Engineering a ''Need''

chillin117

Solutions for problems that don't exist, The latest...
Little girl ''Mum, This washing machine stinks''
Mum comes to the rescue with a smile and a bottle of Dettol Washing Machine Cleaner. !
I remember the likes of Armitage Shanks throwing millions at a ''Need'' The Bidet's never caught on
Same happened to the moist toilet paper people, Dead in the water (pardon the pun)
Anyone any more ?

Lux23

Halitosis as a condition was invented to sell Listerine.

jester77

Those countertop disinfectant sprays. We were all fine 15 years ago without them, but now we will die a slow horrible death from "bacteria" if we don't use them.

Anti-bacteria is now sold like low-fat, it's like there is no such thing as good fats or bacteria any more.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

chillin117 wrote: »

Solutions for problems that don't exist, The latest...
Little girl ''Mum, This washing machine stinks''
Mum comes to the rescue with a smile and a bottle of Dettol Washing Machine Cleaner. !
I remember the likes of Armitage Shanks throwing millions at a ''Need'' The Bidet's never caught on
Same happened to the moist toilet paper people, Dead in the water (pardon the pun)
Anyone any more ?

The bidets are fierce handy for somebody afflicted with a hairy arse, not that i'd know anything about that.

Your Face

Pavee point.

chillin117

Your Face wrote: »

Pavee point.

I'm talking products.

Your Face

chillin117 wrote: »

I'm talking products.

So am I

eeguy

99% of the app market.

Inventing first world problems to solve.

chillin117

Your Face wrote: »

So am I

Pavee Point is a Service

Junkyard Tom

Those lubrication drops for 'tired looking eyes'.

Fuck the fuck off.

CruelCoin

Lux23 wrote: »

Halitosis as a condition was invented to sell Listerine.

Which used to be sold as a general cleaning fluid.

frag420

Condoms invented to protect against pregnancy...when did a belly or a boob splash stop working?

Sapphire

frag420 wrote: »

Condoms invented to protect against pregnancy...when did a belly or a boob splash stop working?

Well, lots of times actually.

Dawn Rider

frag420 wrote: »

Condoms invented to protect against pregnancy...when did a belly or a boob splash stop working?

A few months before the kids were born

Realt Dearg Sec

chillin117 wrote: »

Solutions for problems that don't exist, The latest...
Little girl ''Mum, This washing machine stinks''
Mum comes to the rescue with a smile and a bottle of Dettol Washing Machine Cleaner. !
I remember the likes of Armitage Shanks throwing millions at a ''Need'' The Bidet's never caught on
Same happened to the moist toilet paper people, Dead in the water (pardon the pun)
Anyone any more ?

Dettol are old hands at this kind of nonsense. Like the time they released a hands free soap dispenser so that you don't get any germs on your hand touching the button. Which you would only ever press right before you wash your hands... And as someone else mentioned, the whole basis of their marketing strategy is scaremongering. I remember David Mitchell commenting on their ad that says "your chopping board has more germs than a toilet seat". Yeah, well, clearly that's fine, since we're all still here! Expensive products to fight imaginary dangers.

Ficheall

If I ever have a house built from scratch, it will have a bidet.

Ficheall

Ficheall wrote: »

If I ever have a house built from scratch, it will have a bidet.

Just get a bum gun. Cheap and cheerful.

frag420

frag420 wrote: »

Condoms invented to protect against pregnancy...when did a belly or a boob splash stop working?

Seven times , in my family, apparently

Steve

The 'food pyramid' and 'breakfast' as we know it.

Invented by the American cereal growers.

Stigura

So much around contemporary Dog ownership comes to mind.

Or am I thinking of " Engineering a Profit " ?

Diamonds.

De Beers famously engineered that need in the late 1800s.

Stigura

Deleted User wrote: »

Diamonds.

Yeah! Gold. The whole shebang. (Ref Blackadder; Matey inventing " Green ") I have Never got that concept.

Frankly? I think copper is a nicer colour than modern gold.

Who the hell first said; " Oh, sweet jesus!!! Look At That diamond / bit of gold, what ever. I'll give ye my virgin daughter and a hundred horses for that! " and started the whole charade?

Seriously?

thesandeman

Joe Duffy.

thesandeman

thesandeman wrote: »

Joe Duffy.

