Thanks to those who have inquired about my silence on this blog lately. I've taken a break from blogdom for a few weeks - not reading any, not writing any, hoping that the blog muse would sing to me again after an absence. Aries are not known for their constancy when the shiny newness wears off of an interest or passion. But, Lord, who can resist blogging on the day after Super Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras? Shirley, not I.
I'm just positive that in two hundred, five hundred, nine hundred years or so, after our artifacts have been unearthed by alien anthropologists, some pointy-eared, web-fingered, duck-footed, carbon dioxide-breathing professor type will conclude that the science and art of marketing/advertising was the single-most influential factor of American civilization.
Marketing has been around in some form or other since Eve traded half an apple for a designer fig leaf, but it really worked up steam in the last half of the last century, when our over-productive economy began selling everything to everybody. Here, Wikipedia tells me that in 2006, US spending on advertising reached 156 billion dollars, worldwide it was 385 billion, and the 2010 expenditures are expected to be half a trillion dollars.
Old print and TV advertisements, old actors in costumes, old familiar trademarks have become iconic and generate instant nostalgia when resurrected. I'll always have a warm spot in my heart for Wonder Bread, with its colorful polka dots on its fresh white wrapper -- the wrapper that, unfortunately, has more nutritional value than the white bread inside. Today, those Happy California Cows tempt me to push the envelope on lactose intolerance, even though I think most cheese is disgusting. And just look at the millions (yes, you too) who tuned in to the Super Bowl, not just for the game but for the entertainment of the gazillion-dollar commercials. For heaven's sake, when Dick Wilson (the Charmin toilet tissue spokesman) died, he rated mention on national news -- now that's product recognition and consumer loyalty.
Marketing isn't all bad, of course. Religious, charitable, educational and health-care institutions all reserve a large chunk of their operating budgets for "communication", i.e., marketing. Would we know smoking is a serious health risk without the health marketers who tell us so? On the other hand, would we even BE smoking without the marketing that brought us Lucky Strike Goes To War, Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man?
Now there's the question. Would we be doing or thinking anything at all without marketing? It's certainly one of our primary sources of information, and I don't mean just paid marketing. It's one of the most important ways our culture is modeled to us -- it's where many of our cultural myths come from, where we learn what to expect (inaccurately, all too often) from Life itself.
Hollywood has done its share of marketing the fantasy of the American Dream. Marital bliss, extra-marital bliss, the Happy Family, the princess wedding, teenage angst (did teenagers even exist before Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland?), women without cellulite and sagging breasts, strong, able MEN who run businesses, solve the world's problems and inhabit the White House. I don't even want to think what Disney has sold to generations of kids since the 1950's.
Wiki also talks about public interest advertising, cause marketing, social marketing and, God help us, political marketing. Which brings me to the point of this blog on this day.
By the time the professional marketers are finished with us in November, we won't have one clear idea who really stands for what, whose background facts are valid, who knows or means what he/she says. What we will know is exactly and only what the pros want us to know. (Remember Bill Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid!" Well, it worked, didn't it.)
Every speech, every article, every appearance, every sound bite will be geared to a precise audience that has been analyzed to death by its demographics. Each of us will have been sectioned and cross-sectioned in so many ways we'll look like we've been mashed through a potato ricer.
How many demographics describe you? Think: Age, race, marital status, income, education, employment, ethnicity, children, religious and political party affiliation, sexual orientation... all of which are only the tip of the melting iceberg. Practically every move we make, every health issue, every purchase, every vice and virtue, every interest, every problem and concern, every facet of our lives can be quantified by someone who never met a statistic they couldn't manipulate.
All of this -- ALL OF THIS -- will be fodder for the coming months' politicking. You can bet that if you're watching a candidate's speech or debate, your issues will be spoken to in the exact language they think you want to hear -- not in cold truth, not in objective facts, but in phrases tested for their palatability by focus groups representing your demographic.
