(Click here to jump to the recommended song, Santa Claus is Back in Town by Elvis Presley!)
Howdy rebels. This is one of many times of year when we're bombarded by cheesy, tacky and sometimes slimy advertising.
As a rebel, I don’t like corporate tomfoolery. I don’t like it when companies try to make you want something you never thought to buy. Especially when it’s supposed to “solve” an incredibly minor inconvenience that affects all humans for simply existing.
I see things like this every time I walk into a store. Especially the “aisle of shame” at Aldi and pretty much all of Walmart. Unnecessary products with some “revolutionary new feature” that’s meant to make it better or easier or some other “er”. Honestly I hate the implication that someone’s actually buying those things instead of living their everyday lives the “hard” way.
Like that “toilet paper wand” that’s supposed to keep your hands clean when you wipe your butt. The sink is right there, guys. Just wash ya damn hands.
I also don’t like products that claim to be “healthy” just because they contain or omit X or Y thing. Especially ones like La Croix, which call themselves “innocent”. What are other brands “guilty” of, exactly? I mean, I don’t like artificial stuff either, but I also don’t like attaching morality to ingredients like that.
And those drinks that contain caffeine extracted specifically from green tea. Caffeine from green tea is the same as caffeine from coffee if it’s really just pure caffeine. All the purported health benefits of green tea come from its other chemicals, like polyphenols and flavonoids. Not a special type of “green tea caffeine”. On that note, I don't care for the claim that green is a "weight loss beverage", either.
But as much as it seems like I hate marketing gimmicks, I “fall for” them just like everyone else. I even find comfort in them. If a product isn’t familiar (either super popular like Coca-Cola or a store brand like Great Value) and also isn’t actively trying to be different, I feel like that product has no right to exist.
I initially felt this way about Faygo soda. Apparently it’s been around for over 100 years, but I saw it for the first time in 2020. It seemed like it had suddenly spawned into existence, and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t owned by Coke, Pepsi, Unilever or the like, it wasn’t a store brand, and it seemed awfully “normal” to be so unfamiliar. Although it turned out to be owned by National Beverage, the same company as La Croix, I had to find that out for myself. Until then it seemed like a “pointless” brand.
And this does make me think non-gimmicky, not-already-established products may not exist. But I don’t have enough evidence, and that’s not the point anyway.
The point is: It’s interesting how uncomfortable it feels to see a product that’s neither familiar nor gimmicky.
Not only do companies need marketing to survive, you need marketing to convince you to buy something. How would you know what brand to buy in case it’s a product you’ve never tried before?
I’m no marketing psychologist, so what I’m about to explain is based on scraps of information I’ve learned over time. Don’t take my word for it, do your research, yadda yadda.
I think if a new brand hits the shelves without a single gimmick, customers who see it won’t understand what makes it better or at least different, therefore worth the purchase.
Some impulse purchases come from a desire to try new things, but what if nothing on the packaging suggests that it’s different? You’d only know if you bought it in the first place, and fear of buyer’s remorse causes many people not to buy something at all.
If the new product started out on sale at a lower price than the more familiar version, that would make the purchase feel a lot more worth it. Sure it’s new, which would usually make it scary, “but it’s on sale”. The temporary markdown makes it seem more favorable than the “regular” product, driving customers to buy it and determine for themselves if they think the new product is better than their usual brand.
But even then, the different price is a difference. The product still relies on being different to sell. Course for some people, I imagine that could mean as much as different names and packaging. In that case, the new product would sell itself to the “new thing try-ers” just by being new. But I think if the new product functions similarly to the “regular” one, it would still have to rely on lower prices to sell. And if it sucks? It’s curtains for that brand. Either that or it would have to be really cheap, and it may already be cheap to produce if it sucks so much.
Of course, that still doesn’t explain the emotional dissonance I felt the first time I saw Faygo.
I don’t know how to explain it. I just hate when things are pointless. If it doesn’t have a gimmick, it doesn’t have a point. It’s not that I hate gimmicks and excuse them as a necessary evil.
There are all kinds of gimmicks. I obviously like the ones that line up with my personality, tastes and prinicples, and dislike the ones that don’t. Basic psychology.
