As the years pass and you begin to see more candles than cake, is it not part of the human condition to become more philosophical about life, the universe and everything?
The trouble is that these days its damn hard to find the time to do this kinda stuff when us marketers are making it increasingly difficult to know yourself physically, let alone philosophically.
Like millions of other humanoids, I trudge along, with forlorn face and tail between legs, to the local ballbusting supermarket to do the weekly shop. I decided, in advance of my latest shop, to turn the trudge into something positive; to engage in and soak up the Woolies experience, and see what I could learn about myself. And so there I stood in the shampoo aisle - auto pilot switched off, flying on manual. By the time I got to the end of the aisle all that I knew about myself was that I knew less.
Apparently, there are 20 types of hair. Which category did mine fall into? What is dull? How lifeless is lifeless, how unmanageable unmanageable? Is greasy oiler than oily or is oily oiler than greasy? Did it need revitalising, enriching or conditioning? Did it need body?
I gave up; inertia had set in. I finally grabbed a Head and Shoulders that I’d used - I suppose quite successfully - before. But I swear next time I’ll go for that one with the PH balance and guacamole protein.
I moved on to toothpaste. Did I have sensitive teeth? How would I know? Were my teeth cruel, brutal even? How discoloured should my teeth be before special care should be taken to whiten them? How tender do my gums have to be before I need to take some special gunk to fix them? Did I need a pump action? Did I need to defeat Tartar?
The deodorants needed to know if I had mild or heavy perspiration. Well, I thought, it depends on the circumstances. Mmmm…I should go for the heavy to be on the safe side…but what if I have frivolous perspiration; will my pores snap shut and my impermeable body slowly swell with incarcerated sweat? Bath gel: if I go for the delicate version, what if the dirt refuses to budge?
Let us all rise and hail our new leader, Fragmentation, a term which loosely covers the seemingly inexorable disintegration and demise of mass market economics, social organisation, political stability and the nuclear family, the unified self, the nature and grounds of knowledge, and inevitably, the all-pervasive, disconnected arrays of vivid images generated by the increasingly hydra-headed media. As Walter (aka John Goodman) said in the movie, The Big Lebowski, am I wrong dude? Maybe, but you can’t argue that the fragmentation of markets into smaller and smaller segments, each with its compliment of carefully positioned products, is everywhere apparent. Even in the new car market you can have any colour, engine size, bodywork variant, trim level, sound system, safety features and optional extras you like. 20 years ago there were a few toothpaste brands, in Woolies I counted more than 30.
Paralleling the proliferation of products, and reinforcing the trend of micro-marketing, distribution channels and advertising media have multiplied. We’ve witnessed the rise of niche retailers that stock a narrow but in-depth assortment of specific product categories. We’ve also witnessed The Long Tail, a phrase first uttered by Chris Anderson to describe the niche strategy of businesses such as Amazon that sell a large number of items in relatively small quantities. In addition, the number of locational options has exploded with out-of-town outlet centres and retail parks, not to mention dedicated shopping channels and, of course, online shopping.
Advertising options have also burgeoned as a result of the proliferation of everything from local free-sheets and ‘lifestyle’ magazines targeted at specialist audiences to the web. Pay TV has contributed to the demise of broadcasting and the rise of narrowcasting, where highly focussed messages can be delivered to specific groups of people. There is more advertising space than ever before (think about your local hospital, airport or health club). Jameson’s predication, as set out in his 1985 work The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, of a ‘perceptual present’, a world of fleeting, fragmented images of hallucinogenic intensity, seems remarkably prescient. With proliferation come challenges for us marketers as it becomes ever more difficult to cut-through and get our brand messages across. There are some tricks you can employ, but I’ll leave that topic for another post.
The trouble is that these days its damn hard to find the time to do this kinda stuff when us marketers are making it increasingly difficult to know yourself physically, let alone philosophically.
Like millions of other humanoids, I trudge along, with forlorn face and tail between legs, to the local ballbusting supermarket to do the weekly shop. I decided, in advance of my latest shop, to turn the trudge into something positive; to engage in and soak up the Woolies experience, and see what I could learn about myself. And so there I stood in the shampoo aisle - auto pilot switched off, flying on manual. By the time I got to the end of the aisle all that I knew about myself was that I knew less.
Apparently, there are 20 types of hair. Which category did mine fall into? What is dull? How lifeless is lifeless, how unmanageable unmanageable? Is greasy oiler than oily or is oily oiler than greasy? Did it need revitalising, enriching or conditioning? Did it need body?
I gave up; inertia had set in. I finally grabbed a Head and Shoulders that I’d used - I suppose quite successfully - before. But I swear next time I’ll go for that one with the PH balance and guacamole protein.
I moved on to toothpaste. Did I have sensitive teeth? How would I know? Were my teeth cruel, brutal even? How discoloured should my teeth be before special care should be taken to whiten them? How tender do my gums have to be before I need to take some special gunk to fix them? Did I need a pump action? Did I need to defeat Tartar?
The deodorants needed to know if I had mild or heavy perspiration. Well, I thought, it depends on the circumstances. Mmmm…I should go for the heavy to be on the safe side…but what if I have frivolous perspiration; will my pores snap shut and my impermeable body slowly swell with incarcerated sweat? Bath gel: if I go for the delicate version, what if the dirt refuses to budge?
Let us all rise and hail our new leader, Fragmentation, a term which loosely covers the seemingly inexorable disintegration and demise of mass market economics, social organisation, political stability and the nuclear family, the unified self, the nature and grounds of knowledge, and inevitably, the all-pervasive, disconnected arrays of vivid images generated by the increasingly hydra-headed media. As Walter (aka John Goodman) said in the movie, The Big Lebowski, am I wrong dude? Maybe, but you can’t argue that the fragmentation of markets into smaller and smaller segments, each with its compliment of carefully positioned products, is everywhere apparent. Even in the new car market you can have any colour, engine size, bodywork variant, trim level, sound system, safety features and optional extras you like. 20 years ago there were a few toothpaste brands, in Woolies I counted more than 30.
Paralleling the proliferation of products, and reinforcing the trend of micro-marketing, distribution channels and advertising media have multiplied. We’ve witnessed the rise of niche retailers that stock a narrow but in-depth assortment of specific product categories. We’ve also witnessed The Long Tail, a phrase first uttered by Chris Anderson to describe the niche strategy of businesses such as Amazon that sell a large number of items in relatively small quantities. In addition, the number of locational options has exploded with out-of-town outlet centres and retail parks, not to mention dedicated shopping channels and, of course, online shopping.
Advertising options have also burgeoned as a result of the proliferation of everything from local free-sheets and ‘lifestyle’ magazines targeted at specialist audiences to the web. Pay TV has contributed to the demise of broadcasting and the rise of narrowcasting, where highly focussed messages can be delivered to specific groups of people. There is more advertising space than ever before (think about your local hospital, airport or health club). Jameson’s predication, as set out in his 1985 work The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, of a ‘perceptual present’, a world of fleeting, fragmented images of hallucinogenic intensity, seems remarkably prescient. With proliferation come challenges for us marketers as it becomes ever more difficult to cut-through and get our brand messages across. There are some tricks you can employ, but I’ll leave that topic for another post.
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