I recently clocked miles per gallon for the first time for the Jeep Cherokee I’ve had and loved for 10 years. Always a trusty friend, we’ve driven over 100,000 miles together all over the US, Mexico and Canada. I have an affinity for my Jeep and I always swore that I would run it into the ground before I traded it in. I guess it was some weird sense of automobile loyalty combined with classic consumer product personification (my Jeep’s name is Betty Sue). So what was the mpg verdict? 16 miles per gallon. “16?” I thought. “SIXTEEN?????” That means that at current gas prices of $4/gallon, I’m paying .25 per mile. Suddenly I began to eye my trustworthy Jeep with slightly less blind dedication. What will I do when gas gets to $5, $6 a gallon and higher? Clearly I’ll have to let go of my Jeep (tear). But where to go from there?
First of all, plain old combustible gasoline engines, particularly of the SUV variety, aren’t getting any kind of trade in value. And then there’s the problem of what to buy instead. Do I try for a fancy hybrid? Not anytime soon, due to the difficulty Ford and Honda are having in keeping up with demand because of a backup in hybrid battery production. Do I wait until 2010 when GM rolls out their new plug in electric? Or wait even longer for their super eco-friendly line of hydrogen fuel cell cars to get going? While it looks to me like hydrogen is the all around best choice, GM is waiting for the refueling infrastructure problems to be solved before launching a hydrogen car. Who knows how long that will be? And who knows what cool new innovations other car companies will come out with? In the meantime those of us stuck in the middle are paying out the ears just to get done what we need to get done in our day. The rock is that we can’t afford to drive our old car anymore, the hard place is that we don’t have a clear new direction.
As consumers, we take a lot of factors into consideration when we make a purchase decision, particularly big ones like automobiles. However when a big environmental shift also shifts our consumer perspective and point of reference, how do we “reground” ourselves into a workable pattern of living? How do we go about making an intelligent and well thought out decision now in light of the obscured vision of the future of alternative fuels? Who do we go to for advice when no one seems to have a reliable crystal ball? In order for any kind of gasoline or fuel alternative to work, we hear, it will require a new infrastructure. In order for a new infrastructure to be invested in by government and corporations, we will have to decide as a Culture which direction to go. Or will we? Is there more value in diversity or conformity? If diversity, will we ever have enough “buying power” behind one fuel source to justify an infrastructure overhaul? If conformity, can one alternative fuel source replace the solidarity that gasoline brought to our transportation needs? Or is the release of efficient cars an evolution of growing pains and auto-baby steps for both consumers and car companies that we’ll just have to tolerate, moving forward as best we’re able, until a clear winner emerges?
Personally, I’m going to readjust my tire pressure, change my oil, drive at 55mph, keep a close eye on gas prices, and try anything else the experts tell me will improve my gas efficiency. Maybe I can squeeze a few more mpg out of Betty Sue before I’m forced into choosing a side.
June 25th, 2008 - Posted in Behavior, Consumer Products, Cultural Trends | |
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(Reader beware… this one is personal). I recently had friends over this weekend, and they asked the question that I often get, “How do you use anthropology in the private sector?” Well, this time I was more prepared than usual. I had recently had a lot of time to think through this question as I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital dealing a fairly scary health event.
One of my husband’s friends called me while I was in the hospital and said something to me, which although seemingly simple on its surface, was truly earth shattering at the time. He told me, “You have to have hope.”
Hope. It totally blew me away. How do I get that… where does hope come from? I started to think about the places where I seen hope or where and when people have talked to me about hope. And that’s when it hit me that out in “the field” anthropologists are always talking to people about their hopes.
Traditionally, anthropologists go into the field (years in Thailand, or Papua New Guinea, or post Communist Russia) believing that we are going to ask a lot of questions, or really stimulate a lot of discussion around a wide array of topics political systems, religious beliefs, marriage rites, daily rituals, educational processes, and the like. But as our informants, our collaborators bring us into their social and cultural worlds much of what they speak of is tied to their hopes and dreams, their sense of themselves in the world they inhabit and how they seek to find happiness within this world.
In fact, this is no different from what we talk to our clients about here at Context. We go out into the field-Mom’s kitchen, the community playground, a yoga class, the local Target-and we spend time with people striving to pursue small hopes. By small I don’t mean inconsequential; indeed these hopes are very consequential. Rather I mean that they are rooted in the reality of people’s lives. These folks are not dreaming up big schemes; rather they are looking to get through the complications of each day happy and whole, and surrounded by loved ones who are also happy and whole.
So, when marketers are trying to understand where their products fit into peoples’ lives what they need to look for is hope.
June 25th, 2008 - Posted in Anthropology, Behavior, Consumer Products, Ethnography, Huh? | |
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