I'm contributing this week to Businessweek in a series of posts about what's happening in advertising and marketing. "It's fragmenting faster than melting mountain glaciers" you say. I know, I know CHANGE IS HERE. SO what are people doing about it? My first piece looks at the Post Consumption world.
Businessweek,Posted by: David Kiley on July 13
I walked by the Chanel store in Soho again today and the sale sign is still up. That’s kinda weird. Chanel?
Consumption is what has inspired growth in the economy – here in the US and everywhere in the world. Consumption was the ideology and the doctrine.
It is hugely important when it comes to who we are as people. I wear these brands and project a persona to the world. I drive a British car and I am an English aristocrat. I buy a hybrid and I’m green. I wear French cosmetics and I have the jaunt of Heidi Klum. I buy IKEA furniture and I’m wise not rich. I wear Asics lifestyle sneakers and am cooler than East Berlin.
Consumption has been the source of identity for billions of people who dream for and desire ever-rising material standards. But consumption has changed. It happened one night in a dark, crowded boardroom in New York sometime last October. Before then, we were happy to consume just like we always had. Susie bought a pair of jeans and felt like she had all cockiness, pride and guts of a rock band. Charlie bought a Swedish Vodka and felt like he was part of the progressive urban bourgeois. The Carlsons bought a Jeep and felt like they had the right to go blasting off the road to some clam shack beside the beach at Montauk.
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