I agree with Liz Brooks's perceptive comments. Smart marketing creates a market for items that were developed to serve specific needs - to expand customers. Marketing, to cite Drucker, creates a "need" that didn' t exist before.

 Persuasive marketing, places an image in our heads of ourselves using the product. It puts "you" in the picture. It is often useful to pause and  question.... 

As I tell families, it can be informative for consumers to question any infant-related marketing directed at parents or grandparents, by asking, "Do I really need this?" and "Are there alternatives, including better alternatives?" 

When my first child was born, a very down-to-earth older man, the manager of a huge cattle station (ranch), queried why we would need a bassinette, a short-term item, when the bottom drawer of the dressing table would serve the purpose. I guess he took the perspective of function, rather than looking through the lens of cultural artifact, even though cradles of some sort have been marketed or homemade for centuries. (Yes, we did use a bassinet, but his question made me think.) 

Wherever you live, stay safe, stay well in these pandemic years.

Virginia

Dr Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC, FILCA
Historian
Ipswich, QLD, Australia

Sent from my Huawei Mobile



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