiculous extreme.

Planned obsolescence? Your computer or gadget's obsolete even when it's sitting on the store shelf - they're already working on the next one.

So that shiny new iPad or PC or iMac or cell phone that's the blazing new hotness today is the horrifically slow, old-and-busted product in a few months. Of course, it's still the same gadget, with the same chips, the same signals going through its circuits, so you don't really need to buy the next new hotness. But the marketing people are very good at making you think you need it. Classic false-needs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. There you go

hell I recently fell into it. I decided to replace my IPOD for a larger model, since I use it as a secondary word processor and PDA. I could have kept my 8 gig model (that went to my sis who could not afford it, or would have bought it herself), but it was a WANT not a strict need.

And I knew that...

By the way I invested in the largest model possible, so I can continue to load my music and movies, and chiefly use it for my on the road word processor.

But it wasn't a need, and what people need to do is learn how this is done. Electronics are just the worst example of this, but it is done, as Jackson Brown puts it, to sell us all from our computers, to religion to the President and of course the latest war.

[GreenStormCloud]

30. So you are against technological advance?

Would you be happier if computers were still the size of the old UNIVACs? In case you are too young to remember, a computer took up an entire building and was far less capable than your current desktop.

Yes, as technology advances, old technology does become out-dated. So what? It only does that if people actually perfer the new stuff. Would you rather have an 8-track system for music, or an MP3 style system?

I am quite pleased with technological advances. My first computer was a 286 model, with 1 meg of memory and a 40 meg hard drive, and costs me $4,000.00. I needed for my business at the time. That was back when few people had internet access. Recently I had to replace a computer that was about 7 years old and beginning to fail. My new computer only cost $298.00, and has massive memory and HD.

You can gripe about techological advance, but it has served me well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. It is not technoloigy advancng that is the problem

for god sakes things do move forwards.

But I guess you do not see the problem in this.

I'll give you an example away from my 2086 with 512 of RAM... it ran DOS 3.1 by the way... OOOH and had a 3.5 floppy.

My mother's pots and pans, they are oh 51 year old and still going (I have to tell her I get first dibs on those)

I had to replace a less than two year old set of non stick because they failed, and not for lack of taking care of them. This is designed obsolescence. Whether that is your computer (which oddly falls a little outside the stream of products due to Moore's Law) or my cooking pots and pans.

So how exactly do you want to change society so we stop wasting resources?

Oh and by the way the UNIVAC was designed for a service life of ten years IN SPITE of Moore's Law. And MOST business are STILL running XP, and older machines.

[vixengrl]

50. The mainframe software system running my office is more than

20 years old. This means that the computers that originally accessed it probably used floppy disks just to boot up if I recall correctly. And we're still running that program. But certain on-line software just won't be compatible with, say, Win 98, if you're a retro-geek who wants to run old OS systems. I still have a MacII (well, my brother actually *has* it, but I can ask him to lend me it) that houses short stories I wrote in college. (I bought him an Atari 2600 about 10 yrs ago in an antique store. :) )

The hardware itself, and the programs, don't need to be (is this a neologism?) self-obsolescing. And the nifty new toys like the I-Pad are great, but....

They will seem quaint in 10 yrs. Remember those shiny I-Macs--don't they look quaint? All boxy and whatnot? The original I-pod is like, 30 mins from quaint, revolutionary or not. Its a digital Walkman that plays nearly infinite mixtapes--I had that technology with a boombox 25 years ago. (I still have the boombox, and some of my mixtapes. An earplug from Radio Shack made my listening experience private.)

A lot of the obsession with gadgetry strikes me as having to do with style. Many of the things an I-Pad will do can be done on a smartphone or if you do more, you use a laptop. This in-between thing? I don't get it.

(But then again, cave-girl only use cell-phone for out-going calls....still miss Win95 and AOLPress. Not like digital cable. Living in virtual 1997.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. I got rid of my sis

286 last summer, and her dot matrix printer, so I do get it.

:-)

That thing still used 5.1\3 floppies.

I must say the most revolutionary product to emerge in computers, to make them accessible to most people, was Win 3.1 (though WIN 95 is better)

People waited for that and for good reason. It made computers more accessible

And boy am I going to date myself

I used AOL over a 600 Baud Modem, paid for every minute of it, and went on USENET... ah yes the AOL Prodigy wars... them were the days...

