Capitalism explained.
Creative Strategy #-21: Let the buyer beware.
HOW IT WORKS
Somebody gets an idea.
Somebody tries to market it.
People love it.
End of story right?
No. Now they have to make it better.
Better?
Yes. We can't let it get stale.
Do ideas get stale?
Hang around.
So every year we must renew it.
Renew?
Yes. Basic business. The only thing that sells better than Free is New.
You gotta a few choices.
You change the name. You change the content. You change the wrapper.
Wrapper?
It's a metaphor.
So New Idea becomes New Package!
I see.
Same old content, but, dressed up, you know.
I get it.
New Look. Same Great Taste.
You change the content: Now with forty percent less sawdust!
I was thinking of a Mars bar and that's yuck.
Forty percent less Nougat.
Better.
Less filling. Less GMOs. Less Sugar. Less Fat. Or More.
More Vitamins. More Kelp. More Mushrooms. More Vegan.
Simple Rule: Content exists on a linear scale between Less and More.
And the sweet spot is always profit.
Where content and money meet to deliver the least acceptable product.
Finally we can change the name.
New Coke. The New Oldsmobile. New & Improved. The Next Vette. (I wrote that one.)
Big Secret: Coca-Cola is 2 drops of syrup in seltzer. That's it.
The rest is marketing.
Bigger secret: Every day we get new reasons to buy new ideas.
But all those reasons are repackages of old tried and true showmanship.
The truth I suspect is that our chocolate bars are getting smaller.
So are our drinks and potato chip bags.
The goal of all these ideas is to provide you
with the absolutely minimum of satisfaction
in the absolutely cheapest way possible.
The profits rise. The wages stagnate.
The factories automate. Efficiencies of scale.
The sciences teach us new ways to take more and more
out of our products until they deliver as much less as
they can get away with.
Capitalism is the art of diminishing returns.
Giving customers the very least for the very most.
—Patrick O’Leary