Im enjoying this as an answer to the post above it

B.A._Baracus

It has to be said that to create an successful need or desire to buy a product deserves a round of applause... it really does
I think Apple deserves a special mention with this one. With the iPhone they have marketed it so well that people are willing to spend 600 euro on a phone, yet a phone is a phone. I could buy an 150 euro phone (say from another big brand as Sony) and it can do the same while build quality is just as good. But people feel they are getting their monies worth from Apple :pac:
Heck, I could even spend the next 5 years buying a budget smartphone each year for 50 euro. Only works out at 250 euro. Now how many iPhones will come out in that period? each one better than the rest that you MUST buy with your hard earned money? :pac:


Another aspect of Apple is their macs. Designers and coders have been 'sold' on the idea that if you are serious about your profession you need a mac... even tho both pc and mac have programs to achieve the same result. Oh no, skill and experience isn't important... it's what platform you use

Like seals clapping for fish to be honest.

mansize

Most high end Phones are in the same region price wise as the iPhone.



Anyway- Actimel - there was a product built on exaggerated benefits.

Esel

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

It has to be said that to create an successful need or desire to buy a product deserves a round of applause... it really does
I think Apple deserves a special mention with this one. With the iPhone they have marketed it so well that people are willing to spend 600 euro on a phone, yet a phone is a phone. I could buy an 150 euro phone (say from another big brand as Sony) and it can do the same while build quality is just as good. But people feel they are getting their monies worth from Apple :pac:
Heck, I could even spend the next 5 years buying a budget smartphone each year for 50 euro. Only works out at 250 euro. Now how many iPhones will come out in that period? each one better than the rest that you MUST buy with your hard earned money? :pac:


Another aspect of Apple is their macs. Designers and coders have been 'sold' on the idea that if you are serious about your profession you need a mac... even tho both pc and mac have programs to achieve the same result. Oh no, skill and experience isn't important... it's what platform you use

Like seals clapping for fish to be honest.

Aren't you supposed to be 'busy' or something?

B.A._Baracus

Esel wrote: »

Aren't you supposed to be 'busy' or something?

Busy?

The worst offenders for this is the beauty industry. You can buy specific creams for your hands, chest, neck, eyes, and feet. You can buy scrubs for your face, your body, your feet, and even your lips. You need several types of cream for your face alone, eyes, neck, and special serums to go with them. You need two kinds of cleansers, toners to remove the residue of the cleansers, then the battery of area creams, and the 'special treatments' of acids, peels, masks, extractions, massages, and even gadgets to clean your face.

Your hair needs shampoo, conditioner, bb cream, heat protection spray, extensions, hairspray, color and cut, and of course a battery of styling products and gadgets like dryers, straighteners, curlers, wands and tongs.

Nails are an industry too, you don't just file and polish, you need basecoats, color, topcoats, crystal files, emergy boards, cuticle trimmers, orange sticks, cuticle cream, nail oil, whiteners, special finishes, lately I've seen the introduction of the 'accent nail' and of course nail 'art'.

Makeup is serious business. The last bit of female facial real estate available for exploitation were the eyebrows, which were previously just styled, perhaps penciled and combed. Now you can buy waxes, powders, setting agents, extensions, pencils, growth enhancers and you're simply not groomed anymore until you look like Groucho Marx. This is besides the plethora of base coats, blushes, highlighters, contours, primers, eye primers, eye shadows, eye pencils, eye liners, lip liners, concealers, brighteners, mascaras, and setting sprays. And much, much, much more.

Then there's the feminine 'hygiene' industry. You need special products to wash the female genitalia, products to line your underwear, products to perfume your vulva, products to remove every hair possible, treatments to bleach your anus, and even bejewel your pudenda.

Your feet alone need special softeners, foot files, specific clippers, polishes, heel creams and scrubs.

Of course to sell all this, the awareness of those imperfections has to be spread first, and the whole empty spectacle is driven by manufactured insecurities.

It's hard to resist, I've my own fair share of oils, creams and conditioners, but the whole pore-closing, age-defying, scalp-detoxifying (I actually saw that on a product) industry is built on lies and insane expectations, and it's not healthy for little girls - and increasingly little boys - to be constantly exposed to the idea that everything about them needs to be improved with the purchase of a cream.

Badly Drunk Boy

Ronald Wilson Reagan wrote: »

The bidets are fierce handy for somebody afflicted with a hairy arse, not that i'd know anything about that.

That's not what George Bush Sr (nor Maggie Thatcher) said...

MilesMorales1

I do like having a nice lemon smelling spray for the kitchen counter though.

