consumer society think up new ways to attract your cash
Richard tomkins
Does anybody really need a pair of Connolly “road rage” leather driving gloves, black all over except for the red middle and index fingers of the right hand? Or a two-day break at the Linthwaite House Hotel in the Lake District devoted to the study of how to solve crossword puzzles? Or a box of Vosges Haut-Chocolat truffles in flavours that include sweet Indian curry, wild Tuscan fennel pollen and ginger and wasabi?
Before going any further, I would like to offer an apology. In the past, I may have used words such as “satisfaction”, “satiety” and “surfeit” to indicate a belief in the idea that there was some upper limit to the quantity of goods and services that people could consume if for no other reason than because consumption took time and there were only so many hours in the day. Yet now I realise I was wrong.
I am astonished almost daily by the ability of our consumer society to think up new ways for people to spend money. Vodka is defined by US federal regulations as a spirit “without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or colour”. Yet people are increasingly prepared to pay high prices for so-called super-premium brands almost entirely on the basis of marketing and fashion. One example is Wyborowa Single Estate, an “artisanal” Polish rye vodka sold in a bottle designed by Frank Gehry, the architect behind Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum although, at around $30, the product arguably represents good value since it lets people simultaneously get drunk and appreciate Mr Gehry's virtuosity without all the bother of going to Spain.
In fairness to me, however, I should point out that I was only half wrong. It is not so much that people are buying more goods and services. Rather, what is striking is the way in which, at least in richer countries, suppliers have realised that better-off consumers are close to the limits of consumption. So, instead of trying to persuade them to buy even more, they are thinking up ways of getting them to pay higher prices for up-market versions of products they are already consuming.
Of course, there have long been luxury versions of ordinary goods for wealthy elites: Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs, fur coats and haute couture, fine jewellery and ultra expensive wristwatches. But the phenomenon we are now witnessing is different: it is about taking the ordinary, everyday product and changing it from something merely useful into something more special. It is about creating luxury for the masses.
It started with the idea of putting water in a plastic bottle and charging a fancy price for it. Then came H?agen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's with their super-premium ice-cream, Starbucks with its fresh-ground coffee costing many times what people were accustomed to paying for a shot of caffeine, and then the high-end car makers and fashion houses reacting to the emergence of this new market by creating entry-level versions of their luxury brands.
A few weeks ago, I described how some US companies were bringing out expensive “aromatherapeutic” versions of mundane household cleaning products such as Caldrea's Citrus Mint Ylang Ylang Toilet Polish and The Thymes's Mandarin Coriander Dishwashing Liquid for the Sink. But there are many more examples of super-premium products. How about Adidas 1 running shoes complete with on-board computer that are soon to go on the market with a price tag of $250? Or Sony's Qualia range of luxury electronic devices such as a minidisc player that retails at $1,900? Or “affordable” flights into suborbital space at an expected price of $190,000 a ticket (round-trip, one hopes) that could one day be offered by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company?
And if you run out of ideas for spending money on yourself, you can always spoil your children by buying them designer clothes or toys such as the mini BMW 325i offered by Posh Tots, a US website, for $7,992. You can then move on to the pets, dressing your dog in the same designer brands as the children, feeding him biotin-enriched Dogurt Yogurt and treating him to a $28 bottle of Oh My Dog! perfume.
I must admit to feeling a sense of despondency over all this. I once wondered whether we were approaching the day when we would tire of the pointless accumulation of stuff and start looking for satisfaction in something a bit more sublime you know, the life of aesthetic contemplation and so on.
I now realise, however, that the consumer society will never run out of ideas for making us spend. Everything will just keep moving up-market, making yesterday's goods look ever dowdier and today's ever more alluring. Services will continue to proliferate some, such as valet services, saving time rather than consuming it and will become more expensive as the people providing them get richer and set an ever-higher price on their time.
But there is a glimmer of hope. Employees, I read this week, are increasingly opting to forego pay in return for more time off work. The UK's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says 8 per cent of 477 employers offered staff the opportunity to buy extra holiday time, with big employers in particular using the idea as a recruitment tool. One employer said 3,500 of its 15,000 employees had opted to trade in part of their salary for more holiday this year.
With that in mind, I now know what to put at the top of my Christmas list: more time. Well, perhaps not quite at the top, but right behind the iPod, the bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon and the holiday in French Polynesia.
