ain't it funny

Joanna Sheldon cjs10 at cornell.edu
Sat Aug 19 19:16:18 PDT 2000


...how marketers don't sell STUFF, they sell concepts.

When I was working with a storage systems architecture development team in Ithaca, NY a few years ago, the place didn't sell storage hardware/software for networks, we sold "networking solutions". And yesterday I saw an ad for an ag company that sells fertiliser, but fertiliser's only by-the-bye. What they REALLY sell is, "Certainty. In an uncertain world" (...background of blue-jeaned farmer, carefully checking a stalk of grain, standing in a field of wheat that stretche, tall and weedless, as far as the eye can see).

Maybe I shouldn't object. After all, the bill of goods being sold by capitalists is the only one that competes with the one being sold by the Churches. "Certainty." Right? In a sense, that's what we were selling in Ithaca, NY, that's what every marketer is selling. And as a good capitalist -- by virtue of the society I was born into if not in fact and by inclination -- I should assume competition serves the consumer, which is to say me, which is great, right?. <Big California grin>

Sigh.

smugly glum, Jo

BTW, Is everybody else getting the feeling that smug glumness is the only public pleasure we're allowed, these days?

www.overlookhouse.com



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