Where are you from?
As an advertising copywriter for over 20 years, I pay attention to trends in language. Like their companions, fashion color palettes and new typefaces, phrases come in and out of fashion too, reflecting the culture of the moment as surely as the latest pop hit. Allow me to elaborate.
Headlines and taglines in the 70s reflected changing sexual politics (“You’ve come a long way, baby”) with no attempt at subtlety. The women’s movement was vocal and extroverted and the language of advertising of the times followed suit. (And a unisex suit, it was. Remember ‘unisex’? You do? Welcome to my age bracket.)
In the eighties, as the economy strengthened and all those women-in-the-workplace brought those nifty second incomes into the average American home, our culture shifted into acquisition mode. Dallas and Dynasty showed us how the rich lived. Ralph Lauren showed us how the rich dressed. He catered perfectly to our middle-class desire to acquire but also understood our middle-class insecurity about getting it ‘right.’ His answer was the polo/chino uniform that endures to this day. Everything about it screams safety before style.
The phrase that best addressed the Acquisition Anxiety of the 80s was “simple elegance” – perhaps the two most overused words in the history of lazy description. Every hotel was "simply elegant," every meal, all decor, all "simply elegant." Or sometimes, "elegantly simple." 'Simple elegance' deflected any critique of pretension and eased the transition of ‘simple’ folk to the elegant lifestyle. You won't be uncomfortable in our swank hotel. It's simple. Why get all worked up about dressing well, acting well, being cultured? The gods were willing to come down the mountain because we had money. And with that, the last breath of striving to be like our betters gasped and died.
Of course, once we’d all arrived, we felt crowded by all the other people who’d arrived with us. So in the 90s, it wasn’t so much a matter of keeping up with the Jones’, as it was differentiating ourselves from them. In direct reaction to the homogenization of the American mallscape came the magic phrase “one at a time.” Now, the more your banker/broker/insurance agent looked just like the one down the street, the harder each strove to assure you that you would be treated as an individual.
And boy, did that work. We all got so much individual attention we came to expect it in everything…ushering in the age of customization. Enabled, of course, by the internet.
The birth cry of the internet was “I can find everything.” But it quickly morphed into “I can find only what I want/need.” This switch was accomplished almost solely by the invention of Google. Don’t believe me? Open an MSN or AOL page – those famous fighting “portals”-- and watch the pop- ups compete for your attention. These ‘information providers’ are desperate to be your arbiter of all things worth paying attention to in a world where ‘all things’ is an endless, overwhelming reality.
By contrast, the spare calm of Google says “You know what you want. Tell us. We’ll go get it.” 180º difference. We self-customizers know how to pinpoint our infoneeds -- don't tell us what we don't want to know.
So what’s next?
Origin, Accountability, Provenance. Think about it.
The internet is an open-access source of information. Now that we no longer rely on ‘experts’ for our information (thanks to Wikipedia) or professionals for our entertainment (thanks to YouTube) how do we know if anything is accurate or true? When a phishing web page looks exactly like your bank’s webpage – how do you know?
Doubt is the hobgoblin of a democratic information system. So the next phase is all about accountability. About I am who I say I am. And I can prove it.
Your steak’s name was Bessie, a certified Angus breed. Your e-coli-free salad was washed by Juan, who is certified to use antibacterial soap 40 times an hour. Chance hasn’t got a chance in the next phase.
Consumers will look to brand communications for info on what’s in and what’s not in the products they seek, how those products were derived (cruelty-free? paraben-free?) and how genuinely the company cares about making things well vs. making a buck. Those that go transparent will win the trust and the dollars of their audience.
Those that don’t? Hang in there. With all this exhausting disclosure, mystery is bound to be the next big thing.
Headlines and taglines in the 70s reflected changing sexual politics (“You’ve come a long way, baby”) with no attempt at subtlety. The women’s movement was vocal and extroverted and the language of advertising of the times followed suit. (And a unisex suit, it was. Remember ‘unisex’? You do? Welcome to my age bracket.)
In the eighties, as the economy strengthened and all those women-in-the-workplace brought those nifty second incomes into the average American home, our culture shifted into acquisition mode. Dallas and Dynasty showed us how the rich lived. Ralph Lauren showed us how the rich dressed. He catered perfectly to our middle-class desire to acquire but also understood our middle-class insecurity about getting it ‘right.’ His answer was the polo/chino uniform that endures to this day. Everything about it screams safety before style.
The phrase that best addressed the Acquisition Anxiety of the 80s was “simple elegance” – perhaps the two most overused words in the history of lazy description. Every hotel was "simply elegant," every meal, all decor, all "simply elegant." Or sometimes, "elegantly simple." 'Simple elegance' deflected any critique of pretension and eased the transition of ‘simple’ folk to the elegant lifestyle. You won't be uncomfortable in our swank hotel. It's simple. Why get all worked up about dressing well, acting well, being cultured? The gods were willing to come down the mountain because we had money. And with that, the last breath of striving to be like our betters gasped and died.
Of course, once we’d all arrived, we felt crowded by all the other people who’d arrived with us. So in the 90s, it wasn’t so much a matter of keeping up with the Jones’, as it was differentiating ourselves from them. In direct reaction to the homogenization of the American mallscape came the magic phrase “one at a time.” Now, the more your banker/broker/insurance agent looked just like the one down the street, the harder each strove to assure you that you would be treated as an individual.
And boy, did that work. We all got so much individual attention we came to expect it in everything…ushering in the age of customization. Enabled, of course, by the internet.
The birth cry of the internet was “I can find everything.” But it quickly morphed into “I can find only what I want/need.” This switch was accomplished almost solely by the invention of Google. Don’t believe me? Open an MSN or AOL page – those famous fighting “portals”-- and watch the pop- ups compete for your attention. These ‘information providers’ are desperate to be your arbiter of all things worth paying attention to in a world where ‘all things’ is an endless, overwhelming reality.
By contrast, the spare calm of Google says “You know what you want. Tell us. We’ll go get it.” 180º difference. We self-customizers know how to pinpoint our infoneeds -- don't tell us what we don't want to know.
So what’s next?
Origin, Accountability, Provenance. Think about it.
The internet is an open-access source of information. Now that we no longer rely on ‘experts’ for our information (thanks to Wikipedia) or professionals for our entertainment (thanks to YouTube) how do we know if anything is accurate or true? When a phishing web page looks exactly like your bank’s webpage – how do you know?
Doubt is the hobgoblin of a democratic information system. So the next phase is all about accountability. About I am who I say I am. And I can prove it.
Your steak’s name was Bessie, a certified Angus breed. Your e-coli-free salad was washed by Juan, who is certified to use antibacterial soap 40 times an hour. Chance hasn’t got a chance in the next phase.
Consumers will look to brand communications for info on what’s in and what’s not in the products they seek, how those products were derived (cruelty-free? paraben-free?) and how genuinely the company cares about making things well vs. making a buck. Those that go transparent will win the trust and the dollars of their audience.
Those that don’t? Hang in there. With all this exhausting disclosure, mystery is bound to be the next big thing.
posted by Whoopla at
12:30 PM
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