Posted
by Keith Campbell
July 31, 2007 at 4:35 p.m.
Bottled vs Tap
I have been told that the best way to get rich was to create a public need for a good and then fulfill that need. There are numerous examples of smart business people who have accomplished this task.The book Freakonomics illustrates one example: the mouthwash Listerine."Listerine was invented in the 19th century as a powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis", the faux medical term that the Listerine advertising group created in 1921 to describe bad breath. By naming and thus creating a medical condition for which consumers now felt they needed a cure, Listerine created a market for their mouthwash. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe, but Listerine's ad campaign changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself. In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million."My personal favorite example is the cartel known as DeBeers who in the 1930's began a very successful campaign to convinced the western world that paying premium prices for a non-rare, highly value inflated stone is the only true way to express your undying love. The engagement ring has been around since midevil times, only after DeBeers was a diamond exclusive to engagements and by association, love. Well, DeBeers was my favorite example, but I may be having a change of heart. The best example of this marking idea may have come from the beverage industry who concinced us of the evils of tap water and the need for "purified" bottled water. I am not sure how strong their marketing campaing will remain after one of the largest producers of bottled water Pepsi (co.) is now admiting that [Aquafina][1] , their bottled water, comes straight from the tap. This isn't anyting new against bottled water, but this may be the most egregious example of how brilliant, callous and brazen businesses and marketers can be. We were duped into paying dollars for something we could have gotten at fractions of a penny. Best yet, they were giving us the exact same thing they were supposedly protecting us from. The authors of Freakonmics have it right when they said "emotion is the enemy of rational argument. And as emotions go, one of them -- fear -- is more potent than the rest." We paid for our fear:in many ways.Pure Genius. For the record I have listerine and bottled water in my house right now. I am not claiming a "marketing" high ground. To stay on the record, I have been told by countless ladies that my opinion of diamonds, although true, will prevent me from every facing a personal engagement ring delima. And yes, I just read Freakonomics. [1]: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070726/hl_nm/pepsico_aquafina_dc
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Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
"To stay on the record, I have been told by countless ladies that my opinion of diamonds, although true, will prevent me from every facing a personal engagement ring delima."
There are women who do not set such conditions: I know, because I married one. And I'm more than a little grateful.
She's constantly complaining about my halitosis, though.... ; )
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
Absolutely on the women who don't want a diamond thing. While an expensive engagement ring does have its place in the courtship ritual (a traditional sort of "proof" that the proposed groom had the means to support the bride), the diamond thing is bullshit, and you'd be suprised how many intelligent women already know about the DeBeers racket (and if after she learns about it, and the current situation of the diamond market on the supply side, she *still* wants the "three months' salary" diamond, ditch her ass--she ain't worth marrying). Yes, I have an absolutely gorgeous diamond engagement ring, but the diamond isn't my favorite part (it's an heirloom stone, btw, I don't get political about much, but I wouldn't buy a "new" diamond--or any diamond at all, for that matter), it's the ornate and custom-designed setting that my husband sold his complete MTG: Arabian Nights set to buy. (That last part will only be appreciated by true dorks, but let's just say that it was about the most Anti-Amazing-Randall thing he could have done, and it sealed the deal ;)
As for bottled water--I buy it for the bottles. We buy a case every couple of months because the bottles and caps get lost, but the rest of the time, I just run the bastards through the dishwasher and refill them from our Brita filter. Convenient, earth-killing packaging, how I love thee!
Yeah, I'm gonna go take more drugs.
livingkate (anonymous) says…
...which is why my engagement ring is an opal. Hate diamonds with a passion and cannot understand the appeal in the first place. It is hilarious to watch women's faces drop when, upon finding out about my engagement and violently stuffing my left hand in their face with glee, they realize that my fiance only loves me a few hundred dollars worth, instead of a young boy's arm worth.
Sigh.
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
Just make sure and take that opal off whenever you immerse your hands in water. Gorgeous, they are, but terribly absorbent. (Truth be told, it's my favorite gemstone.)
El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
The genius is in the "two-month's salary" rule, which presents a completely arbitrary standard by which to judge our purchases of carbon for the ladies. It's not just enough to buy a diamond, it's gotta hurt, too*. Such is true love.
