By Roy H. Williams
“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start.” – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology
“What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.” – Carl Jung, Women In Europe
“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality. You can see this principle functioning as a sales device in advertising and in places like Playboy magazine. Almost every movie you see has this quality, because you can’t embrace the image on the screen. Thousands of novels use this principle, because you can’t embrace a printed image on a page.” – James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153
In New York Harbor stands a lady. And a stone woman holds the scales in front of every courthouse in the land. And we conjure these twins by name with every dying breath of our Pledge of Allegiance, “…with Liberty and Justice for all.”
Airplanes, ships, cars and guitars are given feminine names. If a thing is beautiful and important and precious to us, we always see it as a woman.
When a man buys a diamond, he’s paying for the reaction of the woman he loves. He’s paying for that look on her face. He doesn’t care about the properties of the diamond itself; color, cut, clarity and carat weight. He cares only about the woman. In your ads, don’t make him imagine the sparkle of the diamond. Make him see the sparkle of the woman.
Yes, selling to men can be very easy.
But how does one sell to women?
Ah. That is a different question.
Roy H. Williams
PS – If today’s contemplation sends a familiar ripple across your mind, it’s because I’ve written about it twice before. You’ll find these old Memos in the Monday Memo Archives under the dates July 12, 2004, and December 20, 2004. (The Cognoscenti will recognize today’s subject as an essential polarity in a universe of Dualities. Arooooo! Aroo-arooo! – RHW)