And perhaps that is why the IPAD has not impressed me that much either.

But you got admit it, the marketing is textbook and pretty too.

[vixengrl]

72. Wow--a 286. When I worked in Staples 12 yrs ago,

I had a customer who was looking for compatible games to the 286 they bought from a friend (I forget for how much, but I remember thinking--"Some friend!") They lamented the disappearance of 5.25 floppies. I was like, okay, you are so gonna have to love "Oregon Trail." All the EA Sports games were just "forgetaboutit." And as for the 14.4 modem they were kicking over?

The MacII I had was allegedly Ethernet compatible, so I guessed there was probably a way with a contemporaneous PC--it had a sound card, after all..... Luckily, my custy decided they did not need to go all "Wargames" at the moment, so I didn't have to try and figure out just how limited their options really were. Right at the threshold of Pentium and Win95,too. We had 3.51 486 machines with 28.8 modems going for about $1200 right then. And those custy's were about as taken, I think in hindsight, as my 286 friend had been.

[nadinbrzezinski]

76. Sis got it to write her thesis

so when she got it IT WAS cutting edge. That's what so scary about it.

It ran a word processor, long gone, and finally she got a copy of Word Perfect that ran off the floppy... a the days.

One floppy ran the Word Processor, the other the storage media.

You tell this to people and they go... really?

What is funny is that I WAS afraid of touching the damn thing. These days I do the IT round these parts, on TWO Operating Systems.

I am looking at a day of virus \trojan scanning, with drive defrag tomorrow... which should take the afternoon.

At least XP is easy to do... I should also defrag my drive on the netbook, windows seven returned it to the user. (And the mac requires all of two minutes of maintainance every month)

[vixengrl]

77. Nowadays, people would be afraid of touching the damn thing

because it's a museum-piece--but it still has a decent word-processor program and can run Lotus. And that is still all some computer users practically do, besides surf.

[nadinbrzezinski]

78. My mom does even less than that

but she'd need a newer machine. We SKYPE a lot.

The best program\ hardware combo I gave to her.

Oh and word for the wise, DO NOT try to learn how to use skype in the same room... the antennas have all kinds of trouble not going weird.

[vixengrl]

81. My mom's use of computers is to ask my brother

who still lives at home, to check things out on the internet for her--like confirming bank balances and checking the 401K and so forth, which is a pity--because if she was on-line she would totally like my blog. As it is, she is the parent of two massive geekatollahs. I always try to encourage my parents onto the Net because they are really liberal and like Bill Maher and watch a lot of MSNBC and would probably even be DU-kind of people.

But they just don't feel computer-conversant like I do. Finally, I found the genaration-gap between us, since we liked the same music and all. They don't do on-line.

But I think inside of ten years, me and my brother will still have to get them Web-compliant as more resources become web-centered.

[GreenStormCloud]

89. Some things last long, some things don't.

Shoes don't last 50 years either. Lots of things wear out faster than pots and pans. Teflon is one of them. Many business are still running Win 95. If it does the job, why should they change? Other business are able to take advantage of the greater abilities of the newer systems.

Let inventors produce what they will, and people buy what they will. It is called freedom.

[backscatter712]

35. I'm not against technological advance...

but I'm with nadinbrzezinski in that we need to keep things in perspective. Apple's marketing department makes you think you need the new iPad. But you don't actually need one, in the same way you'd need food, water, shelter, health care, etc. If you want one, hey, go for it. I may get one myself when I have the cash.

Just keep in mind how consumer culture works.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. I wish I could recommend your post

:-)

[Go2Peace]

38. Had an excellent class on marketing in high school. That turned out to be invaluable

It should be mandatory for every child to learn how marketing (and propaganda) works. They are the greatest threat to democracy and the general welfare and everyone should be able to recognize and disarm it. That is one of the reasons teabagers are so susceptable. I would be willing to bet that many of them were never taught, or never paid attention if they were, to the techniques of marketers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. I got that media class in college

it was an elective and sounded like fun... it is the most valuable class I ever took in college.

We used to buy Seventeen, a very good mag for learning media, and literally take the adds apart.