FWIW, I don't pay anything for my water, which comes out a 100-year-old, stone-lined hole in the ground.
* while rewarding a completely unrelated party.
dolores2175 (April Fleming) says…
Hey, at least it's tap water.
According to Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode (I know, a paragon of objectivity...) on bottled water, a great many bottled water companies use water that has not even been through the filtration and purification that our tap water is because there are no regulations on it. Thus their product is dirtier than New York City's tap water... and costs a dollar. The water is the same as is used industrially to cool metal (where 96% - if I remember KU Geology class - of our country's fresh water goes anyway).
lostblend (Keith Campbell) says…
I figured I would get nailed for the diamond comment. When I first started on L.com I wrote a piece on my opinion of DeBeers and diamonds but decided against publishing for fear of a negative backlash, which I received face-to-face every single time I expressed the opinion. Instead I thought it much safer to write about the T. :)
I have found that even the most rational and reasonable people will lash out against you for saying negative things about diamonds, especially in the context of an engagement ring. I would much rather buy my special someone a ruby or emerald. A stone that really is rare and precious:and if you have found the love of your life isn't that a great way to symbolize it? Something precious for someone precious:if I can be a bit cheesy. But diamonds are so engrained:so:amazingly marketed.
Hell, I am even conditioned. If I meet a girl I find interesting the first thing I look for is a diamond ring. I wouldn't even notice a ruby or emerald ring.
PS...April I really love Penn & Teller's show
TheEleventhStephanie (anonymous) says…
When my husband and I got married, we could barely afford our plain gold $90 wedding bands. Now that we have a little more money, I've been asked if I want a diamond. Nope, I don't. In ways I don't feel like explaining, the plain band means more to me than a diamond ever could. Nothin' says true love like a cheap wedding ring.
dolores2175 (April Fleming) says…
I'm definitely a fan - the last couple of seasons have been kind of weak, thogh. However, the hating Wal-Mart episode this season was the exception and was really interesting.
ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
Ha. My grandmother used Listerine (the gold kind that tastes like really cheap scotch) to get rid of skin growths and everything else. She considered it a miracle drug and was never without a large bottle near by. I considered it to be 20% alchohol!
Count me in as someone (older) who got brain-washed on diamonds. I have been reprogrammed, to some extent. I don't think true love is ever about how much money is spent on the beloved. However, any sign of sacrifice for the benefit of a beloved is often a good sign that the relationship is not headed for selfish-pig hell. That said, jewerly in general is a luxury that is over-priced as all get out. Doesn't stop me from gazing fondly at all things sparkly. On bottled water - I had to break my husband and his mom of their addiction to it; with an in-home filter system. They still try to sneak them into the fridge from time to time. Another way to expend funds on things that are not needed (or even what they are advertised to be). I laughed my arse off when the article about Aquafinna came out recently. It's not often I get so soundly vindicated.
liz (Liz Weslander) says…
Misty, don't run those suckers through the dishwasher too many times...leaching from plastic bottles is our latest household "don't want my girls to get their period at age 7" concern. (there's a blog about it at www.freestatefamily.com)
One time a friend of mine was eating at a tourist cafe near the ruins of Technocticlan outside Mexico City and saw one of the cooks out back filling up the "filtered" water jug (the one used to serve customers) with the hose.
matt (Matt Armstrong) says…
My main concern with DeBeers, is that they own every diamond coming out of Africa, and every one of those is harvested by slaves. If you're really into the idea of having diamonds, just make sure that you're buying Canadian or American ones. They're the same colors and quality, without the guilt of buying into cruelty.
Plus, those awesome Ice Trucker guys get to deliver the diamonds. Man, that job is so bad ass.
On the Penn & Teller thing, do you notice that they've kind of started to use the same rhetoric that the pundits do? Especially when they are talking about "growth" and "progress". That Wal-Mart episode was a great case of it. And a great example of me debating myself into a headache.
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
Keith--rubies are the more "traditional" engagement ring stone, anyway, in Victorian times they symbolized a woman's virtue. Heh. Maybe if you're marrying a modern gal, you should go with Scarlett O'Hara's emerald ring instead ;)