The inanity of the American consumer

From Seth Godin's blog ...

"Never before in history have so many needed so little.

'What do you get for someone who has everything' takes on a whole new meaning in the face of the BTB TEM 500.

This device will toast your muffin, poach an egg and heat your ham, all at the same time.



What kind of person, exactly, needs this?

If you're the rush out the door guy who stops at McDonalds, then there's no way you're going to stop and clean the thing.

And if you're a gourmet, you probably want to make more than one at a time, and you still don't want to clean it.

Not only don't people need it, it's unclear that they even want it.

It seems as though we've marketed ourselves into a corner, where the only way to grow is to find increasingly narrow niches of decreasing utility. The consumer portion of our economy is now dependent on a four-week long debt-fueled race to buy the useless.

Surely consumers can do better. And maybe, marketers can lead us there."

..................................................................................

Seth, if consumers want it, they'll buy it. If they don't, it will rot on the shelves. Shouldn't we all start with the idea that, in actual fact, consumers are inherently smart about what they really want?

And wouldn't a better question to ask be "What research led to the Company to think that this is a good idea"?

Technorati innovation tag