Don’t Pay For What has No Value

The above lesson was meant for entrepreneurs, on how to get more for whatever you are selling. But in today’s article, we will climb the fence and see it from the opposing perspective; how to recognize rip-offs, and how to avoid them.

In the Prostitute article, we spoke about a girl who plans to sell her virginity for one million euros. That is obviously a rip-off. (Like in the previous article, we are to disregard moral concerns for the purposes of this case study, and treat the commercial sex market just like any other conventional market.)

It is a rip-off because similar services are available at much lower prices. But the rip-off was possible because the deal was nicely and creatively packaged.

Now, what is the lesson we can learn from this issue?

The lesson is this:-

We constantly pay a lot for stuff we don’t need. By packaging their products and services in creative ways, businesses are able to psyche us into buying stuff at inflated prices. We fall for it because we are tricked into perceiving value that does not actually exist. Illusions are performed to blind us from the true value of the item in question.

The most obvious example would be advertising. Placing a sexy girl in an ad for a sports car would do so much to increase the perceived value (by males). Subconciously, the animal instincts that reside deep in us are awakened, and the sight of something provocative disturbs the rational calculation of the value of the sports car as a machine. We begin to think of it as an instrument that can help us pick up chicks.

But all chick-pickers would know that chick-picking lies more in charm and power of personality than in what you drive.

Nevertheless, the oldest trick in the advertising textbook still works. Sex sells.

Other ‘dormant’ instincts in us that businesses like to awaken are the love of wealth, the need for status, the want of prestige, and implied lifestyles. When these parts of our minds are awakened, the imagination robs the processing capacity of our rational minds, thus reducing the cold logic in us. Greed, lust, and fear overtakes us.

That’s why we have campaigns by property developers that concentrate more on the lifestyles implied by a certain development than on the actual land, bricks and concrete. We also have direct marketers who like to talk to you more about your entrepreneurial ‘dreams’ than the actual operations of the business they want you to start.

All these packaging can collectively be called Creative Bullshit (CB) that adds nothing to the core product other than stirring some latent figments of your imagination; figments that when stirred up, quicken your impulse to buy or join.

So, where marketers strive to get more out of their products by padding them with CB, consumers should look out for CB and avoid paying for these intangible and largely imagined benefits.

In the end, always look at the numbers involved. Compare products and prices. Don’t be hoodwinked by sexy girls in posters. By all means look at them and appreciate their beauty, but proceed to buy from the other firm that sells at cheaper prices (because they have less ad costs to cover).