A Prada overnight bag
A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at Harper’s Bazaar. It was my first experience presenting at a fashion magazine and I suspect it was their first experience hosting an academic speaker. They were very gracious and interested (or at least they appeared to be) and they even laughed in all the right places.
As a thank-you gift, they gave me a Prada overnight bag. Now, Apple is the closest I have ever come to owning anything by a designer so it was an interesting experience for me, walking through JFK and trying to decide if I should hold the bag so that others could see the Prada logo, or if I should keep it facing towards me. I quickly decided to keep the logo facing toward me, and started to think about the role of brands in our life.
We usually think of brands as signaling something to others. We drive a Prius to show that we are environmentally conscious or wear Nike to show that we’re athletic. In this case I didn’t want to send a signal to the world, but nevertheless I felt different, as if I were signaling something to myself-telling myself something about me and using the bag to do it.
Maybe this is the attraction of branded underwear. They are basically a private consumption experience, but my guess is that if I put on a pair of Ferrari underwear, and even if nobody saw them, they would still make me feel better about myself.
The odd thing about this idea is that I can’t just try to make myself feel better by imagining that I’m wearing Ferrari underwear. I have to actually wear them in order to make myself feel better.
So now we have two roles for brands: they help us tell other people something about ourselves, but they also help us tell ourselves a story about who we are.
My latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
Well, I think the reason you have to have the real thing to feel “special” is because the advertisers tell you that you do. Just absolutely nothing else would do! If something else would do, you might not by their product and that definitely won’t do. If you haven’t ever spent some time analyzing commercials and ads, try it. If certain material things didn’t give us status and self-worth (or at least make us think so), we’d all be buying the cheapest thing so that we would have more to put into those high-grade, structured, enhanced, (sub-prime mortgage) funds that we saw on yesterday’s post.
“We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are.” – Leonard Shelby.
Isn’t this a bit like the placebo effect? I can’t make the pain go away voluntarily, but give me a sugar pill and tell me it’s an expensive pain killer and the pain goes away. I can’t make myself feel cool but hand me a bag and tell me it’s expensive and that only cool people have them and sure enough I feel cool. Just give me a reason to believe…
Branding is all around us, and it has been with us as long as human beings have been around, I think. What is the difference between tribal tattoos or certain tribal garments which identifies a person as belong to a certain tribe, versus what we wear (e.g. Prada bag, Polo shirts, Armani Exchange t-shirts) which identifies us as belong to a certain economic tier/tribe? Not much in my opinion. It’s instant communication, and probably a byproduct of evolutionary tools of our brain, that of “Must have ability to instantly identify friend-or-foe” (which our military does electronically). When I wear my MIT “brass rat”, it’s a communication to others who know (i.e. decode) that I am probably better educated on the average in terms of science or technology.
I remember when I was a med student, a certain vascular surgeon made an impression on me. He made his rounds in the hospital in a very expensive suit (opposed to the standard white coat that everyone wore), and his office (where he interviewed his patients after the initial exam) was decorated not only with his degrees (all from prestigious universities), but also plaques for being New York City’s “Best Doctor” of whatever year. He saw me eyeing those things and explained to me that it’s all theatre. He said that when he talks to a patient, he has the staff put the patient in that room. He lets the patient look at all those awards and degrees for five minutes or so, then enters the room. These things communicate, in his words, that the guy that patient is talking to is a person with whom this patient can trust his/her life. His expensive suits also communicate success. Mind you, he was an excellent surgeon, and his skills backed up these things. But this speaks for the power of any form of instant communication, namely, in this case, branding.
Come on! Don’t you drive a nice Audi?
I’ve read your book in Spanish “Las trampas del deseo.” Great and inspiring book.
Cheers,
Manuel
You said, “Maybe this is the attraction of branded underwear. They are basically a private consumption experience, but my guess is that if I put on a pair of Ferrari underwear, and even if nobody saw them, they would still make me feel better about myself.”
