Another attribute of the artisanal. There is no product that I particularly like that I have discovered through advertising and marketing: cheeses, wine, meats, eggs, tomatoes, basil leaves, apples, restaurants, barbers, art, books, hotels, shoes, shirts, eyeglasses, pants, olives, olive oil, etc. The same apples to cities, museums, art, novels, music, painting, sculpture (I had at some point an obsession with ancient artifacts and Roman heads). These may have been “marketed” in some sense, by making people aware of their existence, but this isn’t how I came to use them—word of mouth is a potent naturalistic filter. Actually, the only filter.
The mechanism of cheapest-to-deliver-for-a-given-specification pervades whatever you see on the shelves. Corporations, when they sell you what they call cheese, have an incentive to provide you with the cheapest-to-produce piece of rubber containing the appropriate ingredients that can still be called cheese—and do their homework by studying how to fool your taste buds. Actually, it is more than just an incentive: they are structurally designed and extrememely expert at delivering the cheapest possible product that meets their specifications. The same with say, business books: publishers and authors want to grab your attention and put in your hands the most perishable journalistic item available that still can be called a book. ==This is optimization at work, in maximizing (image and packaging) or minimizing (costs and efforts).
I said about marketing by soft drink companies that it is meant to maximally confuse the drinker. Anything one needs to market heavily is necessarily either an inferior product or an evil one. And it is highly unethical to portray something in a more favourable light than it actually is. one may make other aware of the existence of a product, say a new belly dancing belt, but I wonder why people don’t realize that, by definition, what is being marketed is necessarily inferior, otherwise it would not be advertised.
Marketing is bad manners—and I rely on my naturalistic and ecological instincts. Say you run into a person during a boat cruise. What would you do if he started boasting of his accomplishments, tellin you how great, rich, tall, impressive, skilled, famous, muscular, well educated, efficient, good in bed he is, plus other attributes? You would certainly run away (or put him in contact with another talkative bore to get rid of both of them). It is clearly much better if others (preferably someone other than his mother) are the ones saying good things about him, and it would be nice if he acted with some personal humility.
Actually this is not at all far-fetched. As I was writing this book, I overheard on a British Air flight a gentleman explain to the flight attendant less than two seconds into the conversation (meant to be about whether he liked cream and sugar in his coffee) that he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine “and Physiology” in addition to being the president of a famous monarchal academy. The flight attendant did not know what the Nobel was, but was polite, so kept retreating “the Nobel Prize” hoping that she would wake up from her ignorance. I turned around and recognized him, and the character suddenly deflated. As the saying goes, it is hardest to be a great man to one’s chambermaid. And marketing beyond conveying information is insecurity.