Cosmo is also good for that, and these days... any computer magazine... you know how far Mac went when one of the weeklies has the IPAD on its cover this week. That is NOT a coincidence

Oh hell's bells we went to watch how to train a dragon today... (By the way the script writers have to have a pet parrot or two)... but my god the coordinated crap coming out on the release date is just damn scary.

Oh and as an aside, anybody who has a pet parrot, Toothless will remind you of your pet bird if she is like ours, always wanting head scratchies.

[GreenStormCloud]

87. I am not buying that stuff either. In fact, my cell phone doesn't have a camera.

On the other hand I love the new white LED lights. All of my flashlights are now LED, I have an emergency LED flashlight with a crank on it for power, and this past Christmas replaced all of our Christmas lights with LED lights.

I haven't gotten an HDTV yet as I am still letting the price drop. My old collection of movie tapes have been given away. DVD is just way superior. I don't grips about the money lost on the tape collection, as I am happy with DVD.

Whether or not I buy a new gadget depends upon what I expect it to add to my life. Since I don't think the Ipad would really do anything for me, I won't get one.

Marketing doesn't create a need, it illuminates a need that is already there. If we were stone age people, we would greatly appreciate a steel knive, hatchet, and axe. But we would not know we needed them until we were made aware that they existed.

[Odin2005]

47. Taking advantage of perfectly normal human drives for status.

"I need to have this new gadget or else I'm not COOL..."

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. And my niece falls in that category by the way

I have laid odds that mom and dad will get the tyke an IPAD before the year is out.

[Odin2005]

55. Jeez, I have really no need for it.

If I need a portable computer I'll go and buy a cheep laptop.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. I'll admit it, I NEED the IPOD touch

it IS my PDA...

I NEED that PDA... coping mechanism, and granted I could use pencil and paper, for some reason it works better this way. Been using PDAs for oh 20 years now.

[Captain Hilts]

12. I've actually never read him I'll have to admit. nt

[backscatter712]

13. Very good book! It's filled with tough philosophy.

I found it to be a fairly difficult read, but well worth it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Perhaps it is time I re-read it

:-)

[dhpgetsit]

11. There was a time when you could simply live on your farm.

It was a lot of hard work, but you you could be completely independant.

Then came electricity and the refigerator, and suddenly you could quit toiling in the fields, go to work in the factory, and buy groceries on the way home from work.

And so wage slavery was born.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. I wish it was that simple

alas it is not.

But if people are aware of how needs are created they can fight against them

usually the question... DO I REALLY NEED this works.

For me, to use the IPAD as an example, the exercise is quite simple.

The damn thing does have the exact same functions as my IPOD Touch, and is less capable than my netbook, but that is one way to fight the false need. And I could do that with many other goods and services I use, or even my weekly rouine. I usually go to the farmer's market on Sundays. Not tomorrow. I got enough vegies from last week, and just go for eggs would be stupid.

[GreenStormCloud]

24. You have an unrealistic romantist view in that lifestyle.

Few books as they were very expensive. Many people were illiterate.

Poor medical care.

Rapid food spoilage.

Extreme dependence upon the weather for your food.

Few people travelled beyond their own village.

You can still try to live that way if you want to. Go find a plot of land, 160 acres, and do without ALL modern conveniences. Live in a sod house with a dirt floor, with fleas and lice and rats and then tell us how great it is.

I spent my early years without electricity, so I have lived that life. No thanks for any more of it. I like my modern life and am quite happy to work a few hours a day indoors for it. You have no conception of just how much brutal hard labor working on an old-fashioned farm is.

[GreenStormCloud]

14. But you did buy a computer.

Somebody convinced you that you needed a computer at some time. Are you angry that you now have a computer?

How about cars? Once everybody used horses, or walked. Are you angry with the car-makers? Do you want to go back to horse days?

If the need for Ipad turns out to be false, the product will fizzle after the first wave of buyers.

Lots of other products have had huge buzz, but then flopped. Think of some movies that had huge buzz, then went down the toilet because tickets didn't sell.

Where is the Wankel engine today? At one time it was Mazda's big buzz.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Ok lets do this exercise in another way

do I need ANOTHER computer, since we are going through the false needs. Even if that computer is COOL... and it is cool.

No.

I have a computer. This is how you fight these falsely created needs. Now if my 'puter was dying, and it was time to replace it, then it would be the time to ask... does this gadget do what I NEED out of this device?

