Buyer (and seller) beware

There’s a British idiom, “Suck it and see,” the epitome of skepticism, which despite its coarse brevity could well replace whole libraries of posh philosophic big-talk about the fabric of reality. A less aggressive version is “Show me, I’m from Missouri,” which requires the proper Southern Mizoorah drawl for maximum impact. Wherever you’re from, the message is one of eternal vigilance in the face of fancy claims. Advertising, the creation and pushing forth of fancy claims, predates human literacy, and its success is evident in many rampant domains ranging from religion and astrology to sugared water, pet rocks, and Java (only joking there, James).

From the serpent’s cunning loss-leader fruit promotion in Eden (hurry, this offer ends soon) has grown a major industry, the dynamo of consumerism, winning both West and East. Ironically, there are warnings of evil in the very etymology (Latin adversus) and even stronger revelations in Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders (1957). It’s still referred to generically as Madison Avenue, although the special talent needed to bamboozle, or in euphemistic ad-speak, “motivate,” buyers is quite evenly distributed around the globe.

My immediate agenda, though, is to spread the blame between “seller” and “sold” in Packard’s tales of greed and exploitation. No amount of caveat emptor (buyer beware) crusading seems able to rein in HomSap’s infinite gullibility. The sucker birthrate increases daily, a potential refutation of Darwinian Dawkinsism. The various failed anti-consumerism campaigns lack the finely honed persuasions of the Madison Avenue “enemy.” Can you spot the paradox: anti-ad ads? I propose, “Buy Two Caveat Emptor Banners, Get One Free!” Not quite as compelling as “Make your Armpits into Charmpits!”

HARD SELLING SOF T WARE.
HAVE I GOT THE ALGORI THM FOR YOU!

The marketing ploys revealed by Packard revolved around the idea that people don’t buy things. They buy the related intangible dreams: satisfaction, self-esteem, and social success. The ads must disguise the objects accord-

AFFINE ROMANCE Stan Kelly-Bootle, Author

 

ingly, so that cars mean freedom and sex appeal. What’s the equivalent in selling computer hardware and software? Much has changed, of course, since the mainframe days of yore. When I was marketeering for IBM in the 1950s, the T. J. Watson credo reversed the traditional direction of selling-buying. The onus was on potential buyers to prove their worthiness to own a piece of sublime Big Blue. ¹ Some of you may remember the prevailing “rule” that nobody could be blamed for installing (that is to say, being approved by) IBM rather than Univac—even if things went badly wrong.

As computer prices dropped and competition increased, old-fashioned selling and advertising returned. The current talisman is that those look-alike commodity platforms are touted as solutions. The problems may be ill-defined, possibly nonexistent, but who can resist solutions Indeed, the solution now precedes the problem. The hardware can be jazzed up color-wise, reaching the point where people pay extra to have their MacBooks robed in Hamlet Black, a bizarre twist on the Henry Ford Model T’s singular choice of paint jobs.

Of course, computer hardware is truly “general purpose” (see any book on Turing machines), so the promised solutions come in the form of operating systems, compilers, and applications. These invisible, unglamorous bit-strings, either pre-embedded or post-loaded from boxed disks, are what distinguishes the products as problem solvers.

The ad writers therefore need to extol the virtues of what must remain to most buyers rather mysterious, intangible entities. One might add, semi-cynically, that how these diverse bit-strings manage to interoperate with reasonable predictability is itself a major mystery to those who have strung the bits together. So, we find the ads claiming advantages that may strain the legal bounds of honesty. In the hierarchy of fibbing, also called the ISO Mendacity Sequence, we have lies, damned lies, statistics, damned statistics, benchmarks, delivery promises, and ACM Curmudgeon columnies. ²