Now, how much does this mean to you? Practically, for the normal folks like you and me, a diamond is a piece of rock. Carbon actually. We're not in the business of investing or trading in diamonds and it's really more for aesthetic purposes. Probably we're never going to sell the rings we buy today anyway. However, brilliant salesmen and marketers have come up with this concept of "educating" the consumer. To make him desire something that appears to be better/rarer. No doubt, a IF (flawless) diamond with D colour at 10 carats would probably be rare on the earth. But to a layman. That's about what it's worth. A piece of earth. We don't sell such stuff or make money out of it. But we all just lap up these sweet sayings by the salesmen and listen to their hogwash about how brilliant the diamond is and what the colour is and the VVS1 particle inside the 1 carat diamond you are considering. Most/Some of us would console ourselves saying that this was an investment which could be resold in future. Please just be honest with yourself. If you're not in the business of diamond trading/watch trading, it's probably not going to be an investment.
Hobbyist watch collectors ARE somewhat in the industry of trading and selling watches so to them, a watch could be deemed an investment. However, for most of us. It's just a luxury product to make us feel good.
Have you ever stopped and wondered what it all means? Absolutely nothing! Salesmen trying to teach you how to appreciate a diamond. Is similar to a salesman telling you that this wine tastes nice although its sour. It's meant to be sour and if you don't know how to appreciate it. They'll teach you until you know how to appreciate sour wine.
Now mattresses are somewhat similar as well. My mum is an advocate of quality mattresses. Nothing less than SGD1000 as she believes price equates to quality. But how much IS really quality? How much more or less support can a mattress give? Now I'm sure that there IS SOME basis for this. There ARE ergo dynamic mattresses. What I'm questioning is how much better is a modern SGD300 mattress vs the patented SGD4000 mattress? Are they also educating us on how much it supports our precious backs? I very much think so. I don't believe that the technology of mattresses have differed much in the past years. Yes some are probably made better. But are they 10 times better? I highly doubt so. I could change a SGD300 mattress every year for 10 years!
The idea is simple. Marketers now have this new method of tricking the consumer called "education". Suddenly people are spouting sophisticated words about a topic which never once existed. They sound sophisticated and when others start talking in the same way they feel recognized that they know something new. And thus, a whole new industry has been created. Absolute genius actually. I have this love hate relationship with marketers. One being, that I do accept the ingenuity of it all. Of how they manipulate the human mind to believe that we need new things and to appreciate something which THEY think should be appreciated. Hate them that they can actually do so. Cos the average human is so easily sweet talked into such instances and so easily manipulated/swayed and that they are obviously capitalizing on human weakness which they never knew they had. (ie, humans never knew they had this psychological weakness and marketers are exploiting this loophole.)
Anyway with knowledge, we are better able to prevent this from happening to ourselves. It's better to know than not to know and hopefully, we do not fall prey to these tactics of salesmen/marketers.
For more info on marketing, you may like to read.
The De Beers diamond marketing campaign, (search Google)
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Book)
Are there other examples you can think of that someone has "educated" you to think in a particular manner? And strangely the person selling the item is the one doing the "educating"? Should there be controls on such marketing techniques? Is this similar to being a conman or insider trading? Do you look at this as exploiting a loophole?
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