[/caption]Two happenings got me thinking this week.
First, the scam. I got the email from a client. It said Talbots is closing all its stores. And J.Jill. Ann Taylor - 117 stores closing. There was more, but I couldn't see past the tears. After all, I am slightly petite. 5 feet nothing, actually. And like many women, I've learned where I should shop and where I shouldn't. I should shop at Talbots, Ann Taylor and J.Jill.The good news? The email was a fake. Thank heaven! I figured it out before I emptied the stores of everything I could squeeze into.
Second, the reformation. Last night I attended an outstanding event sponsored in part by a client, FieldEddy Insurance. John Zogby, pollster, spoke about his new book The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. John says Americans will focus less on material things (in part because many of us have gone downhill, shall we say, in financial terms). We'll want our tombstones to say more than that we spent "37 years in a cubicle." Also, a million people now approaching 60 will live to be 100! He adds that we'll NEED to live that long if we want ever to retire.
Seriously, he makes some great points: that more isn't always meaningful, that we're tired of fake and want authenticity (he pointed to the Dove ad campaign for real beauty, with ads that feature women with real, lovely but imperfect bodies, as an example of how wildly successful that approach can be). IN FACT, we're so sick of the meaningless and the trivial that we didn't care about Bill Ayers or "lipstick on a pig" in the recent election. No, we wanted some real help and a real transformation.
Very timely event! I actually just read an article in the Wall Street Journal by one of their financial guys that was along the same lines - not being wasteful in everyday life and money doesn't equal wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe article is a good read and is a response to an online comment by a reader who accused him of being one of the silver-spooned elite: http://blogs.wsj.com/wallet/2008/11/25/what-a-bear-market-might-teach-us/
Personally, this holiday season I've found everyone to be much more excited about getting together and spending time as a family than they are about the whole present thing.
In a weird sort of way, your two points are related: Americans will focus less on material things... such as clothes from Talbots! The scam email is clearly part of a massive anticonsumerist underground movement!
ReplyDeleteOK, that's a stretch.
I love the Dove ad where they show the woman getting made up, styled, and then Photoshopped beyond all recognition. Very eye-opening. (Literally - they made her eyes larger!) Here's to real transformations in 2009!
In response to Becky - that's a great article! I'm not sure money is finite, since we keep printing more, but at the root of it, I like Zweig's statement:
ReplyDelete"Money should never be taken for granted. Its uses are limited, but it is not a renewable resource; it is finite. And finite resources — love, water, the Earth and, yes, money — are meant to be stewarded and treated with care."