Monday, February 9, 2009
More on Branding
After today's discussion, I feel compelled to add more to my comments on branding. To me, marketing and advertising are necessary for any company's survival. As Clint said, if people will not buy the "sugar free" Trix, why should we expect General Mills to produce it? It's not the company's fault, it's ours! If we don't buy healthy food, no company is going to produce it. I don't think it is written in any company's goal's "list" to make people unhealthy and obese. It makes no sense. They do what they have to do to make their company survive. Can you blame them? Sure they use "pathos" to make people buy their goods. Have we ever thought that maybe they put "good source of calcium" on the Trix box to make people feel better about buying foods they wouldn't buy if the foods were actually healthy? This is a societal problem, not a marketing problem. If you have a problem with a company's marketing methods, you have a problem with the society that forces them to make money to live. Marketing isn't something that's going away anytime soon. It's the mindset and tastebuds of society you need to change, if that's even possible.
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ReplyDeleteOh, of course -- that's why it's a 21st C. Challenge. The challenge is for consumers to be conscious of their choices AND their responsibilities to themselves, their families, and increasingly to their fellow citizens. My contention is that the VAST majority of consumers don't make choices based on reason and they don't evaluate the credibility of the many messengers they encounter. Whether or not that can be changed, here's what I'll say: if it ISN'T changed, we can look forward to a steady diet of not just low quality food but stagnant economic conditions, an educational system that doesn't teach people to be actively engaged in their society, and a political system that lurches along from crisis to crisis. I guess you can already see my bias, but my sense is that this form of messaging has a profound impact on public discourse, not just in marketing cereal.
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