brand of the free

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

"Did you know that the new car smell is sprayed into the cars two hours before the cars leave the factories?" my friend Sarah, who works for Ogilvy in New York City, commented on my last entry. She sent me an interesting article written by Martin Lindstrom, a well known marketing expert and author. He speaks about the emotional responses we have and bonds we make with brands based on the impression made on us with everything from packaging design to color, shape, smell and sounds.

What's in a brand? Why are we, perhaps despite our better intentions, so malleable? Why are we such suckers for for the warm fuzzies and recognition cues that marketers are able to evoke in us?

While shopping for cars these past couple of weeks, I've seen my own brand bias emerge. Take the Pontiac Vibe vs. the Toyota Matrix. The cars are virtually identical. They share the same Toyota innards (engine, transmission, suspension, brakes). I test drove them both last weekend and found that they handle, accelerate and brake exactly the same. From the inside, I could have been in the exact same car as all the interior styling, right down to the cup holders, is identical.

Despite my preference for the Vibe's option packages and slightly more sporty exterior styling, I'm planning to buy a Matrix. Why? Because it's a Toyota. It's Japanese. It's reliable. It's fun and youthful. The Pontiac, on the other hand, is American. It's an old person's car. It's blue collar. It's a lemon. My brand new Fusion Vibe is gonna be broken down by the side of the road after 20,000 miles. I just know it.

I know this is utter nonsense, but you see, I am an impressionable young consumer. And hell, if I am going to be duped by some marketer, for some reason I feel better about being duped by a Japanese marketer than my own fellow American. I know I know, the Toyota marketer is probably American too.

In my pursuit of new socially-responsible work clothes to go with my socially-responsible job, I discovered a clothing store that I love. American Apparel is a new, "sweatshop-free, brand-free clothing" company that recently opened a store on San Francisco's Haight Street. The white walls are plastered with unretouched color photographs of amateur models splayed out in various pseudo-erotic poses; kind of a cross between Benetton and Calvin Klein. Their brightly colored cotton clothes are all easily interchangable (think "Units" from the 80s), simply designed and cheaply made so they can crank out hundreds of the same pattern quickly and still be able to pay their Los Angeles-based team of clothing assemblers a livable wage. It's remarkable. They've somehow managed to create a brand out of no brand at all.

Alright, I'm still a sucker. But at least I am a well-dressed sucker.