Even though our "free press" is idealistically supposed to be free of influence, we all know it's not. (If you don't think that is an accurate statement, could it be because your views are the same as the media's?) Don't look to the major media outlets for any objectivity in the coming months. You may get two sides of the story presented in the same 90-second coverage, but bias will be present in the language, in the attitude, in the smug and arrogant presentation that, in the end, will showcase the media's choice to the best advantage.
In this blog post I wrote about the lack of objectivity I find in the media at all levels. I stand by that post, and I personally dread the months to come. Because we are so susceptible to marketing, and so bombarded by it in every arena, I know that the person who takes the oath of office next January will be the candidate with the slickest marketing campaign -- the one who will be sold best to the American public, exactly the same as the "real cheese from the happy California cows."
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
A Disturbing Prophecy
As I am ever attempting to write fiction for my grandkids (and lack any and all talent for it), I spend a good deal of time and money in the "how to write" sections of Borders and Amazon. Story-telling, especially for the younger crowd, is a very different animal than writing nonfiction and commentary. Yes, I've taken extensive courses on fiction writing for kids, and yes I've written a lot of it -- but if one isn't a natural story-teller, the genre is difficult. For example, I just used 79 words to tell you I suck at writing fiction when five would have sufficed.
Anyway, I found this marvelous little book entitled "Hooked", by Les Edgerton, who is a writer-in-residence at the University of Toledo, and a successful fiction writer. The book answered a lot of my questions about structure, dramatic tension and pacing and set me straight on techniques once learned then forgotten.
However... the final chapter of the book (excluding an epilogue) quite simply stunned me.
In the book, Edgerton takes the reader through theory and examples of developing a saleable piece from what he (and publishing editors he queried) claim makes or breaks the story -- a dynamite beginning. Apparently, if you can't captivate the interest of the potential publisher or Borders' browser in the first few paragraphs, you're sunk. The overworked editor who first sees your manuscript won't give it the time of day, so it won't be published to begin with... or if, by some miracle, it is accepted and published, a potential reader won't hand over cold, hard plastic if they're not hooked by the opening page.
I have no problem with that -- no objection to the premise. It was the reason I bought Edgerton's book in the first place. Even though I'm not writing for publication, I want to write the very best that I can for MY readers -- kids aged from two to ten.
But then...after 205 pages of thorough instruction, he drops the bomb.
If writers are still using the models they learned in school before the Vietnam war era, they're writing all wrong. You should be writing the way "they" write for the movies and TV, where the emphasis is on action, where conflicts are resolved in 150 or 24 minutes, where motives are delivered by snappy one-liners and we only graze the surface of a character. The reason, of course, is money. Publishing, like movies and TV, is an industry, driven by the market. If trivial crap sells, the public must want it -- so let's give the public what they seem to want and thereby make our fortune.
It's yet another example of what I call "the rutabaga phenomenon," which I wrote about (on a different topic) HERE. If the only veggie a grocery store stocks is the lowly rutabaga, the purchasing public who wants some kind of veggie will buy the rutabaga -- skewing the market to reflect a demand for rutabagas that doesn't exist.
I don't know about you, but I think that, with maybe one or two exceptional movies a year, the rest of the films produced are worthless, stemming from bad, bad, bad, bad scripts. The same with television -- considering the number of channels available 24/7, the percentage of GOOD television produced must be less than one percent. (Good to me meaning the quality of The West Wing.)
And writers are supposed to use THAT level of crap as their model?
I'm quoting from the book:
Edgerton goes on to explain that passages of great description or summary will not be read, that if written they won't be published because they ultimately won't be purchased.
Well, maybe so. He's the professional and I'm just a reader -- but where does that leave all the great fiction that was produced until 1965? Those "classics" will just fall by the wayside because we no longer have the temperament or discipline to read them? We'll forego the pleasure of being transported to a fictional world because we are no longer able to sit through descriptive passages as written by Steinbeck, Austin, Faulkner or (insert your favorite author here)?
