The Gormless Millions
FINAL PART
by
Randolph Pershey
You are being duped, conned, screwed, used, manipulated, bought & sold, and generally thought of by the corporate world as being totally gormless.
Read about the TOP FIVE PRODUCTS that are now considered the biggest consumer-cons of all time. They are BOTTLED WATER, DIET/LITE BEER, SHAM-POO, DIET BOOKS & CLUBS, & EXTENDED WARRANTIES.
(Scroll down for PART ONE through FOUR)
FINAL PART: DIET BOOKS & DIET CLUBS.
Watching some old newsreel footage of people in the 1950’s and 1960’s it was very clear they were all very far from being fat. I attended a recent symposium on the new desease sweeping America, Canada, and the UK, that of obesity, and sat through an hour or more of what people used to look like, and how they lived and what they ate. They even showed selections from a recent American movie ‘Pleasantville’ where the movie purports to suggest that people back in the 50’s & 60’s ate mountains of sweet foods and fatty foods. We all laughed at the pot calling the kettle black. The only truth is that today way too many people are overweight, under-exercised, and are doing nothing about it.
Enter the diet craze. Books, videos, clubs, even daily nutritional tips on every news channel on television. The diet craze sells more books than all the books sold about religion - and thats a lot of books. Go into your book store and visit that section - not a mere shelf or two - but a whole section on how to help you lose weight. The latest, and now very much a loser, is the low carb diet. How this one ever got started, no one knows, but it caught on quickly and even got companies producing all kinds of low carb foods, from bread to pasta.
The sad truth about being fat is that it is so obvious no one with an ounce of common sense needs to be told they’re fat. There’s a simple test. Stand in front of a large mirror and ask yourself - am I fat. We’re not talking about are you slightly overweight - we mean are you fat. Stomach area, butt, arms, thighs, chins. This is where you will notice it - fat.
Now comes the most important part - what are you going to do about it. Buy a book? Yes, they’d love that, all those rich writers who churn out obvious books about ‘self rationing’ of food, and about ‘regular exercising.’ Do you really need someone to tell you how to lose weight? Of course not. All you want is a crutch to lean on whilst you give it all a half-hearted try. Do you really want to pay $350 to join a club, buy their foods, in the hope you’ll end up slim & trim? Of course not. You know and I know, you’ll soon be hitting the cookies, and the cakes, as well as hamburgers, fries, and chips. And be certain a diet coke with it all hardly helps! What you really need to do is wise up as to why you’re fat and do something about it. First - forget the diet books. Second - be honest with yourself. If you really want to lose weight then stop playing games with yourself and with all those diet fads.
Start with exercise. If you can’t get off your butt and walk a few miles each day then don’t even start trying to lose weight. And not in fits and starts, but in one straight walk. Exercise can’t be taught in books, it can only be experienced. It’s the basic ingredient to losing weight. Next, you need to eat better. Breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day, it’s the worst. Some juice, tea, or coffee and toast (or cereal & milk) is ALL you need. Lunch is the most important meal of the day. A good, mixed, bread, salad, meat, soup, tea, coffee and water lunch. Supper should be light. Not big, hot, and stodgy. You’re going to take it to bed remember. It’ll gel, it’ll lay there, it’ll make you fat. Control your food intake. Because diet books are really for reference only.
PART FOUR: SHAM-POO
My sister had reached that age when she would spend hours upon hours washing her hair, then blow-drying it, applying varying degrees of make-up from around the eyes to the ends of her fingers and toenails, all followed by long drawn-out looks in all the mirrors from her bedroom to the ones on the side of our car. She had reached the age of ‘awareness’, that time when we all make that giant leap from childhood to adulthood. I was her much younger brother, and from being a ‘cute little boy’ I had now become an absolute twerp. She was now above babysitting me. She had too many important things to fill her glamorous life.
