Fear and Advertising

I saw this commercial recently for Schick where the premise of the commercial is that of a man that shows up for an interview and while sitting in the lobby of the office awaiting the interview he notices that the pictures of the executives are all bald. To gain an advantage in the interview he runs out and shaves his head using a Schick razor and the commercial ends with the other men with obvious concern.

Perhaps this speaks to some men, but honestly it makes me never want to buy a Schick razor - EVER. The message is that it is OK to present yourself as someone you are not in order to get the job. But what happens when after a few days on the job he and his manager realizes that culturally he isn't a good fit or that he has to compromise more than just his hair in order to be successful at this company?

It is yet another sad attempt by marketers to tell us we need to act a certain way to get ahead in business and it is patently false. And unfortunately it is another in a long line of examples recently that show how advertisers continue to chase some idea about who we are as consumers that just doesn't line up with our real values.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article in January about this tweet from Denny's in September of 2014. According to the article,

"The message, which to teens translates to "these hash browns are on point," garnered almost 30,000 retweets and was seen in the advertising industry as something of a social media marketing masterstroke. Taco Bell & IHOP later sent out their own tweets using the phrase "on fleek" looking to get in on the action."

The article goes on to discuss that while these examples may generate some buzz it also has the opportunity to 'provoke eye rolling' for the obvious attempt at trying to act cool. The problem is that consumers see straight through weak attempts to be something that you aren't. This example is punctuated by the sad copy cat nature of Taco Bell and IHOP's attempt to use the same phrase later the same day. It is all akin to your dad using some slang term that is an obvious break from character and only serves to prove how out of touch he really is with your culture.

Blackrock's CEO on Fear in the Global Economy

Meet Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock - one of the largest asset managers in the world.  While not exactly the bravest sounding name he drops a few quotes in the most recent issue of BusinessWeek that shows he knows bravery in the face of fear.

When asked about longer life expectancy and the impact of living an average extra ten years and its impact on public policy, public pensions, retirement saving, and working longer and how the public's perception of retirement in the face of the longer life expectancy he had this to say.

Q: Are fear and alarm the best way to fix this problem?

A: No. It’s talking about the blessing of longevity. I mean, I’m surprised at how much we spend and read about having better health, whether it’s more exercise, and whether it’s taking omega-3 pills, eating more healthy, having preventive health care.

Whereas the financial services community feeds off of personal fear, Fink runs the other direction with the question and challenges everyone to focus on the blessing of a longer life.  He follows it up with this Q and A:

What would you say is the biggest enemy of adequate retirement savings right now?
One of the key elements of human behavior is, humans have a greater fear of loss than enjoyment of success. All the academic studies will show you that the fear of loss of capital is far greater than the enjoyment of gains. You have seen most individual investors underinvest, because they’re so frightened of losing money.

He continues the theme by admonishing us to let go of fear and begin to embrace the possibility of success.  Blackrock isn't going to sell fear - they have a very long-term perspective as shown by his last comment.

You manage $4 trillion worth of assets, but you’re not Wall Street?
What Wall Street is, they’re market makers. Wall Street’s business model is making money on velocity of money. They’re a click industry. That’s what Wall Street is. They make a lot of money when there’s a lot of turnover. And they make a lot of money when that velocity is fast. The investment management business, we don’t make money on clicks. Actually, our returns degrade when we buy and sell a lot because we pay commissions to Wall Street. So our job is long periods of holding.