And, worse yet, today's budding author will never be able to create memorable classics of his/her own -- stories with plot, character, motives, along with a solid portrait of time and place setting? The Great American Novel wl b wrtn n txtg langg?
Again, from the book:
When I decided to slam the door on the corporate world and step out on a new career path, writing was the first I considered. I soon learned that any kind of writing depends on marketing, and marketing comprises about 80% of one's professional time, which drops one's actual income to about $.04/hour. "Starving writer" is not a joke. Unless you're a best-selling author, that phrase will be the first line of your resume. Do I wish I were still writing for publication? Sometimes...but maybe that's why God and Gore's Internet gave us blogs.
If you're a fiction writer, I'd suggest that you buy the book -- it's well worth the $15. Just don't read the last chapter or you'll be looking on Monster.Com for a real job.
And P.S. Merry Christmas!
Anyway, I found this marvelous little book entitled "Hooked", by Les Edgerton, who is a writer-in-residence at the University of Toledo, and a successful fiction writer. The book answered a lot of my questions about structure, dramatic tension and pacing and set me straight on techniques once learned then forgotten.
However... the final chapter of the book (excluding an epilogue) quite simply stunned me.
In the book, Edgerton takes the reader through theory and examples of developing a saleable piece from what he (and publishing editors he queried) claim makes or breaks the story -- a dynamite beginning. Apparently, if you can't captivate the interest of the potential publisher or Borders' browser in the first few paragraphs, you're sunk. The overworked editor who first sees your manuscript won't give it the time of day, so it won't be published to begin with... or if, by some miracle, it is accepted and published, a potential reader won't hand over cold, hard plastic if they're not hooked by the opening page.
I have no problem with that -- no objection to the premise. It was the reason I bought Edgerton's book in the first place. Even though I'm not writing for publication, I want to write the very best that I can for MY readers -- kids aged from two to ten.
But then...after 205 pages of thorough instruction, he drops the bomb.
If writers are still using the models they learned in school before the Vietnam war era, they're writing all wrong. You should be writing the way "they" write for the movies and TV, where the emphasis is on action, where conflicts are resolved in 150 or 24 minutes, where motives are delivered by snappy one-liners and we only graze the surface of a character. The reason, of course, is money. Publishing, like movies and TV, is an industry, driven by the market. If trivial crap sells, the public must want it -- so let's give the public what they seem to want and thereby make our fortune.
It's yet another example of what I call "the rutabaga phenomenon," which I wrote about (on a different topic) HERE. If the only veggie a grocery store stocks is the lowly rutabaga, the purchasing public who wants some kind of veggie will buy the rutabaga -- skewing the market to reflect a demand for rutabagas that doesn't exist.
I don't know about you, but I think that, with maybe one or two exceptional movies a year, the rest of the films produced are worthless, stemming from bad, bad, bad, bad scripts. The same with television -- considering the number of channels available 24/7, the percentage of GOOD television produced must be less than one percent. (Good to me meaning the quality of The West Wing.)
And writers are supposed to use THAT level of crap as their model?
I'm quoting from the book:
"The most profound changes [to story structure] have taken place in a relatively short period. Mostly during the age of television and movies and modern communication (computers, telephones, etc.) and the resultant shifts in the way we perceive information and entertainment. Our world is shrinking. Our collective attention span shrinks with it as the universe speeds up, bombarding us with more and more information. And more and more entertainment options. Books have to change or get lost in the mix. "
"As a culture, we've been trained to receive stories visually by movies and television since at least the fifties. The same hold true of literature -- because of our experience with movies, we now expect to be plunged instantly into the "action" of the story on the page just as we are plunged into the action on the screen. "
"Stories today had better be wound tight and delivered quickly. They can't begin any longer with pages of backstory and setup. To be considered publishable, they have to begin with action and with the trouble that's going to occupy the story."
Edgerton goes on to explain that passages of great description or summary will not be read, that if written they won't be published because they ultimately won't be purchased.