It was at this time I stole one of her bottles of shampoo. She had several. One for split-ends, one for tangles, another for ‘body’, and about six others for ‘healthy’ hair. I took a large one, blue in colour, and used it to wash the car. It worked. When mother saw me she had a fit. ‘Your sister will go crazy when she finds out,’ she said. So, after borrowing a few dollars from my mother I went to the supermarket. I could not believe what they were charging for shampoo. As much as $19.95. To heck with that I thought. In the ‘cleaning’ aisle they had giant bottles of washing-up liquid. Several were blue. I bought one for $1.95 to refill her shampoo bottle. Back home I put a few drops of perfume into the empty shampoo bottle along with the washing-up liquid. Then I waited. Soon she was washing her hair again. I saw her use the blue washing-up liquid. It was very soapy. But she rinsed it four times, then spent five minutes blow-drying it. ‘My, your hair looks shiny,’ said mum. ‘Must be the shampoo.’
The subject this month is shampoo, if you didn’t already know. Or as it is called in the business - sham-poo! The ‘sham’ is the fact it is 99% liquid soap, that arrives at the factory in huge drums, and stacked close to the bottling house! The ‘poo’ is the added perfumes, or dashes of oil, or any old thing that will give the buyer the idea they’re getting something that will make their hair look full and glamorous! You know, just like those hair-freaks who have acres of thick glamorous hair as they appear in those commercials. Nothing to do with shampoo, but all to do with their gift of great hair.
Shampoo, along with ‘lite’ beer and bottled water, is one of those great come-ons the corporate world has got you to believe is good for you, is necessary, and is worth all the money you pay for them. The truth is that shampoo is 99% liquid soap, in its watered down form, that even the dollar-day stores are selling at a nice profit when you pay $1 for a big bottle. And what is shampoo? It’s a soapy liquid cleaner - nothing else. But most shampoos are often watered down so much that they hardly clean anymore. Your hair doesn’t need ‘washing’ every day. If you do wash it every day it’ll become limp, lifeless, and dull. So - they sell you more watered down liquid soap, but add some oil to make it shine, and yes, a few drops of scent to make it smell nice! And you’ll pay dearly for it.
Now that you’re enlightened, there is no need to go out and buy four gallons of industrial liquid soap! But learn one valuable lesson. Your hair is your hair. Nothing will make it like the ads. So use a mild, cheap shampoo that’ll clean your hair and make it look good. Try washing-up liquid!
PART THREE: BOTTLED WATER
It all began with the French. They began selling bottled water (Perrier) as a type of ’ boulevard cafe’ fashion accessory! The French did not want to always drink wine or coffee, as they sat watching the world go by, and many began asking for water instead. But Paris water, even boiled, chilled, and served in small glasses, was not very good. Word filtered through to a company that was producing ‘natural spring water’ for the sick and the elderly. Why not, they were asked, bottle some and let us sell it at a handsome profit to our customers.
And so began another fad we humans like to get all ‘cocky’ and silly about, by acting ‘cool’ and secretly hoping the whole world is watching us do this very questionable thing of drinking water ‘in public,’ and doing it all, oh so, nonchalantly! It was right up the Frenchs path, done with gay abandon, a tossing of curls, and something to be very ‘different’ about. Soon the little green bottles of water became great big two quart plastic bottles, sold in supermarkets, as it found its way to America, and the UK, and then the rest of the world. Bottled water had caught on.
The enterprising entrepreneurs soon had their giant water pasteurization tanks built, and were siphoning off truckloads of water at incredibly low cost, bottling it, and selling it to a suddenly very thirsty public. Upto a few years ago no one cared much about drinking water when walking, running, shopping, picnicking, partying, in a pub (sacrilege!), in a restaurant (‘yes, I’ll have a bottle of your $5.95 water please’) or even in hospitals - where it is hardly seen. And there is a reason for that.
