I'm not always very good at noticing the nuances in life. My friends kid me when I say a glass of wine is fine, while they all insist it smells of cork. Similarly, whenever I see a label that says "New & Improved" or "Great New Taste," whether it be for chewing gum or toothpaste or shampoo, I can never tell the difference between the old version and the "New & Improved" one. It's kind of embarrassing, really. If I wasn't such a trusting consumer, I might suspect that the only thing that's new is the packaging.
But I don't want to cast doubt on the dedicated researchers in the chewing gum laboratory who work year-in and year-out so that I can always look forward to an even better chewing experience. It must be terribly challenging and stressful to have to come up with an improved formula every year. Funny... I've never met anyone who works in "chewing gum flavor retention research." Have you?
Of course, some things -- like mobile phones -- are advancing so rapidly that they really do seem to change every six months. Therefore mobile phone advertisers have an easy job; the phones practically sell themselves. But shampoo? How many improvements can you make to shampoo?
Advertisers in other industries have their own variations for attracting new customers. Automobiles are not totally redesigned each year; the costs would simply be too high. So after a totally new model is introduced, it is given a slight make-over each year, possibly consisting of new bumpers, a new grille, or a new color scheme and called a Special Edition, named after some currently-touring rock & roll band.
What all advertisers know is that we finicky consumers always want something new and different. "Drive a car that's more than two years old? Ha!" "Buy a toothpaste whose formula hasn't been changed since 2003? No way!"
The truth is, advertisers have quite a challenging job: To convince us to buy things that we don't need. But advertisers are people too, and since they occasionally suffer from "creative block" (don't we all?), they can use all the help they can get when it comes to inventing new reasons for us to buy their products.
Some clever people somewhere, well aware of this state of affairs, came up with the idea of creating artificial or repetitive events: Each event is a new "call to action" to consumers. And with time, we consumers get used to these events, and some of us even start to look forward to them.
For example, advertisers just love public holidays. No holiday is too small or too insignificant to promote it as an occasion to buy something for someone. It isn't enough to use the occasions of Mother's Day, Father's Day, or Grandparent's Day to show our love and appreciation to those special people in our lives. Have you ever seen a commercial that suggests helping Mom or Dad clean out the attic? Of course not. The subtle suggestion is more like: "Buy something for Mom or Dad... and for heaven's sake buy it from us!"
Then there are those somewhat dubious holidays like Secretary's Day, National Boss Day, and Milkman's Day, where it's never been proven beyond reasonable doubt that these holidays weren't actually created by advertisers in the first place. Chalk up three more yearly advertising events on the increasingly crowded holiday (i.e. buy something!) calendar...
But without a doubt, the most clever advertisers are those in the fashion industry, where we're told that changes in style -- and therefore reasons to buy -- come four times a year. You have to hand it to them. They have invested huge sums of money in their indoctrination campaigns, but it has paid off: They have managed to convince our entire society that we need to buy new clothes four times a year. They've taken a process that couldn't be more natural -- the changing of seasons -- and twisted it and manipulated it to force us to buy new clothes. These people are brilliant!
Not only are there four different fashion periods per year, but the clothes that are very cool this spring will most definately not be cool next spring -- with the possible exception of black clothes. (Black has become my favorite color, for precisely this reason.)
Yes, Mother Nature has four seasons, and for Her, it's not passé to display the same colors each and every spring. I for one never get tired of seeing the same set of colors in nature every spring, and another set of colors every autumn. (But then you've probably already figured out how much of a slave to fashion I am.) The next time someone tells me that my jacket's color scheme is 10 years old, I'll tell her (yes, in 99% of the cases it is a "her") that I'm just mimicking Mother Nature. (Although I will be secretly impressed that she still remembers what the "in" colors were 10 years ago.)
It can only be a matter of time before advertisers in other industries catch on to this masterstroke of the fashion industry and apply it to their own domains. Therefore I expect it won't be long before we get toothpastes that are specially targeted for each season. And as with products in the fashion industry, color will play an important role: In spring I expect some bright colors of blooming flowers, while in winter we'll probably get the tans and browns of dead leaves, with maybe a little evergreen thrown in for contrast. Maybe they'll coordinate their efforts with clothing designers so that they don't choose clashing colors. But unlike the fashion industry, toothpaste companies will also have flavor to make us instinctively reach for our billfolds and purses. Imagine the possibilities: "Improved Cavity-Fighting Formula! Great New Pollen Taste!"
