You stated that you think some stuff is a matter of taste, such that it “cannot be overcome even with billions in marketing.” You named some of them. I asked you what else you think fits into that category.
How the heck does that translate into me believing anything?
I have no idea!
You believe that some things involve fixed preferences, such that even billions in marketing can’t overcome matters of taste. I don’t know how many other things you believe involve fixed preferences, such that even billions in marketing can’t overcome matters of taste. I’d sure like the list of stuff that you think qualifies – which, again, and I can’t stress this enough, has nothing to do with my position, that’s a whole different discussion; right now I’m just trying to learn yours.
Okay, I’m trying to read you as carefully as I can.
I think you might be thinking of “marketing” as having a single axis or a narrow collection of considerations. (So the value of “taste” would apply across it.)
Marketing represents a welter of spectra. “Taste” is one of them. I suppose you could say that Ford’s marketing of F-150 trucks has to accommodate “taste,” but IMHO it would be a minor component of the marketing effort. It would be even less of a component for many common products where function is more important than personal impressions. At the very other end of the scale is entertainment (I can’t think of anything much past that, except maybe escorts and sex services), and not too far below it would be personal beauty items like perfume, which are almost wholly subjective in desirability. (I’d bet that not one person in a thousand could differentiate five popular perfumes of a particular type - e.g. spice, mid-floral, strong floral, musk.)
So I don’t know if I can create a list that fits your question. Taste is only one axis of marketing consideration and effort; for entertainment, perfume, and… certain types of luxury foods, it’s a predominant axis. The more utilitarian, the more physical, the more limited a product gets, the less “taste” would have much to do with it except on the level of “people like blue cleaning products” - trivial side issues.
OTOH, the notion of “taste” (as in higher, better, or classier) is a kindergarten element in basic marketing - the one with the embossed foil label MUST be better than the one with the paper label, right? “Taste” in this mode can of course be shaped by marketing efforts, easily. But back to the original point, if someone doesn’t like horror movies, a billion-dollar campaign is unlikely to change their mind. Pretty much everything in between is… accessible, mostly if there is enough time to influence it.
Sure, but in the end, I’m just as dead (or not) from a sharp stick as I’d be from a bullet out of your spiffy system.
I think to some degree you overestimate how much this big data stuff actually affects these things. I mean, so what if you can narrow down your market segmentations to groups of 9 men similar to each other, and then tailor your offerings to them in particular. Yes, it’ll be more effective than just shotgunning ads and materials at a part of town.
But ultimately it doesn’t remove the element of free will. No amount of marketing is going to get me to buy a new pickup truck today, or even in the near future.
Well, look, you described stuff in terms of “taste that cannot be overcome even with billions in marketing.” I don’t think I introduced the word, prompting you to shrug and go with it; you apparently just chose it from among all others when discussing music and movies and entertainment in general. And then you later started talking about ‘working with fixed preferences’ with regard to politics.
So I guess what I’m asking is, consider two types of undertaking:
In one, I already have a taste or a fixed preference – or whatever – and someone out to make money off me can just work with that. Like, if you could peer deep into my psychology, you’d realize that I’m already on board for a comedy built around Jennifer Lawrence having wacky misadventures at a nudist colony; and you could slap that product together, and then market it to me for the win.
In the other, you don’t work with a taste or a fixed preference or whatever. Like, if you could peer into my psychology and find something I genuinely don’t give a crap about – or actively dislike – you’d say, “well, screw it; I’m not going to give him a product he’d already be in favor of; I’m going to sell him on this other product: were I to place it before him, he’d shrug; were I to merely show him an ad for it, he’d still shrug; but, through the might of marketing, I will sell him on it.”
As I understand it, you think some things fit into the first category and some fit into the second. You apparently think that movies and music – and, again, entertainment in general – fits in the first category; you figure that those are matters of taste, and billions of dollars in marketing can’t overcome that; folks out to move product should just cater to it. You apparently think various political issues fit in that first category likewise; you describe those as matters of fixed preference, such that (a) billions of dollars in marketing can’t overcome it, and (b) folks out to sell a candidate to me should maybe just put one up who simply fits my fixed preferences.
If I’m reading you wrong so far, then please correct me; but if I’m reading you right, then please let me know what else – if anything – you think goes in that first category, the one where folks can but supply and advertise a product that plays to my ‘tastes’ or my ‘fixed preferences’ or whatever as opposed to undertakings where marketers wouldn’t simply be catering to tastes or preferences or whatever.