Bubbleblog

I guess it’s an old tale when you consider Hans Christian Andersen’s story, but I do feel a bit like the little boy in the crowd right now, pointing out the obvious that no one else seems to want to…

When did it become the norm to sell something that doesn’t exist?

Let me give a few examples. Firstly, Apple’s new iPad. It’s a ‘magical and revolutionary device’ that was launched a month ago. However, it doesn’t exist yet. I mean, you can see it on their website and read all about it, but you can’t actually buy it. Not yet. The Emperor struts by, head held high.

Another example is Amazon’s Kindle. While it is true that you can now get it shipped from the USA to the UK, it will cost nearly a dollar per MB of transit to actually download your books to read. So, instead, you could get the ‘free’ iPhone app and download books to that. Which means you get the Kindle experience without a, erm, Kindle. I lift my finger, ready to point at his highness.

OK, how about something you can actually ‘see’, like the Powermat. Simple, right? You just ‘drop’ your gadget onto it and it wirelessly charges it, right?  Wrong. Unfortunately, it seems that there are not enough compatible devices out there currently to actually make this work, so you have to buy wired add-ons to ‘plug’ things into. For example, to charge an iPhone you have to buy a dock that you have to plug the phone into to charge it… erm… a dock to replace a, erm, dock… Can I say it now? Can I?

There’s nothing there! Why are buying into this? I know it’s a new form of marketing, where we are sold the ‘idea’ as ‘product’ before the product exists, but come on now. Surely it’s a joke, right? How stupid do they think we are? In fact, how stupid are we, to let them dupe us so? Or, is it akin to clowns at the circus, where we know the flower is fake and full of water, but we bend over to sniff it anyway.  

And then I drop my hand back to my side. It's just that I actually do want an iPad, I've downloaded the Kindle App and I really see the greatness behind the Powermat.  After all, we can see the naked royal, but it's simply easier to applaud like everyone else. Why? Because we all love happy endings, even if we know they aren't real: if we can't have 'it' we can at least buy into the theory of 'it', the promise of 'it'. It's our imaginations that are being sold to, not our pockets. So, it's less opportunistic and more optimistic marketing. Today, we are in fact buying into the actual buying into more than the product itself.

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