That is an absolutely astounding concept–and silly, too. What ever happened to evaluating whether a purchase:
1. Answers a need (as opposed to a want),
2. Supports American manufacturing,
3. Performs flawlessly,
4. Fits beautifully,
5. Is of lasting quality, and is
6. Classic (enduring) in its style?
Seriously, if the “brand” of your undies impacts your sense of self-worth, there’s a pretty good chance that your head really is way up your behind.
A little sunshine and fresh air will do you a world of good.
Regarding Melanie Coon’s question, when were purchase decisions ever made based on these criteria? Why do people prefer Pepsi over Coke (or vice versa) when blindfold tests have shown that the majority of cola drinkers can’t tell the difference? Humans (including Melanie) make decisions mostly emotionally and justify them rationally.
When I am shopping for underwear, I look for a cut that will allow the waistband to ride above the hip-bone, but below the navel (if higher, they may show above slacks; lower-cut tend to feel as if they are falling off). I look for elastic that is integral with the body-fabric, or at least soft-cotton covered and not thick and bulky. Seamless sides are best, but I check at least to see that the side seams are flat-sewn and do not cause an uncomfortable bump to press into the skin. Next, I see if they come in a color I like. If I don’t like the color, but they meet the rest of the criteria, I buy the least objectionable color – after all, there are not many manufacturers who meet my underwear construction standards. The last thing I look at is the brand. I make a note of the brand to help facilitate the search next time. Of course, the manufacturer will have stopped production of these fine garments by the time I next need to get replacements. I am all about comfort and practicality in my lingerie. Brand is the last thing I look at.
Well said Tom. Numerous studies prove your point, including a recent batch on wine. One study showed that the pleasure centers in the brain lit up more when people thought the wine they were drinking was more expensive. They literally enjoyed it more. The second showed that when diners were offered a free glass of wine from a California winery versus a North Dakota winery, they not only reported enjoying the wine more, they ate >10% more of their food and made more return reservations.
Why do all those branding firms out there make so much money? Because our perception is our reality. Whether we want to admit it or not, our opinions are influenced consciously or subconciously by our perception of brands and value.
And personally, while I certainly want to be as wise as possible about my choices, I also want to live a life of balance and joy. So I think it’s quite wonderful that my perceptions can actually help me enjoy and appreciate my life even more.
Thanks for the great tools in taking apart the rational blindness of our leaders/teachers. However, concerning your knickers there: you really ought to be wearing a pair of jeans low round your buttocks to show them off. That’s the point of it all…
How I buy my underwear: are they cotton? are they black? Are they white? do they chaff? do they constrict anywhere? Okay, maybe some red pairs will make it in the cut too.
I do a lot of secondhand shopping. I used to have a lot of luck finding upper-end labels. People complimented me a lot on my clothes. What I’ve found matters most is whether the piece is run-of-the-mill or not. If it isn’t, it could have been handmade by someone’s aunt (in the case of a grey wool dress I picked up) or it could be Bebe, in the case of a black knit skirt with asymetrical knee line. But I did feel a little special in the branded items. If it’s exactly what everyone else is wearing, no one cares who made it.
I do think the people who buy Brooks Brothers recognizes those types of products, even if many people don’t. They are markers only to those in the same segment.
I like the way you put it:
“So now we have two roles for brands: they help us tell other people something about ourselves, but they also help us tell ourselves a story about who we are.”
Advertisers both exploit and create our tendency to “tell ourselves a story.” I prefer to avoid getting caught up in brand loyalty or coveting – but isn’t that my way of telling myself and others my story?
Perhaps there is a difference if we buy for others. That would be our view of them. Think about buying a gift for someone: your mother, boyfriend, brother. You conjure up their vibes and you match what seems right for them. Branding advertising also reaches for that group, although smaller in most buying areas than buying for ourselves.
Although I try not to wear advertising on my clothing – i feel they are getting free advertising from me- and i remove dealers markings from my car, I still allow the logo of the vehicle manufacturer. hmmm- just thinking about that. I guess it’s too hard to remove- or i like the high priced logo I got at a discount.