变着法儿从你兜里掏钱
是否每个人都确实需要一付康纳利(Connolly)牌“疯狂大道”(road rage)真皮驾车手套？就是那种除了右手中指和食指为红色，其余全都是黑色的手套？或者说，是否每个人都确实需要在英国湖区(Lake District)的Linthwaite豪华酒店里小住两天，潜心研究填字游戏的方法？或者说，是否每个人都确实需要一盒Vosges Haut-Chocolat软糖？就是那种有印度甜咖喱、野生托斯卡纳茴香花粉、生姜和山葵等口味的软糖？
在继续说下去之前，我想先道个歉。过去，我可能曾用诸如“满意”、“满足”和“过度”等词汇来说明我信奉的一个观点：如果只是因为消费要花时间，而每天只有这么几个小时，那么人们可以消费的商品或服务数量会有个上限。但现在，我意识到自己错了。
我们这个消费社会几乎每天都能想出新方法让人花钱，这真令我感到惊讶。伏特加被美国联邦监管机构定义为一种“没有独特品质、芳香、味道或颜色的”烈酒。但人们日益准备为所谓超级优质品牌伏特加支付高昂的价格，而这么做几乎完全是受营销和时尚的影响。Wyborowa Single Estate就是个例子，这种“手工制作”的波兰黑麦伏特加装在一个由弗兰克?盖瑞(Frank Gehry)设计的酒瓶中出售，他是毕尔巴鄂市古根海姆博物馆的建筑设计师。该产品售价约30美元，有理由认为，它代表了良好的价值，因为它能让人醉眼朦胧地欣赏盖瑞先生的设计艺术，而无需费事跑去西班牙。
但为了对自己公平，我应当指出，我只错了一半。引人注目的并不是人们正购买越来越多的商品和服务。而是供应商如何意识到富裕消费者正接近消费极限，至少在富裕国家是这样。因此，供应商不再努力游说消费者买得更多，而是想方设法让消费者支付更高的价格，来购买他们已在消费的产品的高档款式。
当然，对于富裕的精英阶层来说，他们消费普通商品的奢侈版已有很长时间，比如劳斯莱斯和凯迪拉克，毛皮大衣和高级女装，精美珠宝和天价手表等。但我们现在看到的情景不同以往：现在是把一些普通、纯粹的日常用品从纯粹的有用变成一些更特别的东西，现在是在为大众创造奢侈。
这一现象的开端是，有人出主意把水装进塑料瓶，然后卖个高价。然后是哈根达斯(Haagen-Dazs)和Ben Jerry’s的高价冰淇淋，星巴克(Starbucks)的现磨咖啡（价格是人们过去买一小杯咖啡的数倍），接着是高档汽车制造商和时装公司响应这一新市场的兴起，创造出豪华品牌的入门级版本。
几周前，我描述了一些美国公司如何推出一些平常家庭清洁用品的“芳香疗法”款式，比如Caldrea的“柑橘薄荷伊兰伊兰卫生间芳香剂”(Citrus Mint Ylang Ylang Toilet Polish)，以及Thymes用于清洗水槽的“柑橘芫荽清洗液”(Mandarin Coriander Dishwashing Liquid)。但还有更多超高档产品的例子：阿迪达斯(Adidas)公司带微型计算机的“Adidas 1”跑鞋，不久将以250美元的价格面市；或是索尼的Qualia系列豪华电子产品，比如零售价1900美元的MD播放机；或是李察?布莱信爵士(Sir Richard Branson)麾下维珍银河公司(Virgin Galactic)将来可能提供“负担得起的”亚轨道太空之旅，预计票价为19万美元（希望是往返票价）。对这些东西你怎么想？
如果你对如何为自己花钱没了主意，你总是可以去宠宠孩子，给他们买些名牌服饰或玩具，比如美国网站“高档小孩”(Posh Tots)提供的迷你型宝马(BMW)325i车模，售价7992美元。你还可以进一步考虑宠物，让你的狗也穿上和孩子一样的名牌服装，喂他喝含有浓缩生物素的Dogurt酸奶，给他喷28美元一瓶的“Oh My Dog!”香水。
我必须承认，我对所有这一切都感到有些失望。我曾经想，有朝一日，我们是否会厌烦无意义的材料堆彻，而开始在一些略为崇高的东西里寻找满足感，比如充满审美思考的人生，等等。
但是，我现在明白了，这个消费社会总有点子让我们花钱。一切都不断在向高档市场靠拢，使昨天的商品看上去更寒酸，今天的商品更有吸引力。服务将继续增生，帮人节约时间而不是耗费时间，比如贴身男仆服务。服务还会变得更昂贵，因为提供这些服务的人会变得愈加富有，而为自己的时间索要更高的价格。
但这里还有一丝希望。本周我读到一些文章，称雇员们正日益选择放弃一些报酬来获得更多休假时间。据英国特许人事和发展协会(Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development)调查，在477家雇主中，有8%为员工提供购买额外休假时间的机会，尤其是大型雇主会把这个点子当成招聘新人的工具。有一家雇主表示，今年在它的1.5万名员工中，有3500人曾选择用部分薪水换取更多的假日。
想到这些，我现在知道该把什么放在我圣诞购物单的首位了：更多的时间。好吧，也许不是放在首位，但就放在iPod、一瓶Dom Pérignon陈年香槟王，以及在法属玻利尼西亚度假之后