Well, maybe so. He's the professional and I'm just a reader -- but where does that leave all the great fiction that was produced until 1965? Those "classics" will just fall by the wayside because we no longer have the temperament or discipline to read them? We'll forego the pleasure of being transported to a fictional world because we are no longer able to sit through descriptive passages as written by Steinbeck, Austin, Faulkner or (insert your favorite author here)?
And, worse yet, today's budding author will never be able to create memorable classics of his/her own -- stories with plot, character, motives, along with a solid portrait of time and place setting? The Great American Novel wl b wrtn n txtg langg?
Again, from the book:
"Even a relatively few short years ago, some publishers were willing to put out such books in hopes of snagging one of those prestigious literary prizes. That isn't done nearly as much these days. They've discovered not enough people buy 'em."I know change is a constant factor in the Universe -- the one sure factor we can depend on. Literature, like everything else, changes according to the culture and the times. Certainly we don't write today as they did 200 years ago. But if Edgerton is correct (and I have no reason to suspect he isn't since he supports his statements with facts and informed opinion), how infinitely poorer will be the literary experiences of our grandkids and great-grandkids if the stories they read and write are modeled after the film and TV scripts of today.
"The market demands a different kind of novel today, and it's the publisher's job to deliver what the market wants. Which means it's our job as writers to deliver that kind of book if we expect to see it on the shelves at the bookstore."
When I decided to slam the door on the corporate world and step out on a new career path, writing was the first I considered. I soon learned that any kind of writing depends on marketing, and marketing comprises about 80% of one's professional time, which drops one's actual income to about $.04/hour. "Starving writer" is not a joke. Unless you're a best-selling author, that phrase will be the first line of your resume. Do I wish I were still writing for publication? Sometimes...but maybe that's why God and Gore's Internet gave us blogs.
If you're a fiction writer, I'd suggest that you buy the book -- it's well worth the $15. Just don't read the last chapter or you'll be looking on Monster.Com for a real job.
And P.S. Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 3, 2007
The National Hamster Wheel
Compared to the last 3000 years of documented civilization, our American culture runs at nearly the speed of light. We are obsessed with the instantaneous "now," and we seem, in general, to have lost both all tolerance for waiting and the virtue of patience.
Only warp speed will do for us in every instance, and our impatience has warped our relationship to natural time. Do these sound familiar?
I have to wonder how much of the beauty and wonder of Life we miss by living at this breakneck pace. How can we savor the joy or learn from the pain of each experience if we've moved onto the next before we've reflected on and assimilated THIS one?
Certainly in America we've reduced the pleasure of sweet anticipation to a flash and a flurry of to-do lists. Actually, in the case of the Christmas season, we've become so impatient that the celebration itself pre-empts the time of anticipation.
I've done my share of complaining about the Catholic church (notably HERE), but this is one facet of life they've gotten right. The church year is divided into liturgical seasons, each with its allotted time, purpose and flavor. This past Sunday marked both the beginning of the church year and the start of the season of Advent -- four Sundays of thoughtful and prayerful preparation before Christmas -- NOT to be confused with the 20+ remaining shopping days.
We all know that our American Christmas celebration (or holiday season, if you prefer) has become an orgiastic exercise in decorating/buying/giving/singing/partying that has little to do with any religious celebration. In fact, any religious connection is officially and vehemently prohibited by all levels of government -- rightly or wrongly. Just as the ancient winter solstice celebration was co-opted by the Christian Christmas, that season of celebration has been twisted and tortured into the Festival of Spending and Santa so dear to our national heart.
Our calendars are so filled with activities this time of year that by necessity we begin to celebrate "Christmas" immediately after Thanksgiving in order to fit everything in...(and Thanksgiving tumbled into our lives still dressed in Halloween costume, which fell into our laps right after Labor Day, which exploded from the sky the fifth of July, which was still colored red, white and blue from Memorial Day, when we were still eating leftover Cadbury bunny eggs....). To be sure, this frantic pace is fueled by retail marketing and a ravenous economy, but we fall in line like the good little credit-card-wielding robots we all are... and whatever meaning each holiday contains is reverenced for a full five minutes before we turn to the next. (Does the "day after Christmas sale beginning at 5 a.m." OR "buy a new car for the New Year" ring a chime with you?) In traditional terms, there really ARE 12 days of Christmas, 40 days of Lent, 50 days of Easter, and these four beautiful weeks of Advent.
