Marketing is a strange thing. We are so assaulted by it in our culture that I think we rarely realize it is hitting us and so we are easy targets, sucked in by the images of peace and bliss and perfection that could be our lives If Only we would shop here or buy this or drive one of these.
And marketing, I think, can only work in a capitalist economy, one that thrives on competition and the possibility of making people believe that this toothbrush– this one here, the one with the grip here on this side but not over there and with these bristles that extend highter on this end but not down the middle– is better than any other toothbrush out there.
Sometimes there is truth to the claims. Sometimes research or experience reveals that this does indeed prevent gingivitis better or gets better gas mileage or prevents back pain.
And sometimes, I think, it’s just a lot of bunk.
But what really kills me is the marketing that purports to be educating me. It poses, pretending to be enlightening or informative in order to convince me that the extra money is Well Worth It.
We recently bought a new brand of Breyers ice cream. I don’t know why– I’m guessing it was on sale. Breyers has us, anyway, because it’s made of ingredients we’ve heard of. But this, as I said, was a New Breyers product: Breyers Double-Churned Ice Cream.
I don’t give a hoot about churning, so long as my butter and ice cream come out well. But the marketing folks down at Breyers thought they’d give me a little info– just a little, so as to assure me that, in paying the extra thirty-five cents or whatever it was, I was Doing The Right Thing. Yes, right there on the side of the box, in lovely italics, was the marketing explanation of Breyers Double-Churned.
And I was interested. Maybe here would be something informative about the ice cream-making process, a bit-sized piece of information to advance my understanding of extra churning and how it can benefit Me. Like many Americans, I live in suburbia. I know nothing about any of this. Yes, Breyers Double-Churned, yes. Enlighten me.
I read it: Breyers Double-Churned ice cream is churned twice to make it extra rich and creamy.
Oh. I see. Thank you, Breyers. Now I realize. I wasn’t so much ignorant about “churning” as I was about the meaning of the word “double.”
How silly of me.
Rebecca Brewster Stevenson 