[lit-ideas] Re: Providing a fair trial and sentencing
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:23:09 +0900
On 1/13/07, Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I used to like the slogan of that clothing company, "An educated consumer
is our best customer". I always thought that was an inside joke, since the
last thing companies want is an educated consumer.
It's not a joke at all. Consumers educated to appreciate subtle differences
in cars, wine, couture, whatever, supply the demand on which marketers of
all luxury products depend. The puritan sourpuss says a used Chevy in
working order will get me there. A BMW salesman says, listen to that engine
sound, touch the leather in these seats, note the sharpness of the handling
(no soft, sluggish, mushiness here), watch this--he accelerates to 140 miles
per hour on an expressway straightaway, lifts his hands from the wheel and
stomps on the break, the speed drops to 70 and the car has not wavered an
inch from the line it was following when the demonstration began. He appeals
to someone who has been educated to believe that if you have to travel, it's
how you travel that makes the difference and that, if you really know cars,
you will understand what an amazing piece of engineering the BMW is (the
demonstration described above is followed by pulling off the hubcaps and
noting that, since the BMW is designed for the German autobahn, the disc
brakes are, in fact, twice as large in diameter as those on a Lexus).
Cheers,
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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