Back to the Future

It's the end of February 2011, but in Brazil I think it might be February 1985. Which is to say, consumerism is making its grand entrance here in a way that takes me back to Britain in the mid-80s - and the heated debates that accompanied it. Fellow Brazilians, I've seen the future and it's ... complicated. But a lot better than military dictatorship or South American-style socialism.

I'm moved to make this declaration because I've just been reading a Google-translated web page of an interview in Brazil's main marketing magazine. It's with a "philosopher-economist-writer" and no doubt several other omniscient labels to his name.

The marketing mag interviewer sits at the feet of the Great Man and listens to his pearls of wisdom on the changing face of society, technology and, of course, marketing. I could only read some of the interview because the rest requires a subscription (good marketing, must try that myself on this blog). But it was enough for me to know that I didn't care to read more (on second thoughts, scrap the blog subscription idea).

The not so wise old owl talks about cutting-edge trends (sarcasm alert) such as supermarkets wafting the aroma of freshly baked bread through their aisles so that shoppers will, in a mood-altering trance, spend longer, and more. Yawn. Ancient news in the UK. From this example we're plunged into a Brave New World of sinister mind control (or not so sinister if you're a marketer eager to exploit it) where we can be encouraged via brain re-tuning to transform a love of, say, tobacco, into a hatred of the selfsame substance. All of which prompts the 54-year-old-going-on-104 to intone solemnly: "The question is how far I can change my preferences, without ceasing to be who I am?"

Deep. I shop therefore I am (somebody I no longer recognise !) Don't you love those hackneyed philosophical profundities ? From my vantage point over here in The Future I can tell the worried philosopher that we humans are constantly changing and in a state of flux, ceasing to be who we were and becoming someone a bit more interesting, thank god. It's only in stagnant and stagnating societies that we feel fixed and chiselled into one image. If I may throw my own cliché into the ring: "The only constant is change."

Right now in Brazil, the "sinister" element in society is not marketing or marketers per se. It is corrupt, inefficient and bloated government, which inhibits commerce by imposing punitive taxes and by allowing monopolies, extortionate banking fees and price fixing to flourish. Brazil needs to get rid of all that rottenness and replace it with cut-throat competition on level playing fields, in which marketers may try as many tricks as they wish but in the end will be subject to the law of consumer attraction rather than, as we see at present, consumer incarceration.

Meanwhile, let's listen to the philosopher prattle on with his Luddite fear of change. Forgive the imperfect Google translation but remember that it is still 1) a pretty good translation, 2) free, 3) a product of cut-throat competition and 4) an eloquent repudiation of the belief that technological progress is inherently sinister. Oh yes and 5) it's something that the philosopher would never have come up with.

"Today's society is based on having and no longer in being. With advances in technology, people no longer have time to reflect on the simple issues of life or even to read a good book. I have no car and I refuse to use mobile. All those wishing to speak with me can find me via the telephone, do not need more equipment to be found."

Another big yawn. Yes, Brazilian society right now is going through an ugly consumerist binge which, as I've said before, may end badly (in the short term at least). It is ugly because Brazilians as a whole are uneducated in the ways of modern marketing and finance, so the playing field is particularly skewed in favour of big corporates (henceforth to be known as The Enemy).

But what is needed, rather than the lazy reflex to turn the clock back, is to fight the good fight and press on to sunnier shores. Boasting about not having a mobile phone is just sad. As for reading a good book, I would have had a modicum more respect for the man if he'd said: Read a good e-book and, once you've done so, campaign vigorously for Brazil to enjoy an e-book revolution, preferably subsidized by the government so that access to education can become that bit more universal. E-books, as people here in 2011 know, became the most popular form of book purchase on Amazon in 2010. And once that happens, there's no turning back.

Unless, of course, you're a Brazilian "philosopher-economist-writer".