And that is the problem. We allow THEM to convince us of what we need, instead of going about life using what we need, and not necessarily what we want.

This brings me to the basics. You need food and shelter to live, the base of Maslow's pyramids. Everything else is kind of optional to survive at the most basic level. As to who convinced me of what computer to buy... in the case of the one I am using, a MACBOOK, it was actually Vista. I would not have ever given Mac the time of day, if it wasn't for the wonders of VISTA...

But do I absolutely need a computer? Not really... but do I need a car? What about a credit card? Moat of what we see as modern necessities, we don't need, see Maslowe. But the economy I live in, and you live in, depends on both of going out and buying these things... and that is the basis of our consumerist economy.

[GreenStormCloud]

31. Those things help you to live higher on his pyramid.

If you want to, you can try to live at the lowest level. I choose not to. I like modern life. As a child I lived without electricty, and it wasn't fun.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. That is not the discussion at hand, read the OP

and by the way I learned to service 50 and 60 year old suction machines at a third world hospital... we KEPT those things running even when finding vacuum tubes was a problem.

You can still lead a very modern life without changing computers every 36 months so you can keep up with Moore's law. Or do you need to have the best toys every 36 months?

[GreenStormCloud]

88. That would depend upon what you are doing with the computer.

I was quite happy with my 7 year old machine, but it was developing problems. I was cheaper to buy a new one than to fix the old one. This one only cost $298.00 and is a new machine with greater capability. As long as it does what I need, I won't be looking for another because of Moore's law. I am not in a status race with anyone.

[Mojambo]

16. I don't need an iPad. I want one. And I'm okay with that.

I don't really need, or want, to deal with getting one right as they become available.

But in a couple of weeks I'll be all over it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Exacty and yuo get it

You are buying it because you WANT it, partly due to the hype, but you realize you do not need it. Which is what add campaigns for insert widget here, are all about. Creating a false need.

[Mojambo]

26. Nobody needs an iPad, or a computer for that matter.

Our needs are relatively few. Which makes the way advertising works pretty interesting, and sinister.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Exactly, our needs are the base of Maslow's pyramic-

food and shelter. Everythng else is secondary.

Granted, I'd hate to live in a society without literature and art, even if I had all the food and shelter I want. But if I did not know the Mona Lisa from Shinola I will not miss it. Now food on the other hand...

by the way enjoy your new toy

:-)

[omega minimo]

20. you forgot "magical"

the Apple homepage has it as "magical and revolutionary"

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. So did Microsoft for Win 7

and truth be told, for most people, IT IS magical and I don't mean that in a nice way. So is the light switch by the way.

[Odin2005]

52. Yep. for most people technology is little different then the "magic" of 1000 year ago.

Same attitudes. Scientists in most people's minds fill the same sociological role as priests and engineers as magicians/shamans, hence the "Science is a religion" nonsense.

[nadinbrzezinski]

56. And I pray to my pettri dish

every morning, will the great FSM keep me safe.

:-)

[Odin2005]

83. Bwa, LOL!

:rofl:

[Poll_Blind]

21. Especially with technology today, it's a lot like the Taco Bell menu.

Each of the items contain some combination of the 10 or so ingredients. They pick some combination of things they think will sell and then hype the shit out of it like it's something "new". In looking at the component list there is very little in the way of revolutionary components or breakthroughs- it's all about certain combinations of features and their relevance to the social zeitgeist.

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. When I finally replaced my netbook

(Which I use to travel to Mexico City, less attractive than the much older macbook, a safety issue)...it was insane. The prices ranged from 250 all the way to 400 and they were essentially the same thing. What they were selling me, or trying, was brand. Ok two of the 15 had a faster processor.

Whoopie doo

[bridgit]

39. 6. Get Steven Colbert to do a 'truthiness' on-air bit about the widget - always a plus

[Mojeoux]

43. hey, watchit widget, wouldja, huh wouldja watchit widget? nt

[bridgit]

45. And it chops delicious salsa now how can that be bad ~

:9

[tinrobot]

42. You forgot one - promise to 'revolutionize' media

That way, all of the failing newspapers will report on it glowingly in the hope that it will save their sinking ships.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Par for the course for electronics

Win 7 did the same, and so did a few others.