A bottle of commercial water by your bed, in a hospital, is likely to keep you there a lot longer than the original sickness you went in for. You see, a bottle of water, that you keep opening and drinking from, becomes a little aquarium of minuscule bugs and viruses that you, you, transfer from your mouth into the bottle. Your mouth is not the healthiest place on your body, particularly in a hospital, or when jogging along a road used by vehicles, or in any environment where people gather. A bottle of water you opened an hour ago, and drank from many times, is a bottle of spit & germs you wouldn’t even touch if you really had thought about it. Sadly, it’s the ‘look at me’ pretense that people love to portray that they’re healthy. And sadly, they’re the opposite.
Back to the making of money, or can I say ‘tapping’ into millions of dollars that we trendoids love to part with. Even the giant Coca-Cola company had one of its bottlers add the bottled water craze to their already money for ‘old coke’ sales, by simply tapping into the local water supply, and bottling and selling it. Perrier would have turned in his grave! That’s no way to do business. But they got away with it for years. A fired employee blew the whistle, and their little sideline of excessive profits for city water was hastily closed down.
If you insist on buying bottled water, and ‘flaunting’ it when out and about, okay, but remember the germs it does produce. (You really like to guzzle warm water with spit in it?) Do what most folks do today to get good water. Run a few large jugs of hot boiling water out of your hot water tap, then chill them in your fridge. Keep alternating the jugs as you use it. You'll find boiled & chilled water tastes good, and is much healthier for you. After all, you boil it and drink it for coffee and tea! Or if you insist, bottle it - and go 'fast walkies' along the eight lane highway in the rush hour, and blame your death on second hand smoke!
PART TWO: LITE BEER - or - DIET BEER!
Imagine this if you will. Madison Avenue, New York. The offices of Rudebaker, Stein, Waldorf & Twain, ad agency to the world. Inventors of those great marketing marvels - square yo-yos, green ketchup, white coca cola, and soap on a rope. In comes Darcy Day Jr, the young new hotshot, in his bow tie, white runners, and baggy creased suit. He enters the chief CEO's office, Franklin D. Rudebaker lll, and stops short in front of his twelve foot square oak table, and exclaims, 'I have Americas' next billion dollar product - weak beer." The boss looks at him with that tired look of a bored person forced to listen to a twerp. "I'm serious. Beer. Low calorie beer. Lite beer. Weak beer. It's what America has been waiting for."
In the doorway stands Aldous McKelly Waldorf. "For God sakes Darcy, how the Sam Hill are we're going to get the American public to buy watered down beer. And why should they?" Suddenly the CEO's eyes light up. "I can see it now," he says as he gets up and walks around his twelve foot oak table in a kind of trance. "Diet beer, just like diet coke." "For God's sake Frank, the last thing we want to call watered down beer is - diet beer. That's for soda pop. Beer is men's stuff. Call it 'Lite' beer. Yeah. Let's tell 'em it's good for them. Less fattening. Less intoxicating. And you bet, that gullible lot of morons out there will be lapping it up."
"But are they ready for 'Lite' beer," asked a puzzled Franklin D. Rudebaker lll. "Our great country," replied a gesticulating Darcy Day Jr, "is on a diet kick, and Americans, God Bless 'em, were never meant to be drunks, prohibition nearly proved that. No, what America wants is a diet beer, just like our diet soda. It'll make us feel better about ourselves. We will not call it diet beer. We'll call it lite beer. And it'll sell like $2 rifles at a NRA convention. That sounds so much better. Are we on Chief?" Franklin D Rudebaker lll, Aldous McKelly Waldorf, and wonder boy Darcy Day Jr, all linked arms, and danced down the halls of their great money-making empire, knowing they had hit the jackpot.
And so lite beer was born. Because it comes across as being so much healthier that ordinary beer. It has a prissy-toed sound about it. Like you're not pigging out on rough old beer. Like going to McDonald's and ordering a great big fat-laced meal, but adding a diet coke. It suits American values. But sadly, and truthfully, it's a lot of codswallop. Firstly, lite beer isn't any better for you than regular beer. It is so marginally less in alcohol content, it's hard to tell the difference. Regular beer is about 4.5% to 5% US alcohol content. Lite beer is 4% to 4.5%. See much difference there? Of course not. Once poured all beer begins going flat in a few minutes, especially American beer. And as it goes flat it loses its power. But the point is, lite beer is nothing more than slightly - slightly, less weaker than regular beer. It's not better for you, you are not drinking less calories, and you get just as high on a six pack of lite as you do a six pack of regular. So come on fellas, don't fool yourself. And if you're ever in Dublin, or Glasgow, or London, don't go into a pub, and in that brash American tourist way call for 'lite' beer, because you might just get escorted from the premises! Or worse still, you'll show yourself up to the world to be the real fool the American Ad people - have made you.
