Advertising Overload

Rob Walker, the author of the weekly New York Times Magazine column Consumed, has devoted years to telling Americans why we buy stuff. In his new book, "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are" (Random House. $25.), he looks at the latest generation of consumers who have been inundated with 360-degree advertising campaigns. But instead of finding them jaded or immune to marketing ploys, he describes a youth culture that embrace certain brands as forms of self-expression. And when there isn't an existing brand that fits the bill, they'll create one of their own.

NEWSWEEK's Temma Ehrenfeld spoke to Walker about today's brand-conscious consumer, why they're so willing to buy-in and how susceptible we are to "marketing." Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: It seems that we've all gotten more skeptical as consumers and are less likely to shell out for the reassurance of a well-known brand. Is that really true?
Rob Walker: I was hearing that we were becoming more brandproof and that young people were especially brand-resistant. But it turned out that while young people were savvy about marketing and rejecting mainstream brands, I found that they were creating brands of their own with streety cachet. I didn't expect that. It interested me that they were choosing to create brands, as the center of a new subculture. For instance, when you buy the Hundreds T shirt you're buying the brand, the Hundreds lifestyle--it's rebellious, Southern California, hip-hop. It's like punk, with no ideology or music. I'd ask, "So what does the lifestyle consist of besides buying the Hundreds product?" The answers were vague. It was completely brand oriented.

Word of mouth campaigns aren't exactly new, but you describe companies that upped the ante. In particular, Al Fresco sausage, which convinced some 2,000 of its customers to serve as unpaid company representatives at their friends' and family's July 4 parties, pass out free samples and collect responses. Who are these people? Don't they have a life?
It seems hard to believe that people would do this in their free time. But these volunteers aren't crazy, they were normal people and they weren't pathetic. The fundamental thing the word-of-mouth agencies like BzzAgent (which devised the campaign) have tapped into is a desire to feel like a trendsetter, to tell your friends about the new thing. The volunteers are getting stuff for free. If you get it first and no one hears about it, then it doesn't mean anything. If you go out and tell people and other people drink your Kool-Aid, you get the buzz of having had the product first.

You say successful brands can have a placebo effect on its customers. Do you have proof of that?
There's one study about people drinking energy drinks and doing puzzles. When people were told that drink cost $2, their performance on the puzzle improved. When they heard that the drink only cost 40 cents because the university had gotten a discount, their performance dropped. The researchers concluded that you do get what you pay for. It's essentially a variation on the placebo effect. You buy into the sell--it doesn't come from marketing or the consumer alone, it comes from the two together.

And businesses everywhere are dying to know what makes this happen. Is there a new secret?
Marketers might not like to hear this, but it's different every time; there's chance and culture involved. The consumer embrace is part of it--we're not passive, and we never were. New Coke is a good example. Consumers had a short conversation with New Coke and we said we didn't want it.