People will buy anything. I mean it. Think of the
most idiotic thing a person could sell, and chances are there’s a market for
it…somewhere.
Let’s start with the least palatable:
Grubs For Sale, 2 pounds for $10.00
Who would buy these disgusting, soil-dwelling, writhing eyeless
scavengers? Well, the East Indians for one.
Street merchants in Bombay fry butter grubs and serve them as a delicacy along with sea
urchins and crickets. Australian bush people eat honey ants, caterpillars, and wichetty
grubs as a staple to their mostly fibrous diet. Turn-of-the-century South American native
peoples used grubs to make poison for the tips of their arrows. Grubs are also considered
a standard food in both Haiti and Indonesia.
So then the same might be true of cow dung, discarded fingernails and
empty milk cartons?
To prove my theory that people will, in fact, buy anything, I
actually conducted two experiments on the capricious nature of the human personality. I
like to call the first one the Magic Hair Brain Formula. It goes like this:
I invent an absurd theory, come up with a phony product, market it on
a website and slap a price tag on it. And herein lies the beauty of every hare-brained
scheme—PEOPLE WILL BUY ANYTHING.
That’s right…magic hair. So let’s pretend that I do a
bunch of scholarly research and determine the chemical properties of hair are easily
transferable from person to person. And, for instance, let’s say one of these
chemical properties plays a vital role in human intelligence. So in other words, hair
grown from the head of a genius possesses tremendous powers of intelligence.
The Bait: If you buy a segment of hair from a genius and have it
surgically grafted onto your own scalp, it will make you more intelligent.
Cruel? Yes.
Marketing:
Sandra Davenport, age 47, CEO of a cosmetics company in Greenwich,
Connecticut
IQ: 157
Hair: blonde, texture: coarse/thick
8-inch segment: $55/ 12-inch segment: $75
Hair weaving is a simple process that can be performed by any
certified cosmetologist (about half of all licensed hair stylists are in this category).
The Kicker: You will
raise your IQ within 30 days of implantation—Money Back Guarantee.
I went to one of those free webpage offers and, sure enough, got 150
hits the first day even with no links to search engines. The hair of a genius has the
power to make you smarter. Blend it with your own hair and…voila:
§
Get that promotion you’ve been wanting
§
Score big on game shows
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Impress family and friends
Don’t like Sandra? Well
how about…
Josh, age 20, Computer Programmer
IQ 168
Hair: black, Texture: fine
4-inch segment (get this) $195
Would anyone pay $195 for four inches of hair? Sure enough, this one
got more hits than stuffy Sandra
Know-It-All’s page.
And Josh’s hair comes complete with testimonials:
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“With Josh’s
magic hair, I was like George Costanza when he gave up sex!”
§
“I suddenly had the
confidence to apply to law school… and got in!”
Okay, so before I proceed, let me assure you that no money was
actually exchanged in the sale of fake magic hair. (Remember, I’m primarily a FICTION
writer). But it does speak volumes about the nature of people, doesn’t it?
Experiment #2:
I put an obscure ad in twenty small town newspapers across the
country (and by “small town,” I mean like Waurika, OK and Mule Shoe, TX):
Cardboard, 50 lbs for $50.00
1-714-579-5595
Go ahead, guess. Ten calls? Twenty? Fifty? One
hundred and nineteen calls the first day. Is there some secret conglomeration of cults
that uses cardboard as a symbolic deity, or is there a covert sect of deviant construction
workers who build corrugated houses? No, it’s a lot easier than that.
People are curious and, as a general rule, people are looking for
something. Call it longing, call it baggage, but most people are looking outward to fill
an internal void. And it’s not as tragic as it sounds. This doesn’t mean
they’re necessarily depressed or unhappy, or unfulfilled, but just that they’re
passively, actively looking for something.
Newspapers or those bulletin boards in the doorways of artsy-fartsy
cafes are great places to look. Mostly ads for yoga and Pilates classes, but occasionally
you come across a gem like one I found in the Flying Star recently:
Goats For Sale, 4 for $20, Complete
Aside from the meaning of the word “Complete,” I found
myself wondering what a dairy farmer was doing in a chic urban coffee mecca. Had he
thought about his target market at all?
The behaviors of our human species are fodder for endless analysis
and entertainment. Look at the world we live in, but look beyond our thimble-sized
existence. Push out from the microcosm of our work-work-work existence and take the time
to study our species. Order a newspaper from County Kerry, Ireland or Muleshoe, Texas and
see what’s important to those inhabitants. Do they have four goats for $20? No goats? How
about sheep? What’s the going rate for
sheep in Mule Shoe? Or for a brand new King
James Bible in Chapel Hill or a pound of crawfish in Shreveport?
The world is not small. It’s big and it’s expanding. Be
curious. Buy hair off the internet. Sell goats at Flying Star. You never know what might
happen. |
