Barbie and iPod

So Barbie is in trouble see…. I read in the paper that Mattel toys is having a big problem with the little lady. She was the absolute leader in her class as far as dolls are concerned but for the past several years sales have been dropping and dropping and nothing they have done has seemed to have any impact. Barbie is suffering because of it because the good nitwit that she represents is no longer in style. People want a sassy brat with naughty clothes. Slutty became cool. Bitchy became fashionable. Shows like The Weakest Link and Judge Judy ushered in an age of people who think that “one-upping” someone equates to “cool”… And barbie, at a fundamental level, cannot conform to these guidelines. Make barbie slutty and full of attitude and she is no longer barbie. So what is the company to do? Barbie used to be the leader in her class but these days, in attempting to compete, barbie can be found 2 for 5 dollars… you can’t turn back from that very easily.

So ever since I read that and I shared it with people at my job, we’ve been brainstorming on what it would take to save barbie. Allegedy Brats dolls are raking in all the sales these days and we believe this all relates to the “all about me” generation that we’re dealing with today… the sheer amount of luxury accessible to children these days has completely flattened their sense of appreciation over things… and the fact that this is the age of entitlement… where people truly believe they deserve enormous cash settlements for technicalities… we are of righteous people…

we spoil our children now because big companies know that’s our soft spot… that we’ll be able to buy for our children since our baby boomer parents couldn’t do it for us… and they sell us all the same shit we used to want… scooby doo… transformers… whatever… we buy it for our children because WE used to want it… we play right into their game and kids are spoiled now beyond belief. We buy them cell phones so ‘they can be safe’ and we buy them video game systems and ipods and jeezus fucking christ when does it end? They’re already as plugged in as me and it took me 29 years to get this crazy. They have every status symbol and accessory they ask us for….

which is exactly where apple comes in. See i think an iPod is just as cool as the next guy. I’ll admit that an iPod is sleek and sexy and probably the best mp3 player on the market… and I’ll admit that I’d rather work in apple’s marketing department over autozone’s any day of the week… but the “lifestyle brand” approach that they are using is fucked up.

Lifestyle branding is when you make your brand such that people want to display it on their bodies… where the brand becomes a reflection of your personality… like wearing a playboy bunny… a nike swoosh… an abercrombie shirt…. One unique method apple used to first promote the iPod was to deploy kids to college campuses wearing and talking about their iPods to generate a buzz… seperating it from the common mp3 player and making it a status symbol instead of a convenience. This elegant strategy, sadly, worked extremely well… and now every kid, adult, and company is buying into their crap.

So tonight when I saw somebody proudly brandish a tattoo of the apple logo on their skin i just couldn’t believe it. “Why” my friend asked “would you get the apple logo tattooed on you?” and he replied “yo I’ve been making music on an apple since nineteen ninety SIX, man”…

At what point did you fall so in love with the company that you felt like volunteering real-estate on your own flesh for them to advertise? Some people charge thousands of dollars to do such a thing but you did it for free. Which just amazes me… at this point you beleive in and love the product so much you have become a voluntary spokesperson for them.

A college student conducted a survey once and discovered that when people were asked “who won the game last night?” they would say “WE won!” if the home team won… but if the home team lost they would say “THEY lost!” People simply love to feel like they are part of something that is working… and the group-mentality surrounding Apple will soon become like the group mentality surrounding the Raiders. It is already a “we are apple users and therefore better than you” attitude… it’s actually kinda creepy how many times a group of apple users have ganged up on me to try and convince me to convert… like missionaries…

At burning man I saw a party being hosted by a lone iPod plugged in under a bar and someone said “I think it’s so cool that this whole set is being played on an iPod!”

You know they wouldn’t have said the same thing if it was a laptop or a common mp3 player… but the fact that it was an i-P-o-d made all the difference. The camel back I bought for this years burn has a little pocket made just for an ipod… with a silhouette of an ipod next to it…. the jacket my friend got has shuttle controls on the wrist and links up only to ipods that can plug in inside the pocket.

As fun as all this sounds, it means apple is becoming mainstream fast… and now the whole reason you liked apple in the first place changes. They are on their way to becoming everything you hated microsoft for. They are inching their way into every market and before you know it they will be the default.

Anyway my solution to barbie is this… pervasive marketing … do what apple did but in reverse… put money into something like movies… help produce movies that kids will see where the main charcter exhibits barbie-type values… shape the public around your product… make being a brat UNCOOL again….

it’s cool if you don’t agree with me here… nobody else seems to. Everybody says “what? whyyyyy??? apple is such a great company! Being into graphics I’d think you’d LIKE apple!” … yeah it’s ok… I’m used to it now…

Tags: apple, art, computers, corporations, design, establishment, marketing