Realt Dearg Sec

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

I do like having a nice lemon smelling spray for the kitchen counter though.

So do I, and I want my kitchen counters to be clean when I'm chopping on them. But this ludicrous paranoia, like our whole house is crawling with diseases and we need to sanitise and disinfect the whole place to protect ourselves and our children is absolutely crazy. There's not a doubt in my mind that the increase in allergies and general sickliness of children is directly linked to this germ paranoia.

James Bond Junior

The five a day thing. Invented by fruit and veg retailers in America.

Guy:Incognito

I love the "x never used to kill us" line. Smoking used to be good for you..............

rahmalec

Candie wrote: »

The worst offenders for this is the beauty industry. You can buy specific creams for your hands, chest, neck, eyes, and feet. You can buy scrubs for your face, your body, your feet, and even your lips. You need several types of cream for your face alone, eyes, neck, and special serums to go with them. You need two kinds of cleansers, toners to remove the residue of the cleansers, then the battery of area creams, and the 'special treatments' of acids, peels, masks, extractions, massages, and even gadgets to clean your face.

Your hair needs shampoo, conditioner, bb cream, heat protection spray, extensions, hairspray, color and cut, and of course a battery of styling products and gadgets like dryers, straighteners, curlers, wands and tongs.

Nails are an industry too, you don't just file and polish, you need basecoats, color, topcoats, crystal files, emergy boards, cuticle trimmers, orange sticks, cuticle cream, nail oil, whiteners, special finishes, lately I've seen the introduction of the 'accent nail' and of course nail 'art'.

Makeup is serious business. The last bit of female facial real estate available for exploitation were the eyebrows, which were previously just styled, perhaps penciled and combed. Now you can buy waxes, powders, setting agents, extensions, pencils, growth enhancers and you're simply not groomed anymore until you look like Groucho Marx. This is besides the plethora of base coats, blushes, highlighters, contours, primers, eye primers, eye shadows, eye pencils, eye liners, lip liners, concealers, brighteners, mascaras, and setting sprays. And much, much, much more.

Then there's the feminine 'hygiene' industry. You need special products to wash the female genitalia, products to line your underwear, products to perfume your vulva, products to remove every hair possible, treatments to bleach your anus, and even bejewel your pudenda.

Your feet alone need special softeners, foot files, specific clippers, polishes, heel creams and scrubs.

Of course to sell all this, the awareness of those imperfections has to be spread first, and the whole empty spectacle is driven by manufactured insecurities.

It's hard to resist, I've my own fair share of oils, creams and conditioners, but the whole pore-closing, age-defying, scalp-detoxifying (I actually saw that on a product) industry is built on lies and insane expectations, and it's not healthy for little girls - and increasingly little boys - to be constantly exposed to the idea that everything about them needs to be improved with the purchase of a cream.

That's some post. I think I might send this around to a few people.

Poochie05

chillin117 wrote: »

Solutions for problems that don't exist, The latest...
Little girl ''Mum, This washing machine stinks''
Mum comes to the rescue with a smile and a bottle of Dettol Washing Machine Cleaner. !
I remember the likes of Armitage Shanks throwing millions at a ''Need'' The Bidet's never caught on
Same happened to the moist toilet paper people, Dead in the water (pardon the pun)
Anyone any more ?

Turning wants in to needs. This could be the motto of the advertising industry. We don't need most of the stuff being sold to us.

Poochie05

Candie wrote: »

The worst offenders for this is the beauty industry. You can buy specific creams for your hands, chest, neck, eyes, and feet. You can buy scrubs for your face, your body, your feet, and even your lips. You need several types of cream for your face alone, eyes, neck, and special serums to go with them. You need two kinds of cleansers, toners to remove the residue of the cleansers, then the battery of area creams, and the 'special treatments' of acids, peels, masks, extractions, massages, and even gadgets to clean your face.

Your hair needs shampoo, conditioner, bb cream, heat protection spray, extensions, hairspray, color and cut, and of course a battery of styling products and gadgets like dryers, straighteners, curlers, wands and tongs.

Nails are an industry too, you don't just file and polish, you need basecoats, color, topcoats, crystal files, emergy boards, cuticle trimmers, orange sticks, cuticle cream, nail oil, whiteners, special finishes, lately I've seen the introduction of the 'accent nail' and of course nail 'art'.

