Determining how to distinguish one product from its competitors is the marketer’s quintessential dilemma. It is a struggle for consumers to choose from an endless array of products and determine which is truly best. If there was a shortcut to this experimentation, we’d all rush to learn the secret. Harry Beckwith relies on this impulse in his “Unthinking: The Surprising Forces Behind What We Buy.”
Beckwith, a master marketer whose biographical list of accolades is intended to present him as both an experienced expert and just “one of the guys,” contends that this study will unmask the mystery of American consumerism. To do this, he relies heavily on an undergraduate understanding of history and cultural studies as well as a litany of popular culture and headline-grabbing business exemplars to guide his way.
According to Beckwith, three forces divine our sales and purchasing decisions — conceptions and memories of childhood, notions of American cultural identity and our natural aesthetic preferences.
The basic scenario for each section is rather obvious and none more than the appeal to childhood, a time which we reminisce to have been filled with idealized sunny days. He points out that some of our most successful current products reference these times. They come in toy-like shapes (the Mini Cooper, VW’s next generation bug, the iMac), in candy-bright colors (as seen in iPhone app icons and in the decor and uniforms of T.G.I.Fridays). They tell us fun stories (J. Peterman’s erstwhile catalogs, Nike’s founding story), appeal to our sense of gaming and play (eBay, Angry Birds) or grab us with fun-sounding names (Yahoo or the catchy Ben & Jerry’s ice creams).
He notes, but essentially disregards, the failures (J. Peterman, Yahoo’s current troubles) or alternate reasons for successes (VW’s improved engines and mechanics, the iPhone’s operative potential and role as a category buster) and focuses instead on the fun side of success in these cases.
The same could be said for the section on American culture — its very inclusion placed here as a direct appeal for our patriotic desire to represent the best of our nation. This includes an American desire to be happy (USA Today’s relentlessly upbeat news, Target’s over-smiling models) and a desire to both stand out (body art, customized license plates) and to fit in (Panera’s strategy of free wifi filling tables, indicating popularity, therefore bringing in more diners).
Borrowing a page from both Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American desire for association as well as from Malcolm Gladwell’s copious essays, he warps the intent and dilutes the depth of both men to present a familiarity continuum theory to explain it all.
Once again, this is an easily documented trend and one with which we can’t argue, but it is usually caused by myriad other reasons. Explaining all such cases as typically American trends sounds more like an excuse a failing CEO might make to share holders than an inevitable part of our society.
Not surprisingly, Beckwith’s description of aesthetics is similarly simple as he boils down our preferences for things circular, symmetrical and clearly presented with certain colors indicating particular meanings. He goes through our love of the familiar and disdain for the new in design (using Hostess’s market loss after changing the Twinkie box as a warning symbol) and our trust in authority (leading to vitaminwater’s use of medicinal-looking labels). Once again, nothing new here. As in other sections, for each example given, an astute reader can find a counter trend.
Like any good futurist, Beckwith has a gift for predicting the past then using this inconclusive Monday-morning quarterbacking as a trick of the wrist to fill out the pages of this book. The volume may not prove Beckwith a great mind nor endear him as a potential adviser, but it does beautifully showcase his strength as a marketer. Through it all, he applies layers of smoke and mirrors as he cajoles the uncritical reader into agreeing with his analysis. And if we do, he proves his very title: If willing to buy into his theories, we are truly unthinking.
Adera Causey is curator of education at the Hunter Museum of American Art.