Buying Lung Cancer and Using a Debt Card
Image courtesy of PSDGraphics.com
As branding strategists, it’s sometimes our job to make the unpleasant more palatable with creative advertising, marketing, and brand strategy. Some of the most mundane terms we hear every day are really nothing more unpleasant ideas, masked with marketing or branding euphemisms. “Erectile dysfunction” is really “impotence”, “The Peacekeeper” actually is the “MX-missile” and “previously owned” actually is “used”. A “credit card” actually is a “debt card” (and, yes, that’s still different from a debit card). This is particularly poignant, since countless consumers and businesses got into trouble in the recent past when “credit” was abundant and doled out with seeming abandon.
A factor that contributed to the ensuing pain of too much debt lies in the euphemistic term “credit” which sounds positive and desirable. We hear about how good a high credit score is, how good it is to have credit, etc. But make no mistake, credit is nothing other than debt or the potential for debt. “Credit” is a term invented by lenders to help them market their debt products; Products that put you in their debt. Consumers and businesses would do well to remind themselves that credit is nothing but debt and to think “credit” as “debt” whenever they hear the term.
So what if we were to re-brand credit? Give it a dose of our own medicine, and reverse ‘credit card’ to ‘debt card’. Do you think it would help to encourage a bit more caution for consumers and businesses?
Consider the recently proposed measure in Australia that re-brands cigarette packaging. The new “plain packs” would sport a large health warning such as “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer”, accompanied by a corresponding photograph of the ailment. This removal of attractive branding and euphemism reveals the reality to consumers. Do you think it will be effective? I believe so.
After all, who wants to be caught buying lung cancer or using a debt card?
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I totally agree. That would radically alter perceptions of both and we all know that perception is reality.