The algorithms that connect visits to various internet sites, personal information about internet purchases, and all other forms of data relevant to selling me products seem to have reached certain conclusions about me. They believe I love Ledbury, luxury men's watches, books about Rome and the Nazis, and the movies of Kar Wai Wong. They also believe I want the luxury clothes at bargain prices (I'm not going to link that because if you click it the site will send you emails everyday). This is interesting in that it is partially correct - they got Rome, Nazis, and Kar Wai Wong right. Presumably anyone in possession of these algorithms, or with sufficient knowledge of the principles that apply, could use that information to make deductions about me. It would be simpler to just read this but more labour intensive and probably less boring.
Let's say I really did love Ledbury and bought all my clothes through their service. How would that make more money for the company that kept the ads popping up on my computer, or made sure I got regular email updates more money that for Ledbury itself? This was the substance of my last post on this subject.
Naomi Klein (I just skewed my results by searching Amazon to check the spelling of her last name) wrote a great deal about the revolution in business philosophy in the last decades of the last century wherein companies underwent a paradigm shift. No longer would they sell actual things, now they would be the purveyors of lifestyle and identity. One of the earliest, and most successful, converts to this new paradigm was Apple. And they have been massively successful making Macs and iPhones the must-have accessories. They became objects that defined a person as design oriented and tech-savvy. They were components of the identity everyone was trained to want. Had someone explained this paradigm shift to me before it happened and asked me for companies which could successfully apply it Apple would have been one of the first I to come to mind. It has a very limited range of products, they are much more expensive than their competitors, they are also beautifully designed and maintain a consistent design aesthetic. This paradigm obviously doesn't work for giant steel foundries or oil companies (for different reasons).
This idea of selling lifestyle is a partial explanation for why a company like Burberry (founded by a drapers assistant to sell outdoor clothing) now sells watches. Or why someone might think it a good idea to purchase a fragrance from Ferrari - as though the ability to build beautiful and very fast cars had anything to do with perfumery.
I'm going to reference another William Gibson character, Cayce Pollard from Pattern Recognition, who has an allergy to branding. What makes Cayce interesting as a type is she is not alone. There are many people who want what she wants - to buy jeans from a company that makes jeans, t-shirts from a company that makes t-shirts, a jacket from Japanese Otaku who obsessively recreate what they consider the Platonic ideal of a men's jacket. I wish I could have my shoes made by a cobbler, my shirts and jackets by a tailer but that takes more money than I have. I have only ever driven Ford cars, in part because my father worked at Ford - so long ago he still calls it Ford's because at that time it was owned and operated by Mr. Ford - and partly because there is no Ford fragrance or watch or clothing line.
In my earlier post on advertising I discussed it mainly from the perspective of technologists and I think it is odd that technologists don't recognize the bigger picture re the influence of advertising. Thinking in terms of graphs, the most common shape in tech products and tech phenomenon is a slow increase, followed by an exponential leap upwards, finished with a levelling off (or a return to zero). When iPhones came out Apple's share of the cellular market shot up like a rocket, creating the familiar beginning of the shape, then it started hitting friction (from terrible reviews, product failures, market competition) and it levelled off and finally started dropping again. This happens, so I am told, with all things tech. A virus is released and it starts to contaminate computers, the contamination spread (increasing exponentially until it looks like it will crash the entire internet) and then it hits friction (fixes, warnings, cures) and then it drops dramatically (almost to nothing). Remember Y2K? Early warning, spreading alarm, global awareness and some panic, then nothing. Advertising by compiling personal information is already following the same figure.
When companies started compiling data for the purposes of mining (and it wasn't started by Facebook but by reward programs like AirMiles) the initial growth was slow, then the big players entered the picture (Amazon, Google, Facebook) and people started screaming about the internet controlling every aspect of our lives, and now friction is appearing. I am one tiny fraction of that friction and so, I suspect, are you. I do not want to live the Burberry lifestyle (cruising the heath in my luxury SUV for picnics in my over-priced outerwear). I do not want any lifestyle. Yes, I did just buy a new MacBook but mostly out of resistance to change (and my appreciation of their aesthetic) rather than as a lifestyle decision.
I recently bought a new tie. There's some exciting news! The point is, given the option between two ties that looked almost identical I chose to pay more for one made by a company that offers its employees benefits. That is their advertising - we don't exploit our employees as much as other tie companies. I wish I hadn't because I subsequently found a company based here in Toronto that makes ties by hand - just a couple of people with sewing machines. And I found out about that because someone told me, there was no advertising involved.
When I have the option I buy books from local stores with almost no internet presence. I only resort to Amazon or Alibris if I can't find the book in a real store. This is not a matter of trying to preserve local jobs - although that is a useful side benefit - it is friction against the internets mechanisms for selling me shit.
This friction against the application of information profiling in advertising is going to continue to build. It has to. All identity (and remember that is what companies are and have been selling for the last three decades) has, at its base, the personal. I am the person who buys this identity. It might be packaged and sold to me but, ultimately, it must be mine. And the more successful the strategy is the more it becomes self-defeating. I cannot inhabit the identity I purchase if too many people are already using it. It no longer serves to differentiate me from the person I was, from you, from everyone else. It no longer brings me closer to the person I saw in the ad. The identity I was sold has been watered down until it no longer constitutes an identity. We saw this with the final stages of hipsterism, although what almost every commentator about hipsters and hipsterism failed to recognize what that it was a self-conscious loss of self that made the prospect attractive. Hipsters weren't looking for an identity, they were luxuriating in the lack of one. I think they were the early warning signs that companies had better start concentrating on selling things again.
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