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Lush, Innocent and the Marketing of Sincerity

Started by garbed_attic, November 29, 2012, 04:51:00 PM

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garbed_attic

Picking up from the thread on 'How To Live Without Irony' and the idea of New Sincerity that was raised, I feel compelled to stick my left finger deep the sincerity smoothie and pull out the festering gunk within.

Yeah, you heard me right, I'm sticking it to Lush... with their infantalising playdough whimsy aesthetic, stinking up the highstreet. I hate all of them, Lush, Octopus, Graze - any of you been suckered by Graze? It's basically a vegan pyramid scheme - but the worst of them, the worst of all of them, is Innocent. I don't want to be made to feel so desperate and pathetic that I need a smoothie bottle as a friend. You've read the spiel on the back of the bottles: "Hello mate, I'm so glad you've bought this peach and guava smoothie, which actually contains 85% banana. Oops silly me! We're just a little-icky company started by mates, like you and your mates. Here, have a random picture of a puffin to make you smile! Love and kisses, your innocent smoothie bottle." Go away! I've got friends! I don't need a tiny plastic tub of slush to be my spirit guide! And what's worse, is that Innocent may have been dreamed up by a group of three idealistic, starry-eyed friends selling smoothies out of astro-turf covered vans at music festivals, but that was in the sweet, utopian days of the early 2000s, nowadays Innocent are owned by Coca Cola! It's like finding out that your manic pixie dream girl is actually a businessman. It's like making friends with Zooey Deschanel and finding that it's actually just Richard Branson inside.

Basically, I distrust the commodification of sincerity, as though these companies want us to believe that we can just transcend the harsh exploitative realities of capitalism through only buying goods that look and smell like playdough. These products sort of encourage you to abdicate responsibility as a consumer, while patting you on the back, through dressing aesthetics up as ethics. I know very little as Lush's business model (though I suspect they have a semi-legal policy of only hiring people above a certain beauty threshold and I think making your staff dress up in enforced kooky costumes on certain days, is pretty shoddy) but I know that Coca Cola is pretty awful and I imagine that Octopus had most of its tambourines and head massagers made on bleak production lines. I hate the way they want their customers are somehow, sneakily (can't quite put my finger on it) encouraged to assume that their company ethics are good, simply by virtue of them co-opting the colours and pleasures of childhood and selling them back to grown adults.


"We're so homemade in our rustic wooden boxes in which you can cuddle up with little balls of whimsy! We use adorable street spelling and a cool graffiti-style font to remind you that you're not some dead-eyed middle-class consumer, but actually a hip, young thing, enjoying a deep-sudsy sexy 'baff'."



"Teehee! Even though you're an office worker, you can still have whimsy fun with me for just £3.50 a pop! Don't worry, you're only paying for the packaging, it's mostly just crushed bananas! Lolz! We pwomise that we won't make you eat naughty things like Coca-Cola does, which is actually us! We'll even brush our teeth twice a day 'cause we're a joyful little anthropomorphised office friend, not a soulless commodity at a marked-up price sold to you by a ruthless corporation who'd eat your very scruples if it could! Pwease keep me cold, cause I'm a delicate little thing. I'm "gently pasteurised, like milk", please suckle on me, little "baby"; forget your scare-wy adult responsibilities and sink back into gurgling, sot-nosed innocence when all was happy and light and your mum gave you your 5-a-day and kept you healthy and happy. Soon we're even going to have little hands attached to our sides on little arms to go with our little woolly hats, to burp you after drinking. P.S. WE ARE INNOCENT (TM)"



"We live in a madcap crayola world here at Octopus. Look how friendly and kooky and lovely and gnawable everything is! It's like living in a playdough womb! Buy your bar of wobbly glitter-enrusted vermillion soap from Lush and then come here and get a silly hairbrush with a face of a badger on it and then you'll be the best boyfriend for life! You're so thoughtful and individual! Just like us! Everything is lovingly hand-crafted on our soul-crushing conveyor belts of joy and whimsy!"

SockPuppet

The one time I almost punched the computer screen was when I wanted to make a complaint about a piece-of-shit mobile I had bought from some New Zealand phone company. The website was designed to look like a playgroup's noticeboard and when I clicked on 'complaints' I was taken to a screen where it said 'That's right, get it off your chest'.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE...if there's one time to lay off the 'we're not a global corporation, we're your best fwiend' bullshit it's when the customer is furious at your shitty product.

