Clean knee shot
Noteworthy: The business world can no longer shake off the ghosts it has conjured up with its «Stinginess Is Cool» propaganda. But it’s not just small business owners and corporations—the media, too, are suffering from this bargain-hunting mentality.
Column The economy can no longer get rid of the ghosts it has summoned with its "cheap is cool" propaganda. But it's not just businesses and corporations that are suffering from the bargain mentality - the media are, too. German advertising, for example, has been conveying one message to the public for some time: "Stinginess is cool!" Not only the big department stores and mail-order companies, but even reputable men's outfitters and small fitness studios have taken to turning harmless customers into hysterical bargain hunters. After the fall of the Discount Act, shop windows everywhere look like the displays of carpet dealers once did: man-sized numbers signal exorbitant promotions. And the announcement of "permanent low prices" promises that there will be no end to shopping without a significant strain on the budget.
Savings have also become the categorical imperative of shrill warnings and wake-up calls in the editorials of the intelligentsia and tabloids. For months, the citizen has had to put up with being berated as a comfortable costumer of the welfare state, which is ruining the performance and functionality of the community with its entitlement mentality. In the future, they should make their own provisions for illness and old age. Instead of traveling three times a year, he should get ready to pay tuition fees. More responsibility for one's own life must be assumed, and that means less consumption and more knowledgeable asset management.
The audience has heard this double message and follows it strictly. The low-cost virus even crosses borders. When the German electronics chain that launched the successful advertising slogan opened its first department store in Lodz, Poland, the excited bargain hunters fought over the loot. There were injuries - even among the police.
Even the propagandists of the new course are now shocked by this. Suddenly the headlines read: "Job killer discount" or "Customers on buying strike". In the textile retail and clothing industry alone, 18,000 jobs are said to have been lost last year because the returns were no longer right due to the permanent discounts. "The Financial Times Deutschland laments "Unemployment due to savings mania!" and resolutely turns the tide: "Consumption is cool!" is now the new good news, and "Unblock the credit cards!
However, this will hardly find supporters so quickly. Because the cult of cheapness and appeals for savings have left deeper traces than the sorcerer's apprentices of crisis communication would like. Getting used to the cheap message not only displaces thoughts of product quality, it also leaves the advertised person in a habitually dissatisfied state: he never knows whether he has not bought too expensively.
It is only a short distance from the bargain hunter's lurking to the consumerist's unwillingness to buy. And no less grumpily, he experiences as a citizen that the droning reform rhetoric of his politicians is supposed to make him so dizzy that he no longer notices his ongoing plundering. Who would want to plunge into buying frenzy? Media that recommend this risk their credibility.
The propaganda of "stinginess is cool" and sour editorial sermons about saving money harm advertising and the press alike. Advertising should promise people the delights of the world of goods. If it only talks about the price, it devalues the product. And if the media act as strict educators for asceticism, they should not be surprised if those who are addressed in this way end up starting with the admonishers themselves and canceling their newspaper subscriptions or giving up pay TV. Because remember: Anyone who has a booth on the market should not remind his customers too often that what is offered here has its price.
Heribert Seifert on the boomerang effect of the current savings cult.
Savings have also become the categorical imperative of shrill warnings and wake-up calls in the editorials of the intelligentsia and tabloids. For months, the citizen has had to put up with being berated as a comfortable costumer of the welfare state, which is ruining the performance and functionality of the community with its entitlement mentality. In the future, they should make their own provisions for illness and old age. Instead of traveling three times a year, he should get ready to pay tuition fees. More responsibility for one's own life must be assumed, and that means less consumption and more knowledgeable asset management.
The audience has heard this double message and follows it strictly. The low-cost virus even crosses borders. When the German electronics chain that launched the successful advertising slogan opened its first department store in Lodz, Poland, the excited bargain hunters fought over the loot. There were injuries - even among the police.
Even the propagandists of the new course are now shocked by this. Suddenly the headlines read: "Job killer discount" or "Customers on buying strike". In the textile retail and clothing industry alone, 18,000 jobs are said to have been lost last year because the returns were no longer right due to the permanent discounts. "The Financial Times Deutschland laments "Unemployment due to savings mania!" and resolutely turns the tide: "Consumption is cool!" is now the new good news, and "Unblock the credit cards!
However, this will hardly find supporters so quickly. Because the cult of cheapness and appeals for savings have left deeper traces than the sorcerer's apprentices of crisis communication would like. Getting used to the cheap message not only displaces thoughts of product quality, it also leaves the advertised person in a habitually dissatisfied state: he never knows whether he has not bought too expensively.
It is only a short distance from the bargain hunter's lurking to the consumerist's unwillingness to buy. And no less grumpily, he experiences as a citizen that the droning reform rhetoric of his politicians is supposed to make him so dizzy that he no longer notices his ongoing plundering. Who would want to plunge into buying frenzy? Media that recommend this risk their credibility.
The propaganda of "stinginess is cool" and sour editorial sermons about saving money harm advertising and the press alike. Advertising should promise people the delights of the world of goods. If it only talks about the price, it devalues the product. And if the media act as strict educators for asceticism, they should not be surprised if those who are addressed in this way end up starting with the admonishers themselves and canceling their newspaper subscriptions or giving up pay TV. Because remember: Anyone who has a booth on the market should not remind his customers too often that what is offered here has its price.
Heribert Seifert on the boomerang effect of the current savings cult.
> Heribert Seifert is the media and culture correspondent of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Germany.
