What’s Really Real?

One of the advantages of being a member of the youth culture of today is having a great built in lie detector. I have had to make calls, everyday for the last 15 years, on what brand is really real and what brand isn’t, on who is telling me the truth and who is lying. The funny thing is that companies spend hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars every year just to position their brand as “the truth” or “real.”

I am convinced this is becoming increasingly popular because “the customer is stupid” approach to advertising just doesn’t work with us “kids” anymore. We can see right through the BS and demand to be told the truth. If we aren’t the result could possibly be… add any and every name of any and every unsuccessful brand here.

Take iPod for example, one of the reasons this brand has been and is so successful is because of how real, honest, and simple everything is and feels. There is no smoke and there are no mirrors, there are no gimmicks just straight truth and honesty. Not only that but the thing looks damn good. From the product to the advertising we are given no room to mistake or misunderstand what is being sold and why.

Plus they came up with a fun, cool way to do it, bright colored backgrounds and people dancing around to popular songs that they are listening to on their iPods. Now I never danced around while listening to anyone of the three iPods and one iPod mini that I use to own, but I still owned three iPods and one iPod mini. The only reason I recently sold my iPod mini is so I can buy an all black, 60-gigabyte, video, iPod for myself. They created a product that provides a service that people are willing to pay top dollar for; a cool looking contraption that holds your mps’3, pictures, and personal files accessible at time.

They have also been masters of reinventing and adding to what was already good to make it better and better still. The good people at Apple knew that the product would speak for itself, so there was no need to create a huge highly strategic campaign that was built to target America and it’s youth, and there was certainly no need to attempt to con them into believing that their product was “really real”. They didn’t fake street credibility because they went out and took it. Now you see an iPod on every street corner, on every form of public transportation, and connected to every tape player in America. There are quite a few other brands that I am loyal to because of a number of different criteria but none more important to me than that which is really real.