Pity the plight of the dear old prune. Long promoted for its fiber and vitamin qualities, it had lost connection to a younger audience who perceived it to be an old-person’s fruit. It wasn’t hip. It wasn’t even retro-hip. It was a product without a future.
So, what did the prune lobby do (yes, there is a prune lobby)? As we all know, they petitioned the Food and Drug Administration for a new name. The prune became the ”dried plum” in June 2000. Changes in marketing, packaging, and product soon followed (dried plums with lemon essence, cherry essence, herbal essence…wait, that’s a shampoo). Says this account of the transition:
“For many years it was advertised as a laxative,” recalls [Sunsweet VP of Marketing Howard] Nager. “What we’re trying to present today isn’t a whole lot different. We may not be using the word regularity, and we’re certainly not using the word laxative, but we are promoting the benefits,” he says.
Despite general enthusiasm by the nascent dried plum industry, at least one academic remained unconvinced that such a radical rebranding was necessary. Said Adel Kader, professor of post-harvest physiology at the University of California Davis’ Department of Pomology:
”It’s a very tasty fruit. I don’t know why people shy away from eating it because of the name.”
I have no profound conclusion or connection to make here (except to say that I now want to be a ”pomologist”). Please take a moment to construct your own…
With pleasure…
When it comes to the language we use to sell the arts, we are our own worst enemies.
Most of the words and images we employ in our marketing materials appeal to die-hard fans, insiders and old people, but those same words and images are often extremely off-putting to un-initiated new audiences.
Take ballet for example. Put a photo of an imperious-looking tutu-clad ballerina in the print ad and die-hard ballet fans will beat a path to your door (all ten of them). Meanwhile everyone else is wincing and turning the page. Never mind that ballet is youthful, athletic and incredibly sexy. None of that counts if the ads scream out, ”BORING.”
And the same is true for most of the cultural products we sell. Classical music has a whole insider lexicon that is nearly impenetrable to outsiders. Opera? — don’t get me started. Museums? Some of the museum marketing I’ve seen in Los Angeles lately is the equivalent of saying, ”boy, you REALLY don’t want to see this one.” Even comparatively popular theatres can’t avoid the stereotypes and clichés that signal to new audiences, ”this is not for you.”
We love our products. We love our colleagues. We love our donors, members and subscribers. We love our press releases. And we love seeing the things we love in the conference room when the marketing folks present their ideas for the campaigns — just like Narcissus gazing into the pool. We should be talking to tomorrow’s audiences in a fresh compelling language but we’re too busy basking in mid-20th century reflections of who and what we think we are to notice that 21st century audiences are yawing and rolling their eyes.
Semantics is fascinating. So subjective. In the previous century, women took a little laudanum to relieve pain. If you took too much though, you became dependent, so then you were an opium eater, a very derogatory label. Now, I suppose that’s changed to drug addict. What qualifies as art is also a very subjective assessment, and who is the authority on what is and what is not art? Thinking about prunes and plum is a little easier on the brain.