The Creation of Corporate America

Re-Imagining Consumers

In her book Imaging Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to
Corning, Regina Lee Blaszczyk describes the creation of market
research. Rather than coercing consumers, the manufactures in this
book wanted to design products that Americans truly wanted. In trying
to determine preferences from dishware to bathroom fixtures, companies
researched who their consumers were and imagined what may draw them
in. This led manufactures to see the buying power of women for the
first time.

In their roles as wives and mothers women did 80% of the household
shopping in the early 20th Century. (Blaszczyk, pp. 130) Companies
began catering to women and respecting their needs, altering their
products around tastes, necessity, and popular design. Blaszczyk’s
imagined consumers were women who had the power to make or break a
product.

Despite the power which was put in the hands of women through the
market, this shift was not a step in the right direction for women.
Women did a majority of the household buying during the time period
explored by Blaszczyk because they could not fill other roles beyond
the home. But this idea of woman as sole buyer has become so engrained
in the American consciousness that it has not changed for a century.
Even though women have moved outside the home they are shown as the
sole contributors to domestic buying. In modern ads women are the only
people in the grocery store, using Clorox wipes, dusting with the
Swiffer, packing children’s lunches, or cooking. After all, choosy
Moms choose JIF. What about choosy Dads?

This assumption puts an undue burden of responsibility on women and
forces them into being the errand runners. These ads reinforce
negative stereotypes about who the modern woman is and what her
priorities are. Surely modern market research shows that these sorts
of domestic tasks are shared. I think that modern corporations need to
imagine a new consumer.

Rebirth of a Salesman

Walter A Friedman’s Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America tells the story of the creation of a unique sales force within the US. Friedman lays out how a standardized salesman was established throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century who used tactics of repetition, intensity, and association to create a market for specialty products. (pp. 175) Salesman not only provided supply where demand existed, they also created demand where none existed before. In this way American consumerism was born.

The door-to-door salesman described by Friedman is no longer a reality in America. In our modern economy they have been made obsolete by a booming population and increased access to consumer goods for even the most secluded of places. Additionally, cultural changes have occurred making it unlikely that any contemporary American would allow a strange man into their home.

Despite these setbacks, the strategies which have been perfected over the last hundred years were not allowed to go by the wayside, and though they no longer knock on our doors, this kind of salesmen still exists. The exact tactics and methods laid out in Birth of a Salesman are still alive and well in infomercials.

Though technically an advertisement, infomercials are more like mini sales pitches. All of the same tactics and pitfalls of their sales predecessors are there. Much like door-to-door salesman they petal specialty products which may be overlooked in major department stores through “direct selling.” (pp. 201) Infomercials have a standard format; opening with a scene of some everyday task, the seller attempts to create an association with the buyer’s life. In showing how their product can make this task easier or supply a better outcome they are creating demand. Intensity in voice and body language and repetition of product names are heavily used by infomercial peddlers. Demonstration, paying in installments, and premium giveaways of additional products were all invented by the door-to-door salesman.

But beyond selling strategies, the two are also linked by buyers’ skepticism towards them.  Canvassers who moved throughout the country were often seen as scammers during the rise of salesman. Similarly, the infomercial products are frequently thought of as hoaxes and the people who buy them as dupes. Traveling salesman tried to combat these negative stereotypes by associating themselves with a trusted brand name or through user’s positive reviews.  Brand name connection can be seen with Billy Mays who, before his recent death, earned credibility by personally testing the products and being selective about which products he agreed to pitch. Mays himself became a trusted brand name for infomercial sales. Taking the other approach, many recent infomercials have begun taking to the streets with their products to document “real” reactions. Though likely staged, this is a grab at legitimacy by attempting to recreate the buyer’s reviews used by traditional salesman.

In this way door-to-door salesmen are still alive and well. Though we stopped opening our doors to them, we still allow them into our homes through television. The same standardized sales tactics were able to survive.

Economic Power in Illegal Business

The tide is finally starting to turn in America’s war on drugs.  And who do we have to thank for it? These people:

Law enforcement agents who patrol the border between Mexico and California say that sales are down for drug traffickers.  Not because of decreased demand, but because small scale Mom and Pop pot growers in California are taking their customers. For decades the war on drugs has gotten us nowhere. Despite increased man hours and funds devoted to anti-narcotic efforts smugglers have still been able to bring drugs into the US. At the same time drug related violence continued to escalate on both sides of the border. 

