Tricked (once more) | Seth’s Weblog

In the event you knew then what now, would you’ve got made the identical resolution?

Within the final fifty years, greater than 25,000,000 People have died prematurely because of cigarette smoking. Worldwide, it’s considerably greater. That’s fifty instances as many U.S. residents as died in World Struggle II.

How did cigarette entrepreneurs handle to maintain promoting their product for many years as soon as the hazard was identified? And can we see what number of industries use this playbook to promote us on actions which might be towards our pursuits?

The important thing drivers of widespread advertising influence are standing and affiliation.

The standing of doing what James Dean or one other film star did in a film. The standing of a rock star or a spy.

Girls didn’t smoke a lot in public till a well-publicized stunt had society ladies inflicting a scandal by smoking whereas strolling within the Easter Day parade on Fifth Ave. in New York. It shouldn’t work, however it does. Standing cues.

And affiliation? Peer strain, the liberty of the Marlboro Man, the social necessities created by the high-status people who required it… No teenager desires to be left behind by their friends.

The identical factor occurred with the seemingly much less deadly but in addition costly meme of a diamond engagement ring. Utilizing comparable ways, DeBeers created standing expectations and cultural requirements that pushed folks to spend billions of {dollars} on small rocks.

And, surprisingly, once more with fuel stoves. I acquired tricked by this, as did tens of millions of others. Strolling away from the affiliation of what our mother and father did (these spiral electrical heating components) to the facility and standing of a fuel range that appeared proper out of Prometheus.

In fact, conventional diamond mining is brutal, harmful and soiled. And we now know, and have identified for a very long time, that fuel stoves in a kitchen or house are needlessly harmful, notably to kids and others that breathe.

And but we resist! We don’t wish to surrender that factor that’s a part of our identification, that we grew up with or aspire to accumulate. It doesn’t actually matter that there are elegant and delightful alternate options to the stones, or that an induction cooktop works even higher than fuel. It’s the story and the way in which it was bought to us (they hustled Bob Hope’s writers to provide him jokes the place the punchline was “now we’re cooking with fuel”).

The established order is resilient. Nearly everybody within the jewellery enterprise or the equipment enterprise will do advantageous (even perhaps higher) if we swap. Except you personal a diamond mine or a pipeline firm, switching to a extra resilient, safer and kinder different might be good for enterprise.

However the tales persist. The tales about standing, about affiliation and the chance of the brand new.

Extra: Fuel, Diamonds, The Easter Parade

September 15, 2023