To my knowledge, every major world religion -- and most of the contemporary, trendy feel-good, I-love-ME spirituality/pseudo-philosophies -- center around or at least include in their practice some form of meditation, contemplation, prayer or thoughtful silence. Whether these movements encourage union with an Other, with the "universe," with our own subconscious or linty little navel, the purpose is certainly to withdraw for a time FROM time and reflect on Someone/something deeper than the hamster wheel that is our life.
Short-term and long-term memory differ greatly in physiologic function and results and are still under investigation. My friend Wikipedia has a few interesting things to say about it HERE.
Briefly, short-term memory, our "working" memory, has very limited capacity and really IS short in duration (under a minute). It is used as both a collection point for new data and the retrieval mechanism for old data. Long-term memory requires "the process of rehearsal and meaningful association." In other words, we need to both anticipate an event then reflect on our experience of it in order to preserve it.
In my view, we have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to "live in the now" that we've lost touch with the thrill of anticipating the future. We're so eager to turn to the next event that we rarely have time to savor what we just experienced. We've come to rely on home video and thousands of photos to serve as our memories, instead of letting each lovely minute gently build a permanent mosaic of sight, sound, scent and scene -- with those stories of remembrance passed on to succeeding generations. Instead of creating that permanent mosaic, however, we're settling for a kaleidoscope of fleeting impressions that will fade all too soon, leaving only a flicker of colored light behind.
This refusal to anticipate and reflect doesn't apply to only the celebrations of our American culture but also to our refusal to learn from history -- to think that we are each inventing ourselves, our life, moment by moment, disassociated from anything previous and giving nothing to those who toddle in our footsteps. I see our culture as trying to consciously break its bonds with our collective past and unkown, risky future in favor of the new and the now.
One of the most obvious and hackle-raising cliches from the sixties is "stop and smell the roses." Even Ringo Starr sang (badly) about it HERE. It may be the phrase with the most overworked 20 letters in the English language, but it also contains one of the most powerful and enduring concepts of our human past and future.
So...happy Advent. Stop and smell the pine, the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, and think for a minute (or hour) what this season may mean to you. Slow down your own little hamster wheel and remember past holidays -- the good and the bad of them -- and anticipate whatever joy you expect to find in this one to come.
I'm forced by my family's calendars to celebrate an early grandkids' Christmas party this Friday, but I promise I'm putting away my hamster wheel just as soon as those dishes are done.
Only warp speed will do for us in every instance, and our impatience has warped our relationship to natural time. Do these sound familiar?
- Internet connections - fast, faster, fastest, please.
- Immediate communication by texting, faxing, phoning, emailing.
- Global jet travel in a day.
- Overnight delivery service to/from anywhere.
- Drive-through coffee, meals, laundry, funeral homes and churches.
- "Slow" lanes of traffic racing at 75 mph.
- Digital technology displaying photos in one nanosecond.
- Instant music via downloads, instant Googled information on any subject, instant location via GPS.
- "Vacations" that take us to 7 countries in 10 days and leave us confused, lagged, exhausted (and broke).
I have to wonder how much of the beauty and wonder of Life we miss by living at this breakneck pace. How can we savor the joy or learn from the pain of each experience if we've moved onto the next before we've reflected on and assimilated THIS one?
Certainly in America we've reduced the pleasure of sweet anticipation to a flash and a flurry of to-do lists. Actually, in the case of the Christmas season, we've become so impatient that the celebration itself pre-empts the time of anticipation.
