Answers to Your Solutions
The mountain looks so pretty when it's 12 degrees...
UPDATED BELOW:
A few years ago, I noticed that actually selling something that could be quantified, like a shoe or a car wash, had become hopelessly anachronistic in the “new” economy; we were told to pay good money for something far less tangible, “solutions.” To what, pray tell? Everything, as it turned out.
Any plugged-in business from housecleaning to accountancy just stopped selling what they once sold, which in the old days were something straightforward that could be easily measured in dust bunnies or IRS audits, and the preferable absence thereof, to something else entirely. The advertising industry finally and unexpectedly just came out of the closet about its time-honored formula: This product you never suspected you needed will solve a “problem” we just invented to sell it. You’re not buying, say, that deodorant, mouthwash, sports car, and unusually expensive booze, you’re buying a “solution” to the not getting laid “problem.” That problem and the “solutions” sold in its honor probably accounted for a large percentage of our fabled national wealth during the “American Century.” The only trouble was, the “solutions” sold never solved the problem, even as Arpege and Aqua Velva sailed off the shelves, for most people the not getting laid problem, among others, was never adequately solved. Better yet, the disappointed customers, probably rightly, blamed themselves for this unfortunate coincidence, rather than the shills that sold them whichever bill of goods.
Naturally, when any respectable Madison Avenue type spots a trend like that, you can bet it’ll be off to the races for the whole lot of them. I mean, once it has clearly been scientifically proven that people will not only spend more than they can afford on products which offer “solutions” that never seem to materialize, but that their invariable response to each predictable failure is to seek out another potentially profitable, for its creator, anyway, “solution,” the sky is the limit. Kind of makes shooting fish in a barrel look hard. Given all that, there was something of a an almost unseemly pile-on. When it became apparent that virtually every part of our “service” economy that had replaced what lay before, back in the “thing” days, was pure air, why should anyone sell anything that couldn’t creatively be described as a “solution?” Once copier repairmen, loan sharks, and real estate agents stopped doing what they were supposed to do, and marketed themselves selling solutions instead, could hookers and drug dealers be far behind? They, after all, sell solutions, too. The main difference is that their clients almost always get their problem, at least temporarily, “solved,” a contrast that might be unflattering to, say, mortgage brokers.
Fearing such degrading of the “solutions” brand, and the dire results it could have for such formerly trusted names as, say Blackwater or Halliburton, I am proud to report the first international conglomerate that decided to try to beat the competition by daringly selling something more obviously more substantive than tired old airy-fairy “solutions.” Siemens, the German conglomerate, must have a better ad agency than most; in addition to blanketing liberal talk with commercials about its “50,000 Americans” making America a better place and laying in a striking and controversial background ad that eclipses Daily Kos, it has blanketed the blogosphere, and probably elsewhere, with big, big news.
Wait for it…. It’s selling “answers.” You know, those totally new things which are a lot more valuable than those crappy old solutions…..
Hookers take note.
UPDATE: A bank in Overland Park, Kansas folded yesterday. Its name? SolutionsBank.
Geez, you really are at a loss for coherent thought and it shows in your more and more meaningless college freshman compositions. What do you suppose you’d get for a grade on these last three pixelated piles of dreck in a course at Medford Institute of Technology? Oh well, the freedom of the internet allows us to sample the offal as well as the prime cuts.
And here you are at the rendering plant outfall instead of the steakhouse. I don’t know why that always happens.
I wonder how many small-dick (or any size because it is in the eye of the beholder) and bald men wasted money on those ads you are talking about. Likewise all those beauty products for women. The list could go on forever. To me, the most obscene and damaging ads are now the lobbying congress kind:
One BILLION Corporate Dollars Spent Lobbying Congress in Ads This Year, Mostly on Health Care
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7565
And of course it’s much cheaper to buy public policy direct from legislators for pennies on the dollar than it is to buy ads and creative services hoping to dupe the public.
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When I go “out” and do “nothing,” one answer for me is AdBusters .ORG over the border in Canada. Ineffable and non pareil; maybe the unOnion of The Onion.
Here are a few snippets and touts from Front Page AdBusters today:
“We are a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society.”
The Future of Activism, Micah White, 2 December 2009 — Mental pollution is not just an annoyance; it is a tool in our oppression.
George Akerlof, Adbusters, 15 Jul 2009
Philosophy at Zero Point — Have we reached systemic collapse and civilizational crisis?
- – - et cetera – -
Well, the first one lapsed slightly into the ad-speak I was writing about, but the rest sound like they’re onto something. I do intend to see “Collapse,” by the way; I’ve just had an more than usually grueling work week and couldn’t muster the energy for a trek to NW to see a movie. Can’t they play at Fox Tower, and give a hag a break?
Let’s all move to Minnesota, and drag all our women there too, by the hair if necessary …
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/11/ap/strange/main5968293.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.10
Speaking of which, I was just in an elevator that was crowded with 20-something dudes. One of them said, “Can you believe Tiger lost Gatorade?” Uninvitedly I responded, ” What? He sure had all his electrolytes going…” One guy thought that was pretty funny, anyway.
Adultery and “unlawful cohabitation” laws are still on the books in many states but rarely enforced. How can a law not be enforced? How is it in the power of a law enforcement entity to decide if a law should or should not be upheld? And, just as important, why should the government have a role in regulating the free association of ostensibly free individuals? Efforts to combat prostitution come to mind.
Bluenoses would like such laws enforced on everyone, not just whores.
Keep electing them and you’ll find out.
I agree with you there, Tom. Those sorts of laws are always handy for law enforcement to pull out when nothing better will do. Anti-marijuana laws have a lot more to do with Nixon’s dislike of hippies than any real benefit to society. As for Tiger, If you or I were found at the scene of an accident at 2:20 am lying on the ground in our underpants, do you think the cops would make an appointment to talk about it later? I think not, but that’s just me.
Anti-marijuana legislation predates Nixon by many decades. The most notable event in Robert Mitchum’s career was a marijuana arrest in LA back in the forties.
I thought “Sunset Boulevard” was kind of notable…. Let me clarify: the federalization of anti-marijuana laws, including its classification as a “schedule I” narcotic, is Nixon’s legacy. Obviously, “Reefer Madness” began earlier.
This is no joke …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/palin-shatner-conan-tonight-show-video_n_389584.html
At this moment, my girlfriend is preparing meals for her three dogs. The animals are paying rapt attention to every move, every gesture.
They are looking for breakfast solutions, dammit…
….And shortly thereafter, they’ll want to go outside and drop a few “answers” on the lawn.
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