GRRRRR

GaspardW

Dorset Cereals and Pieminister Pies, too. I WANT TO EAT YOUR FOOD, I DON'T FUCKING WANT YOU TO BE MY BESTESTEST FWEIND FOR EVAH AND EVAH.

Endicott

Have a nice day.[nb]not aimed at previous posters in thread[/nb]

phes

Quote from: gout_pony on November 29, 2012, 04:51:00 PMGraze - any of you been suckered by Graze? It's basically a vegan pyramid scheme

If you join graze for a bit and then leave they offer you 3 half price boxes for doing a little survey and re-joining. So you rejoin for 3 boxes and leave again... etc

Which is nice.




SockPuppet

Now I remember it, I had to take my complaint all the way to the Ombudsman and only when they ruled in my favour did I get a cheque in the post. Funnily enough, there was no accompanying children's crayon drawing of a house with it. Just a tersely worded letter offering no apology at all.

shiftwork2

Pret A Manger in general, but in particular the Bridget Jones-esque sign by the till: "If you eat in we'll have to charge you VAT!  Nightmare."

FUCK OFF AND GET BENT.

Nobody Soup

#7
I don't mind lush, I think what lets me let it off the hook is that unlike those other products, at least they use sincerity in a face to face way. Like with innocent (which I agree is infuriating) you're paying a quid extra to drink something because it comes in a carton that looks like it was designed by a 5 year old, but at least with Lush you can go into a shop and generally get treated very nicely by the staff and given good recommendations. they are also happy to give you free samples, they give you free stuff if you recycle the pots, and at least as far as I know (it could be all a front) are environmentally friendly in an industry were that would not be the norm.

their prices have went up a lot on the back of their success but at least they do something to back up their image. it would be very easy I imagine to source products unethically, not provide vegetarian products and do animal testing.

I've also heard that this isn't as the result of some horrendous, behind the scenes, arse kicking management and the person I knew that worked for them actually struggled to keep a weekend position they could work around a full-time "proper" job they got after uni, just because they enjoyed working there so much. whereas I just don't see the point in innocent when cheaper products exist side by side in a supermarket chill cabinet and I don't think they have any sort of policy of supporting local farmers or anything like that.

however, all this is because yeah, I like lush, I find it easy to shop for stuff there so maybe I'm just being biased.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: shiftwork2 on November 29, 2012, 05:17:00 PM
Pret A Manger in general, but in particular the Bridget Jones-esque sign by the till: "If you eat in we'll have to charge you VAT!  Nightmare."

FUCK OFF AND GET BENT.

Excuse my naivity, but is that text from an actual real sign in Pret-a-Manger?

Thomas

I'm not a frequenter of Lush, but we did a bit of half-hearted business stuff on my A-level Ethics course and they seem to be quite a pleasant company behind the scenes.

That said, there's always some dodgy catch or explosive investigation.

QuoteLush does not buy from companies that carry out, fund, or commission any animal testing. Lush itself tests its products on human volunteers before they are sold.

I wouldn't be surprised if they just shave dehydrated circus bears and pretend that they're human volunteers.

Big Jack McBastard

Once you find a selection of products spouting infantile cloying guff in any given shop, drop keks and curl out a steaming log before them while crying.

shiftwork2

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on November 29, 2012, 05:24:15 PM
Excuse my naivity, but is that text from an actual real sign in Pret-a-Manger?

It's from memory from a year or two back but it is certainly very close to the actual text, including the 'nightmare' at the end.  In fact I'm just glad they didn't use 'mare'.

Edit:

Out of focus pic on a blog:
https://theblogofkevin.wordpress.com/tag/pret-a-manger/

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: shiftwork2 on November 29, 2012, 05:53:38 PM
It's from memory from a year or two back but it is certainly very close to the actual text, including the 'nightmare' at the end.  In fact I'm just glad they didn't use 'mare'.

Good fucking lord.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I don't understand how Lush are in business. They're phenomenally expensive and overpriced.

Who buys bath stuff that's 8 quid.

madhair60

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on November 29, 2012, 05:59:43 PM
I don't understand how Lush are in business. They're phenomenally expensive and overpriced.

Who buys bath stuff that's 8 quid.

People who don't SMELL LIKE SHIT.