Makeup is serious business. The last bit of female facial real estate available for exploitation were the eyebrows, which were previously just styled, perhaps penciled and combed. Now you can buy waxes, powders, setting agents, extensions, pencils, growth enhancers and you're simply not groomed anymore until you look like Groucho Marx. This is besides the plethora of base coats, blushes, highlighters, contours, primers, eye primers, eye shadows, eye pencils, eye liners, lip liners, concealers, brighteners, mascaras, and setting sprays. And much, much, much more.

Then there's the feminine 'hygiene' industry. You need special products to wash the female genitalia, products to line your underwear, products to perfume your vulva, products to remove every hair possible, treatments to bleach your anus, and even bejewel your pudenda.

Your feet alone need special softeners, foot files, specific clippers, polishes, heel creams and scrubs.

Of course to sell all this, the awareness of those imperfections has to be spread first, and the whole empty spectacle is driven by manufactured insecurities.

It's hard to resist, I've my own fair share of oils, creams and conditioners, but the whole pore-closing, age-defying, scalp-detoxifying (I actually saw that on a product) industry is built on lies and insane expectations, and it's not healthy for little girls - and increasingly little boys - to be constantly exposed to the idea that everything about them needs to be improved with the purchase of a cream.

Great post! I may have missed it in the list above, but moisturising deodorant! I've always wished my pits were smoother, softer and younger looking and at last I have found the answer!

Realt Dearg Sec

Poochie05 wrote: »

Great post! I may have missed it in the list above, but moisturising deodorant! I've always wished my pits were smoother, softer and younger looking and at last I have found the answer!

I thought of this when reading that post too. The dove ads with women showing off their ****ing ARM PITS as if it was an area that can or should be beautified. Great indication of the dwindling "real estate" of the body for the beauty industry to commodify. Please...get your ****ing ARM PITS out of my face. Have some self respect...

Poochie05

Poochie05 wrote: »

Great post! I may have missed it in the list above, but moisturising deodorant! I've always wished my pits were smoother, softer and younger looking and at last I have found the answer!

That's all I could come up with offhand, I know there's much, much more! Women perpetuate it by buying it, though.:(

We're the fools being played here, but lots of women don't want to know the facts of the industry and will convince themselves that creams really will stop aging - because we all know 70 year olds that look 20 because they used the right products, right? Right??!

My pits are only gorgeous, mind.

Wibbs

Candie wrote: »

We're the fools being played here, but lots of women don't want to know the facts of the industry and will convince themselves that creams really will stop aging - because we all know 70 year olds that look 20 because they used the right products, right? Right??!

Or that hair products are fronted in adverts by women with hair extensions. It would be like a bald man selling combs to men. Pointless. Or those anti ageing cream ads featuring 16 year olds girls.

Though as has been shown time and time again if the companies and magazines etc use "real women" the stuff just doesn't sell nearly as well.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Or that hair products are fronted in adverts by women with hair extensions. It would be like a bald man selling combs to men. Pointless. Or those anti ageing cream ads featuring 16 year olds girls.

Though as has been shown time and time again if the companies and magazines etc use "real women" the stuff just doesn't sell nearly as well.

Probably because we want the dream in the jar or the dress, and reality isn't really on the agenda when it comes to dreams.

My guilty pleasure as a person with no style at all, is couture magazines. I don't want to see a size 12 modelling Dior in Harpers Bazaar, I want the whole aspirational, inspirational, idealized version of what I might look like if I had the clothes, the shape, the money, the life. Oh, and the height.

Fashion designers and cosmetics companies sell dreams with lies, the truth is that your average Josephine wearing that edgy winged red liner and purple lipstick with that ankle length floaty dress isn't going to look like the stylized image she's aiming to emulate, but she's bought into the dream and the deal is done, and so the cycle continues.

Andrewf20

Nike are developing a self lacing runner. Ridiculous. Also, rain sensing wipers. Is it really that hard to turn them on yourself.

ScumLord

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

I think Apple deserves a special mention with this one. With the iPhone they have marketed it so well that people are willing to spend 600 euro on a phone, yet a phone is a phone. I could buy an 150 euro phone (say from another big brand as Sony) and it can do the same while build quality is just as good. But people feel they are getting their monies worth from Apple :pac:

I'm no fan of Apple but to be fair their build quality is top notch from what I've seen. The gizzards inside are bog standard and Apple do fleece people on those but their cases seem to be as good as it gets from what I've seen.

