Post 3: Meta-advertising?

What if someone were to tell you that companies were stealing sponsorships out of you? That you are, in a way, serving the same purpose as Kobe Bryant or (formerly) Tiger Woods to companies, but without the millions of dollars in profit that ends up in their pockets? Because of a recent move, I've been offline for about a week, which has given me time to focus on real-time marketing, and boy has it got me thinking. Personally I would be asking for my cut (only several hundreds of thousands is enough), but the way advertisers do it tricks us every time. It's a little scheme I like to call "meta-advertising," and now that society is so flooded with it, there is practically no way out.

Think about the big name brands of clothing, especially shoes. Nike, Vans, Adidas. The supposed appeal for us consumers is the quality or aesthetic of the product. But these big companies have reeled us in by creating a vicious cycle of advertising - when you buy the product and wear it, you are, in turn, re-advertising the same product. The technique some have perfected and some are struggling with is the application of a symbol, or something you can tag the product with so that the general public will notice. Nike has got it down; the swoosh symbol is integrated into the design of their clothing and shoes, so that it adds appeal in and of itself. In fact, 90% of the shoes you see have a noticeable tag to identify them. The three stripes for Adidas. The New Balance N. Some do it discreetly: the identifiable icons on the back of Vans and Converse. We often think it's just part of the appeal of the product. But what it really is is a way for companies to use the consumer to sell their product.

When you are walking down the street and see someone wearing a pair of shoes that interest you, you generally don't the time or initiative to ask them where they got them. There was no noticeable logo, so when you get to the local mall, you have no way to search for the shoe store or describe the shoe effectively to someone else. After this defeat, you return home and try looking online for the shoes you want; but this could take hours, and you are beginning to forget why you liked the shoe in the first place. Now consider Nike. As soon as you see the the large swoosh that engulfs the shoe, you know instantly what brand of shoe it is. And with so many stores and ways to buy online, you end up with the shoes in your closet and a lighter wallet.

How did Nike work this scheme so well, so that even five-year-olds can recognize brand-names more easily than they can recite the numbers 1-10? They've essentially made the logo a part of the world as we know it. On billboards everywhere, your attention is always drawn to the logo. We've been conditioned to see this logo and connect it with Nike, and to connect Nike with prestige, athleticism, and superiority. We also know that Nike changes their line frequently to continually get more advanced, and so we believe their is no brand more current than Nike. Everything we buy from Nike will be top-of-the-line, ahead-of-the-game, cream-of-the-crop (so as to cross generations). This may not necessarily be true, but these are the beliefs evoked by noticing the swoosh symbol.

So the next time you lace up a new pair of Converse, or zip up a jacket with three white stripes on the arms, know that you are helping to bring a multimillion dollar company to the masses. You are voluntarily showing off a product to the world, one they will most likely see more often than anything Kobe's contract tells him to wear. The only difference is that you're doing it for free.