For example, I hate “mild inconvenience fixers” because I believe working hard so something costs less is more satisfying than paying for work to be done for you. I’m also just one of those people who thinks inconvenience “builds character”. I will admit it’s a flimsy reason, but it’s a reason I’m very attached to.
I love Hosmer Mountain and Avery’s Soda because I like supporting small businesses, and they both use glass bottles by default. Out of necessity.
I like Foodmark’s ice cream sandwiches and Wild Mike’s Ultimate Pizza because they use wacky, edgy cartoon mascots.
You’d be surprised how many of my preferences are tied to my love of cartoons.
If you want to sell me something, just put a cartoon character on it. The wackier, the better. It doesn’t even matter how bad you are at drawing- just look at Chewy Louie. He’s so anatomically weird, but I love his design.
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| Photo Credit: Richmond Market |
I obviously like good drawings, too. I’m always tempted to go for Tetley’s British Blends teas when I see the dapper animal illustrations. I’ve never had them, though.
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| Photo Credit: Tetley Tea USA (YouTube) |
And those are just food gimmicks I like. If you’re making a movie and put Elvis or the Mafia where they don’t belong, I’m watching it.
You know Bubba Ho-tep? It’s a movie where an elderly Elvis Presley and an old man who thinks he’s John F. Kennedy (despite being black) have to escape the nursing home to fight an evil cowboy mummy who wants to eat the souls of the home’s residents. When I first saw the Tubi thumbnail, I said, “That is stupid and I am watching it immediately.” It was just as weird as it sounds.
Then there’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. It’s cheesy, mostly because it’s a low-budget 90s cartoon and a heavily-censored version of the original comic, but I find it enjoyable enough. It’s about a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs are alive (and called different names from the Latin ones used in real life). And of course the main character drives a Cadillac.
And don’t forget Bounty Hamster. While traveling through space, a little girl named Cassie gets separated from her father’s ship and hires the “roughest, toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy” to help find him. Except the bounty hunter is a blue hamster named Marion.
These are all still available on Tubi at the time of this post. I recommend watching at least one of them.
Bubba Ho-tep is definitely not for kids, though. It’s an adult horror-comedy, so it has some inappropriate jokes and disturbing imagery.
The types of products I gravitate towards are also heavily influenced by my economic situation. I’m eighteen and not in college, so I still live with my parents. They pay for all the essentials in my life, which means I’m comfortable buying unnecessary and sometimes expensive things with my own money. So I’m like the privileged college kid but without the college.
The types of things with wacky cartoons on them tend to be expensive, except maybe every sugary cereal. Same goes for any local, small businessy stuff.
Especially Righteous Felon Jerky. Do you know how expensive that stuff is? It’s almost-not-worth-it expensive. I am blessed to be able to buy those.
Gimmicks are not all good, not all bad. The moral of the story is to ask yourself, “Do I really want this? Why? What need does this fill that something else can’t? Why should I spend the money?” Learn to recognize when a selling point is just a gimmick. I need to learn this, too.
I made my mom buy all the 50th anniversary monster cereals and Pokémon Oreos because I… wanted to collect the packaging. That’s the thing, too. My brain freaks out at opportunities to collect, just in case something might be valuable someday. I need to stop doing that. It can be healthy to a certain extent, but if I buy something just because it’s “limited edition”, that’s pretty bad.
Catch the urges that lead to impulse purchases. Make a shopping list and stick to it. Recognize patterns in your own behavior that can help you determine whether you’re actually gonna use a product after the first few times.
Also, I realize “saving money by spending time is better than the other way around” can be detrimental to say, a business. As they say, time is money. You just have to make sure the time you save is worth the money you spend and vice versa.
If you’ve made it to the end of this overly rambly article, congratulations. I hope I’ve given you some food for thought and that you might apply some of these suggestions. Of course, if anyone reading happens to be an actual expert on anything I’ve said, please do correct me in the comments. While I do believe everything I say, I can’t have gotten it all right.
As a reward for reading this whole article, I’ll leave you off with Santa Claus is Back in Town by Elvis Presley. I like this song because it’s, uh… nice. You know, like Aurelio Voltaire’s voice.
Stay nice. I mean, sexy. Shoot.
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