PART ONE: PREAMBLE.
Way back in the late 1950’s a British Prime Minister, named Harold MacMillan, refered to all the ordinary people in the street as being ‘the gormless millions.’ His remark obviously infuriated thousands of people, but there were thousands more, at higher levels in society, that thought non-liberal Harry had hit the nail right on the head. But what did he mean? Whom exactly was he refering to? Can any reference to that statement be drawn in comparison to today’s society? What MacMillan said was an unkind truth. Regretably, it seems most of us are here just ‘to make up the numbers,’ the latter phrase being attributed, by the way, to a variety of American ‘thinkers!’
Like it or not you’re most likely part of the ‘gormless millions’ and one of those that are just here ‘to make up the numbers.’ I’ll prove it to you. In this great big drive-thru world there is such a thing as ‘advertising’ and ‘television.’ The two go hand in hand, and 'commercials' are the result. Their task (the agency manipulators!) is to find out what the ‘masses’ want, or simply create what they want, and then sell it to them. Myself, as a one-time employee in a Madison Avenue Ad Agency, can tell you that the ‘ordinary’ person in the street is often thought of by these Ad people as lacking in any real intelligence, lacking in smarts, definitely lacking in culture, and most of all are just there for them to get you to part with your money, by one commercial, or by another. At their boardroom meetings, the gathered ‘suits & ties’ talk very openly about how far they can go in duping you, in screwing you, in manipulating you, and in compromising any values you might have! You’re their fodder. They snigger about you. They classify you. As dumb, dumber. or really dumber. Even by 'regions' and areas! Canada as a whole is considered a 'what Americans buy, they will,' On a good day you may just be refered to as sheep, just plain stupid!
The ad man who invented that slogan ‘one customer at a time’ is now hailed as a God, and is a multi-million dollar partner in a huge ad agency. That slogan, obviously very flawed (let's face it, no business can take care of customers ‘one at a time,’ they’d go broke!) was bought, lock, stock, and barrel - by you. You loved it. Tears came to your eyes they tell us. By the way, ‘taking care of business one customer at a time’ was a hookers come-on used on cards posted in Soho shops in London - way back during the war in the 1940.s!
The latest squeeze on the gormless millions is the 'Mommy' voice over. They use voices on TV ads that sound very much like your dear Mom reading a bedtime story to you when you were aged three. You like that they say. You like being spoken to as a child. Even on the National Geographic specials, the dear, sweet, soft, Mommy voice is now being used. You like that, they say! And for advertising on TV itself, well they’ve got you eating out of their hands. With cutesy voices, cutesy walks, and cutesy young women. When SuperBowl comes around, weeks before, they send out ‘press releases’ to news stations about how the public ‘loves the commercials more than the game.’ Happy obliging, part of the con, news anchors smile as they tell us we only watch the game for the commercials! It’s all part of herding the gormless millions into believing life is really like that. And surprisingly, most of you think it is!
Out of every dollar you spend on the products you see advertised, a third to half of the cost goes into just telling you about it. An Ad Agency (called 'Sponsors' in liberal Canada - so much nicer!!) gets say, $15 million, from Hertz Rent A Car (for instance - just a random choice - off the top of my head!) to run a few ads on TV for a few months. Right off the top the ad agency pockets close to half, about $8 million! Overheads! They then get the ad produced, cost about $1 to $2 million. They then get a TV station or two to show the commercial, who charge them $5 million or more. Who’s the winner here!? Not you.
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