But since California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, many average people have taken up the call to become growers. And why not? For an investment of $100 it is possible to turn a profit of $9,000. Beyond that the product created by domestic growers is more potent, higher quality, and more expensive than the traditional Mexican strains. The higher quality US strains have become the new market standard for quality.  This increase in competition has not only hurt sales, sending the cartels scrambling for money and customers, it has hurt the other main aspect of the drug trafficking business: violence. For the first time ever, money is a problem for drug dealers.  Without being able to guarantee profits there is less liquid capital to invest in weapons. For the moment violence is on a down swing.

The legalization of medical marijuana in California has been more successful at decreasing drug trafficking than any administration since Nixon, who first committed the US to the “War on Drugs” in 1969.

This shows you that even on the black market, traditional market forces matter. We should not look at issues like drug trafficking which have a huge economic component as purely social or legal problems. Perhaps the best combatant of corruption is competition.

Looks like Nancy Botwin has some competition heading her way.  

The Best Things In Life Are Free, But You Can Give Them To The Birds and Bees. I Want Money.

 The movies Wall Street (1985) and Boiler Room (2000) tell similar tales. In each a wet behind the ears stock broker seeks fast money while striving for the approval of his father.  Despite these plot similarities, the conflicts between the lead characters of each film and their fathers illustrate the changes in the perception of business and Wall Street from 1985 to 2000.

In the world of 1985 Bud Fox is lured into insider trading deals by the slick haired Gordon Gekko.  Despite his shady dealings, Gekko is a well known business man on Wall Street, even appearing on the cover of Fortune magazine. Yet Bud’s father is still not impressed.  He does not care about the size or prestige of the firm where his son works, he is more upset by the fact that Bud doesn’t work with his hands for a living. As an airline mechanic he can’t understand how his son is earning a living pushing paper.  Though he is disappointed with the insider trading Bud becomes a part of, he is unsupportive of his son’s line of work long before it becomes illegal.  For Wall Street the moral isn’t just that there is no any honor in fast money, it’s that there is no any honor in corporate work.

In 2000 Boiler Room has a different world view. Seth’s father is fine with the fact that his son isn’t working in a service job, in fact he likely would have considered that just as disappointing as his time at JT Marlin. For him it isn’t that Seth is working in the corporate world, it’s that he isn’t working for the right kind of firm within that world.  The question changes from “Why not labor work?” to “Why not JP Morgan?” So the moral lesson of Boiler Room is there is no honor in fast money that is obtained in the wrong kind of way. Corporate work and corporate greed, within certain parameters, is fine.

We will have to see how the lesson changes again in Oliver Stone’s upcoming sequel Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps which is currently shooting in New York City.

Fighting Tooth and Nail Polish: Revson, Rubinstein, and Arden

One of the key businessmen featured by Richard S. Tedlow in his book Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires they Built is Charles Revson, the creator of Revlon.  Revson is chosen for his influence on the art of consumer marketing. Tedlow holds that Revson was the first person to market beauty products to women in a way which sold luxury and moved the product away from its less than savory connections to prostitution. By taking these unique approaches in advertising Revson forever shaped the world of advertising.

 To this I would have to disagree.

The beauty industry was already an established and respected market before Charles Revson entered the scene in 1932. Women had been purchasing creams and concealers since the 1910s. Even though makeup of this time remained much closer to the natural face it still shows that the beauty market was already well established and removed from ideas of “painted women.” Revson’s advertisements and alleged market innovations did not spur the legitimacy of beauty products.

The strategies of selling fantasy and luxury were not unique to Revson either. Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden both used these techniques in selling their products and salons.  In 1915 Arden introduced the idea of the makeover in her salons, selling the fantasy of being treated like a Queen in the lap of luxury. A 1920s Arden ad announces a new line of makeup called simply “Royal Makeup” which is a clear use of the kinds of advertising Revson is said to have invented. Rubinstein was also selling luxury with her product lines. Already an international figure when Revson came on the scene, Rubinstein’s packaging and advertisements connected her product to old world glamour. Her branding techniques played on fantasy – perhaps best exhibited through the style in which she launched her fragrance “Heaven Sent.”  Packaged in angel shaped bottles, Rubinstein had samples of the fragrance placed into baskets attached to pastel balloons which were lowered from the roof of her salon on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  This sort of creativity from his competitors certainly pushed Revson’s advertising strategies; strategies which Tedlow depicted as created in isolation from the rest of the market.

Had Tedlow stated that Revson expanded these luxury advertising techniques to include a broader audience I would have agreed.  But he overplays his hand in making Revson out to be the Founding Father of fantasy and luxury for cosmetic advertising.

Interested in learning more about Arden and Rubenstein? Check your local listings for PBS’ Special The Powder and the Glory which chronicles the life and times of two of America’s first female entrepreneurs.