Small Man Big Horse

About a month after I was released from hospital after a really nasty bout of pneumonia and chicken pox (I was 29 at the time, and somewhat delightfully it was the worst case the Doctors at the hospital I was in had ever seen) my hideously scarred face and I went in to Lush to see if there was anything they could do to save my once beautiful noggin. I don't know what they gave me, it was some icky shit that I had to smear all over my face, but credit to them, it worked incredibly effectively and a few days later most of the scars had healed up. So I won't hear a word against them, even if they did previously test it only on kittens.

vrailaine

I quite like sincerity, it has saved me a fortune, why buy someone a gift when you can just make them finger puppets!

Nobody Soup

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on November 29, 2012, 05:59:43 PM
I don't understand how Lush are in business. They're phenomenally expensive and overpriced.

they are overpriced, I remember when a few things cost half of what they cose now. there's a guys moisturiser that definitely cost £5.95 when it was released and now costs £11.50, inflation hasn't gone up that much in the last 8 or 9 years.

but in the grand scale of cosmetics they're not really expensive.

Dead kate moss

Quote from: phes on November 29, 2012, 05:10:11 PM
If you join graze for a bit and then leave they offer you 3 half price boxes for doing a little survey and re-joining. So you rejoin for 3 boxes and leave again... etc

Which is nice.

Based on this I just canceled my Graze subscription. Right before they accepted it, a box said 'are you really sure? How about a half-price box in January?' and confident from what you said and thinking 'Ah, I'll decline this then get the actual super-best bribe to not leave!' I clicked 'No thanks, I want out.'

But that didn't happen, they just said 'ok, bye then.' No 3 months half-price, no mention of a survey...

Will I get an email with this offer of three months half price deal or shall I just rejoin? I'm tempted not to as they can't GET IT INTO THEIR FUCKING HEADS TO NEVER SEND ME CURRANTS OR RAISINS NEVER EVER, but I do find it an easy way of getting some healthyish breakfast delivered to my door once a week.

Vodka Margarine

Years ago, my newly Firefox-enhanced browser crashed after I'd been 'appreciating' some 'content' on a fairly anodyne gentleman's rhythm site. After restarting my PC, I was rather impressed to find that FF had helpfully saved my session, only now I was greeted with these words in bold writing:

"Well, this is embarrassing".

I nearly shat out my spleen.

Cerys

Don't diss Graze.  They're fantastic at what they do.  And if they're vegan they do a good job of concealing it, what with the yoghurt and honey ingredients.  Pyramid selling?  Where did you get that idea?  They reward you for getting other people to join, but that's about it.

phes

Quote from: Dead kate moss on November 29, 2012, 06:38:31 PM
Based on this I just canceled my Graze subscription. Right before they accepted it, a box said 'are you really sure? How about a half-price box in January?' and confident from what you said and thinking 'Ah, I'll decline this then get the actual super-best bribe to not leave!' I clicked 'No thanks, I want out.'

But that didn't happen, they just said 'ok, bye then.' No 3 months half-price, no mention of a survey...

Will I get an email with this offer of three months half price deal or shall I just rejoin? I'm tempted not to as they can't GET IT INTO THEIR FUCKING HEADS TO NEVER SEND ME CURRANTS OR RAISINS NEVER EVER, but I do find it an easy way of getting some healthyish breakfast delivered to my door once a week.

I just cancelled mine again for about the 5th time. I usually get an email about a fortnight later asking me to do a survey. Then you activate your delivery again and they credit 3 half price boxes.

Poor old Jess, knocked back twice in an many minutes.

Dead kate moss

Great, cheers! This'll show those faux-nice&friendly, not raisin-withholding brown-box BASTARDS!

Kawaii Five-O

Quote from: Nobody Soup on November 29, 2012, 06:27:12 PM
they are overpriced, I remember when a few things cost half of what they cose now. there's a guys moisturiser that definitely cost £5.95 when it was released and now costs £11.50, inflation hasn't gone up that much in the last 8 or 9 years.

but in the grand scale of cosmetics they're not really expensive.

Stuff from Lush is expensive as an initial outlay, but it lasts for bloody ages. I pretty much buy all my toiletries from there 1. because they're effective and nice and 2. 'cause I don't like acquiring mountains of plastic bottles that you can't quite get all the product out of, and is a right pain (or even impossible depending on the style of bottle) to even clean out before it goes in the recycling. But Lush do solid shampoos so there's no packaging at all! One bar will cost about a fiver but last me a good two or three months, I spent more on bottles of own-brand shampoo before there was a Lush shop here. Anything that doesn't come unpackaged usually comes in little plastic tubs that are easy to get all of the product out of, and when you've got 5 empty ones you take them back for recycling and they give you a free £5.00 face mask. And they always give me free stuff without me even asking. So I think they are all-round a genuinely pleasant company, rather than a faux-worthy, ethics-at-a-premium sort of thing . A couple of friends of mine work there and they love it.

