Re:Diamonds Are Bullshit
by wutbrodo on Tuesday March 19, 2013 @09:24PM
(#5404945)
The purchase of the TV itself is not what's being discussed here, and frankly a bit of a strawman. As useless as it may be, a lot of households consider TV an essential item, so the question of TV marketing affecting men more has to do with _which_ television you buy, as opposed to buying a TV per se. Per Nielsen, women watch significantly more TV than men anyway[1], so talking about marketing to men in the context of _whether_ to buy a TV is pointless.
As far as the _quality_ of the TV being purchased, it seems the point that GP was making (whether I agree with his larger point or not) is that the 60" TV fills its function a lot better than the 19" one which costs a tenth of the price. By contrast, as far as I know there is no correlation to "how well a purse carries items" and its price (beyond the very very low end, of course, but far from the $2000 level). GP's point was that the price difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar purse is being spent almost entirely on brand (even the appearance is the same, when you consider off-brand purses), and the difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar TV is being spent on a VERY large difference in quality as far as functionality. This distinction between "paying for brand" and "paying for functionality" is exactly the point that GP is making about marketing.
As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if Sony started selling its current flagship $2000 TV for 20 dollars, and it was widely known and permanent. Now consider what would happen if the same happened for Louis Vuitton's flagship $2000 handbag. The perceived value of the handbag would vanish almost instantly. No one wants a status symbol that's cheap. You can't destroy _real_ consumer value (vs brand/marketing value) that easily just by dropping the price.
As far as the _quality_ of the TV being purchased, it seems the point that GP was making (whether I agree with his larger point or not) is that the 60" TV fills its function a lot better than the 19" one which costs a tenth of the price. By contrast, as far as I know there is no correlation to "how well a purse carries items" and its price (beyond the very very low end, of course, but far from the $2000 level). GP's point was that the price difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar purse is being spent almost entirely on brand (even the appearance is the same, when you consider off-brand purses), and the difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar TV is being spent on a VERY large difference in quality as far as functionality. This distinction between "paying for brand" and "paying for functionality" is exactly the point that GP is making about marketing.
As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if Sony started selling its current flagship $2000 TV for 20 dollars, and it was widely known and permanent. Now consider what would happen if the same happened for Louis Vuitton's flagship $2000 handbag. The perceived value of the handbag would vanish almost instantly. No one wants a status symbol that's cheap. You can't destroy _real_ consumer value (vs brand/marketing value) that easily just by dropping the price.
[1]http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/05/nielsen-gaming-tv-console/