I can see how it works in one way, if I go to the shop because I want to get something to clean the bathroom and I see a bottle with bathroom cleaner written on it, I'm going to grab it and think mission accomplished. Even though it's probably exactly the same stuff that's in the generic cleaner that's half the price. Modern manufacturing and labeling has allowed every industry to customise products to appeal to particular people and take advantage of this notion that people are individuals because they've purchased a unique combination of off the shelf products. We like the whole idea of adding value to a product so that it's "unique".

The advertising industry is a mirror to all of societies neurosis, it's a cold unsympathetic machine that views people as puzzles that pay out when you crack them.

All peoples anxieties surrounding products would mostly disappear if they just stopped watching broadcast TV. The onslaught of propaganda that streams out of a TV is quite alarming.

Gen.Zhukov

If the ads are anything to go by, this recently new phenomenon of ' Sensitive bladder ' seems to be fairly serious and could be reaching epidemic proportions.
I certainly hope the manufacturers can keep up with demand for their products so this new problem can be controlled.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Scented tampons, what the f

Lyaiera

Candie wrote: »

My guilty pleasure as a person with no style at all, is couture magazines. I don't want to see a size 12 modelling Dior in Harpers Bazaar, I want the whole aspirational, inspirational, idealized version of what I might look like if I had the clothes, the shape, the money, the life. Oh, and the height.

Magazines like Vogue and Harper's are pretty much the only ones I'll buy (although rarely.) I love the photography, I think some of the things look amazing, but I also know I will never, ever look like anyone in those magazines, wear anything they wear, or use any of the beauty products they use. In fact I think the beauty products in them are the biggest waste, because you can't make a tub of cream look good in a photo shoot (rarely anyway.)

I think the lower level beauty and gossip magazines are far worse for selling unrealistic ideals. They tell people you can look like the people in the magazines, they really push their views. The likes of Vogue are pure fantasy, and I would hope most people understand that. But the other ones are making out that they're not fantastical.

Lyaiera

Lyaiera wrote: »

Magazines like Vogue and Harper's are pretty much the only ones I'll buy (although rarely.) I love the photography, I think some of the things look amazing, but I also know I will never, ever look like anyone in those magazines, wear anything they wear, or use any of the beauty products they use. In fact I think the beauty products in them are the biggest waste, because you can't make a tub of cream look good in a photo shoot (rarely anyway.)

I think the lower level beauty and gossip magazines are far worse for selling unrealistic ideals. They tell people you can look like the people in the magazines, they really push their views. The likes of Vogue are pure fantasy, and I would hope most people understand that. But the other ones are making out that they're not fantastical.

I get what you're saying, I'm only interested in couture magazines and some of the photography is absolutely beautiful. It's an unashamed fantasy, and you're right, the illusion of attainability in the lower end of the market is the cruelest lie of all for most of their consumers.

Story Bud?

Candie you're bang on. When I read the beauty forum at times I feel like I've walked in to a parallel universe. The amount of things that are "must haves". Andwhat with "beauty routines"??

What ever happened to cleaning your face with a face cloth, hot water and a bit of soap? I've been doing it for years and my skin hasn't fallen off yet.

As you said, we're the perpetuators but it is a total racket.

Lyaiera

Candie wrote: »

I get what you're saying, I'm only interested in couture magazines and some of the photography is absolutely beautiful. It's an unashamed fantasy, and you're right, the illusion of attainability in the lower end of the market is the cruelest lie of all for most of their consumers.

The photography in them was my initial draw. I am a photographer, and I love photography, and Vogue is probably the cheapest way to see prints of some of the best photography in the world (although only fashion photography,) and some of the best photographers in the world have and continue to do shoots for them.

The other thing that I really appreciated as I started reading is how unabashedly feminine it is. Sure, they women writing for them are in their own strange little New York/London/Paris world, but they make absolutely no bones about their magazine being by women, for women, and they never apologise for that. Which I love.

Lyaiera

Lyaiera wrote: »

The photography in them was my initial draw. I am a photographer, and I love photography, and Vogue is probably the cheapest way to see prints of some of the best photography in the world (although only fashion photography,) and some of the best photographers in the world have and continue to do shoots for them.

The other thing that I really appreciated as I started reading is how unabashedly feminine it is. Sure, they women writing for them are in their own strange little New York/London/Paris world, but they make absolutely no bones about their magazine being by women, for women, and they never apologise for that. Which I love.

Yeah, I can appreciate the art in the clothes design and in the presentation. The world of a fashionista is a completely alien world to me though, and extraordinarily shallow and vacuous. I'm happy to just enjoy the end illusion.

padd b1975

Replica football shirts.