Now on the truly revolutionary level, I'd give it to Win 3.1 which went from Command Line (trust me I remember the pain) to a graphical interface. Yes Mac preceded them, but for some reason Mac did not take off like wild fire (and that was at the guts of the business model)

Oddly that was not a promise made back then. It "sold" itself.

Now I did mention a certain weekly having it on the cover... that was not a coincidence.

[Odin2005]

46. Capitalism needs scarcity, so the Corporatists need to create artificial scarcity...

...to keep the system going and keep prices up. It's all about MANUFACTURING DEMAND. A consumerist society is guaranteed to be politically conservative and docile. As I have stated many times, read up on Edward Bernays, a relative of Freud and the father of modern advertising. Bernays wrote the book on making us happy, docile consumerist idiots. Our corporate masters preach an economic theory based on "the purely rational individual", yet in practice they have been exploiting the fact of human irrationality since the 1910s through advertising. The doctrine of Homo economicus, the Rational Decision Maker, simply makes exploiting the irrationality of real humans easier to do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. And I keep sahing this is NOT capitaism, but consumerism

Even Adam Smith would move along shaking head in disgust. And it is time we use the RIGHT WORDS. By the way capitalism envisions small producers manufacturing necessary goods. Consumerism needs large corporations, trusts, to create needs, and keep the flow of capital

So lets compare

Capitalism Consumerism

Small Producers Monopolies
Essential goods Non Essential goods

I could go on

[Odin2005]

53. The real Adam Smith would be called a Socialist by todays corporate propagandists.

I find it so amusing that these Libertarian nitwits that rant about Smith obviously never actually read his works.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. Yeah but that's why we need to use the correct language

as I do more and more research I foresee more than just one book emerging. Perhaps I will put down these observations into booklet form...

And yes I have used this language with Libertarians. I have even at times carried a paper copy of Smith, and when they start going over the Hand. I go... SHOW ME. I know where the only citation is, but it is entertaining to see people stammer, he and haw.

[alarimer]

49. And this is also how our politicians are sold.

Think about the implications of that for a second. We vote based on ads, nothing more. These politicians are products.

So yes, Jackson Browne said it in a song way back when.

"They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars"

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. Absolutely

and wars.

That son resides on my IPOD and when the ahem need strikes... I listen to it, kind of grounds me.

[amborin]

65. David Harvey, the famous Marxist social theorist, called it "the artifices of needs inducement"

in the The Conditions of Post-Modernity

his Limits to Capital is recommended, too

[nadinbrzezinski]

66. Thanks someting to look for

[Odin2005]

84. I'll have to look for that, thanks!

[Vinca]

82. Bottles of body wash are a mystery to me.

Why would anyone pay 2 or 3 times what a bar of soap costs for a bottle filled with mostly water and a little soap? Brilliant marketing.

[Kip Humphrey]

86. The Great Internet Pacifier... a device for which keyboard input is an appendix... NOT DU friendly!

[lunatica]

90. Yesterday I drove past a MAC store that had a line waiting to get in

All young people (I'm 61 so I'm talking about 30 somethings and under, but mostly under with lots of what looked like very young adults or even teenagers). Without the marketing you speak of no one would be in line, and MAC stores would be having a regular day.

[DailyGrind51]

91. For example, I managed, sans cell phone, until last summer, when I bought a pre-paid.

[Stevenmarc]

93. Welcome to the planet Earth

[Overseas]

95. My shining example of this is the US Tooth Whitening Craze

After flossing and better dental hygiene prevented cavities and reduced US visits to the dentist, they had to come up with something to get people in the doors-- voila!-- You've got yellow teeth! Shame Shame! The scourge of yellowing teeth was popularized in the 90's onward I think. Everyone had to rush back in to the dentist to get their teeth bleached. Then, as we got poorer with continued outsourcing and Trickle Down economics, dental hygiene product manufacturers created the home kits to apply heavy chemicals to our teeth so we could get that dazzling white glow without an expensive dental visit. Even had travel pens to erase any stains we might get from a cup of tea during the day.

==================

Then we have the side-effects of one type of medication generating a new illness that needs to be satisfied with a different medication -- at least that's how "restless leg syndrome" appeared to me.


And I can't help wondering if the medication being sold to women for incontinence isn't the result of folks on that medication for some other reason complaining that they couldn't urinate-- then hey, let's push this to gals with weak bladders!!