If you’re in tune with your surroundings, and all good
marketers must be, you’ll see the telltale signs of changing cultural and
consumer values everywhere you look.
Last night, I watched The
Antiques Roadshow. I’m like all of you; I love the program… love to guess
the prices while secretly hoping my bin-diving, charity-shopping, yard-sale-loving
wife comes up with a heretofore-unknown Picasso that’s worth millions. [Note:
my wife and daughter did indeed find a painting worth $2000, put in a dumpster by
a Park City neighbor who was moving – a Harry Mintz, to be
exact.]
These days, the Roadshow
is rerunning the best parts of older shows and comparing the prices then with
those of today. If a hand-cut vase was worth $5000 in 1998, what’s it worth in
2012? More or less?
This is a marketer’s treasure trove if you believe, as I believe,
that the very nature of consumers has changed. [I should have prefaced this blog with the fact that I have an MA in American Culture, so I was trained to
spot the signs, so to speak.]
In what way has our very nature changed?
The current trend is to value more cultural, historical and
artistic items (you might say 'symbolic' things) over the practical arts like furniture, vases, antique
appliances, 19th century children’s toys and the folksy items and
faux art things that usually dominate the show.
Example? A well-carved highboy from the 1770s that was worth
$200,000 in 1998 is worth less today. Not by much, but less. A turn of the
century pristine, all-metal child’s toy with a handmade
clockwork driving the wheels is worth half of what it was in 1999. As are antique watches, baseball
cards and collectibles of all sorts. Jewelry has remained flat in
spite of historically high gold prices. Pop art pieces and modern American
paintings have dropped in value unless they are from a handful or recognized
masters.
Conversely, anything related to mythical American History –
Lincoln’s autograph, a lithograph of a Revolutionary War battle, documents of even the mildest historical interest – have gone up
in price by as much as 150%.
What’s this tell you as a marketer?
People have stopped collecting things: baubles, 1950s
household items, Art Deco bits from the 20’s, old lunch boxes, Hollywood
memorabilia, Tiffany lamps, pottery… you know, things… the things that used to
dominate flea markets and antique shops. Dare I say it? Middle class, nouveau
riche stuff is suddenly unpopular.
Why? Because we no longer have the time nor the extra income
to buy anything that is valued on the whim of ‘collectors’, the so-called
experts. Look where the banking and Wall Street experts got us. And if anything
can drop in price as quickly as did our homes, why risk buying a so-called
‘collectible’ in hopes it will accrue in value? It’s always been nonsense… now
we all can see it.
And suddenly, given the current economic shifts and nature
of our day-to-day lives, the 1920s – 1950s seem like so much useless history
that can’t teach us anything about 2012; and we no longer want to be reminded
of high times that won’t come again. True or not, most believe the middle class
is sinking.
Plus, jobs are hard to come by and most of us will be forced to
move several times over a decade. We can’t be tied down with our collection of cute
Disney characters. Of course, the forced
move to smaller homes means we don’t have the room for massive wooden pieces of
furniture, even if they are Chippendale.
No, today’s consumers are leaner and meaner and less
optimistic.
Conversely, there’s a longing for things related to
America’s older, nobler past... when Americans actually pulled together to
solve problems… when we were isolated from the trials of Europe and not worried
sick about the value of the Euro… when politicians were named Jackson and
Lincoln and Grant and Teddy Roosevelt, and not Romney, Obama and Newt. We’re
holding onto these things; we value these things as a talisman reminder of when
this country was young and fearless. Dare I say it, when we still felt good
about attaining our share of the American Dream and were proud of our
government?
So, if your marketing efforts can recall these days,
reignite the feeling of our collective pragmatic, less ideological American
spirit, or even make us feel guilty for losing the American sketch while
offering a small solution – well, you’re onto something.
Final note: I said baubles and vases and carvings have lost
value. That’s correct in all but one area. Care to take a guess?
Almost anything Chinese has doubled or tripled in price:
Chinese jade carvings, vases, jewelry, ceremonial teapots have shot through the
roof.
You don’t need a degree in American Culture to understand
why.