I've done my share of complaining about the Catholic church (notably HERE), but this is one facet of life they've gotten right. The church year is divided into liturgical seasons, each with its allotted time, purpose and flavor. This past Sunday marked both the beginning of the church year and the start of the season of Advent -- four Sundays of thoughtful and prayerful preparation before Christmas -- NOT to be confused with the 20+ remaining shopping days.
We all know that our American Christmas celebration (or holiday season, if you prefer) has become an orgiastic exercise in decorating/buying/giving/singing/partying that has little to do with any religious celebration. In fact, any religious connection is officially and vehemently prohibited by all levels of government -- rightly or wrongly. Just as the ancient winter solstice celebration was co-opted by the Christian Christmas, that season of celebration has been twisted and tortured into the Festival of Spending and Santa so dear to our national heart.
Our calendars are so filled with activities this time of year that by necessity we begin to celebrate "Christmas" immediately after Thanksgiving in order to fit everything in...(and Thanksgiving tumbled into our lives still dressed in Halloween costume, which fell into our laps right after Labor Day, which exploded from the sky the fifth of July, which was still colored red, white and blue from Memorial Day, when we were still eating leftover Cadbury bunny eggs....). To be sure, this frantic pace is fueled by retail marketing and a ravenous economy, but we fall in line like the good little credit-card-wielding robots we all are... and whatever meaning each holiday contains is reverenced for a full five minutes before we turn to the next. (Does the "day after Christmas sale beginning at 5 a.m." OR "buy a new car for the New Year" ring a chime with you?) In traditional terms, there really ARE 12 days of Christmas, 40 days of Lent, 50 days of Easter, and these four beautiful weeks of Advent.
To my knowledge, every major world religion -- and most of the contemporary, trendy feel-good, I-love-ME spirituality/pseudo-philosophies -- center around or at least include in their practice some form of meditation, contemplation, prayer or thoughtful silence. Whether these movements encourage union with an Other, with the "universe," with our own subconscious or linty little navel, the purpose is certainly to withdraw for a time FROM time and reflect on Someone/something deeper than the hamster wheel that is our life.
Short-term and long-term memory differ greatly in physiologic function and results and are still under investigation. My friend Wikipedia has a few interesting things to say about it HERE.
Briefly, short-term memory, our "working" memory, has very limited capacity and really IS short in duration (under a minute). It is used as both a collection point for new data and the retrieval mechanism for old data. Long-term memory requires "the process of rehearsal and meaningful association." In other words, we need to both anticipate an event then reflect on our experience of it in order to preserve it.
In my view, we have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to "live in the now" that we've lost touch with the thrill of anticipating the future. We're so eager to turn to the next event that we rarely have time to savor what we just experienced. We've come to rely on home video and thousands of photos to serve as our memories, instead of letting each lovely minute gently build a permanent mosaic of sight, sound, scent and scene -- with those stories of remembrance passed on to succeeding generations. Instead of creating that permanent mosaic, however, we're settling for a kaleidoscope of fleeting impressions that will fade all too soon, leaving only a flicker of colored light behind.
This refusal to anticipate and reflect doesn't apply to only the celebrations of our American culture but also to our refusal to learn from history -- to think that we are each inventing ourselves, our life, moment by moment, disassociated from anything previous and giving nothing to those who toddle in our footsteps. I see our culture as trying to consciously break its bonds with our collective past and unkown, risky future in favor of the new and the now.
One of the most obvious and hackle-raising cliches from the sixties is "stop and smell the roses." Even Ringo Starr sang (badly) about it HERE. It may be the phrase with the most overworked 20 letters in the English language, but it also contains one of the most powerful and enduring concepts of our human past and future.
So...happy Advent. Stop and smell the pine, the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, and think for a minute (or hour) what this season may mean to you. Slow down your own little hamster wheel and remember past holidays -- the good and the bad of them -- and anticipate whatever joy you expect to find in this one to come.
I'm forced by my family's calendars to celebrate an early grandkids' Christmas party this Friday, but I promise I'm putting away my hamster wheel just as soon as those dishes are done.
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