Blocking Out the
Stars
NASA is taking bids from companies who want to mine the moon, and legal scholars are debating how to keep billboards from outer space.
Twenty year-old girls are getting botox as a preventative measure against wrinkles, and the ratio of fat to starving people in the world now stands at 5:3.
Not surprisingly, 61% of consumers feel they are exposed to too much marketing.
And once your brand's logo blocks out the stars, how do you think people will feel about your products?
As consumers become more aware of the messages targeted at them, they are increasingly searching for ways to regain control of their lives and their minds by downsizing and through a do-it-yourself culture. The question is, how will your brand communicate to these new consumers? How can you market without marketing? How can you help people simplify their lives, while maintaing loyalty to your brand?
Facts on the Downsizing Phenomenon
The facts are clear:
StarsNASA is taking bids from companies who want to mine the moon, and legal scholars are debating how to keep billboards from outer space.
Twenty year-old girls are getting botox as a preventative measure against wrinkles, and the ratio of fat to starving people in the world now stands at 5:3.
Not surprisingly, 61% of consumers feel they are exposed to too much marketing.
And once your brand's logo blocks out the stars, how do you think people will feel about your products?
As consumers become more aware of the messages targeted at them, they are increasingly searching for ways to regain control of their lives and their minds by downsizing and through a do-it-yourself culture. The question is, how will your brand communicate to these new consumers? How can you market without marketing? How can you help people simplify their lives, while maintaing loyalty to your brand?
Facts on the Downsizing Phenomenon
The facts are clear:
- Gregory Johnson, co-founder of the Small House Society, reports enormous growth from his tiny, well-designed one-room houses. Over two hundred architects and urban planners have expressed interest in partnering with him to create houses that cost $37,000.
- Young adults are increasingly preferring to sew their own clothes, rather than purchase them. The Home Sewing Association estimates that there are about 35 million sewing hobbyists in the U.S., up from roughly 30 million in 2000, and annual sales of Singer machines have doubled, to 3 million, since 1999.
- Downsizing has become a zoning problem. Four towns across the US--Shaker Heights, Ohio, Nitro, W. Virginia, Shrewsbury, MA, and Sauk Rapids, Michigan--are taking actions to curb the proliferating number of yard sales that they say are causing traffic problems and ruining the ambience of their communities.
Thoreau vs. Paris Hilton
Blocking out the stars with billboards and mining the moon are no longer novelties worth the costs to our souls. As the consumer seeks meaning and not commodities, Henry David Thoreau seems to understand the world better than Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
Generation Y, or the Millenials, were raised in the most affluent households ever, but their rates of depression are also higher than previous generations. As they look around at a commoditized culture and the frantic pace that goes along with it, they seek to, in the words of Thoreau, "Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion."
The question for brands, then, is, in this age of new simplicity, how will you target consumers who refuse to consume?