I'm not sure how much their prices in general have gone up over the years (we've only had a branch for the last 5 years or so I think, though I occasionally went to other branches before then), but I think it's sometimes partly due to switching to different, pricier ingredients, though I don't doubt a big part of it is profiting on the popular stuff. I'm sure the fresh face-masks have reduced in size and gone down in price by a couple of quid, which suits me as it was difficult to finish them before the use-by date before.

I don't really understand the people who turn shopping at Lush into a hobby and start queuing at 6am for their sales though.

EB Farnum

Why do Sainsbury's put the name of who grows their organic carrots on their packaging but sod all on the basics range? Why are they protecting the identity of less inferior carrot growers when common sense would point to concealing the organic farmers identity. By letting everyone know exactly who it is that is producing premium quality carrots, they are open to offers from other supermarkets or perhaps even attempts on their lives because a rival chain might not be doing as well in the organic carrot department for that quarter.

Sam

There's a prepacked fish company that pretends the fish is better because it has funky packaging and matey guidelines. 'The Saucy Fish Company' perhaps? I buy them on offer from Tesco and when I look at the packaging before I cook it I scream and fling it onto my neighbour's roof.

I hate all marketing, really. The matey style is symptomatic of an entire infantalised public discourse, geared towards people who can't use formal language and have had their brains turned to mush by Twitter. A solicitor once told me my perfectly reasonable request was 'a big ask'. I was paying hundreds for fuckwits to post letters - I'd expect a fawning ceremonial trouser cleaning or rimjob for that, not to be offended by the gaudy unprofessionalism of language butchery.

Word cloud signs and 'no fuss' descriptions can fuck off - you haven't earned the right to distillation, you are not Blaise fucking Pascal and in your case less is less.


Doomy Dwyer

There's a pub on Stoke Newington's Church Street that has a horribly twee fake sincere sign that is updated on a weekly basis. Of course, the entire length of Chruch street is a teeming mass of concentrated snuggly wuggly ain't life grand horror, but this particularly grates because, at heart, it's a tidy boozer. The sign will say something like "Mmmm, roast belly of pork in a piquant sauce. A roaring log fire. A chilled glass of Cab Sav. Just a thought..." It always ends with the phrase "just a thought", they're trying to make that a bit of a feature. I've got just a thought for you, Mr Publican, but I don't think your orifices are going to particularly want to mull it over for too fucking long. The sign is written in a faux childish scrawl on an authentic, probably vintage, chalkboard. It is vile. 

It contrasts nicely with a sign I used to see in a branch of Benji's on Fleet Street, the late, unlamented low quality sandwich chain that existed back in the nineties/early noughties, before this sort of deplorable behaviour really got a firm hold of this nation's fragile psyche and people began to demand sandwiches that were actually edible and had more than two fillings in. This was also written in a childish scrawl on a little blackboard, but was genuinely sincere and used to move me almost unto tears whenever I saw it. It simply said "Smile!!! Is no so bad" and had obviously been written by one of the harried, low paid, just off the boat serfs who worked there in the hope that it would somehow placate the multitude of barking, joyless, legal secretaries, office clerks, lawyers and various grey faced shitbags whose fucking ties were probably worth more than the cowering wrecks who manned the Benji till's earned and sent back home to the old country each calendar month.

"Smile!!! Is no so bad". Fucking tragic. It is so bad, Benji. In fact, it's probably worse than you think.

Replies From View

As far as I'm aware, Clive's Pies haven't been taken over by another company yet.  They taste lovely and are properly filled with quality ingredients but their hugs n kisses marketing makes me cringe.

Here are some Clive's Pies on a shelf:




They have "love" listed in the ingredients, although the only image I can find on the web as evidence is this:



Kawaii Five-O

Quote from: Doomy Dwyer on November 29, 2012, 07:19:06 PM
The sign will say something like "Mmmm, roast belly of pork in a piquant sauce. A roaring log fire. A chilled glass of Cab Sav. Just a thought..."

The smugness, it burns. I think the most infuriating thing about it is the insinuation that it would never have occurred to the reader by themselves that a nice meal and a log fire would be quite nice things, and they need a helpful suggestion to nudge them along the way out of their inferior log fireless existence.

Quote from: Doomy Dwyer on November 29, 2012, 07:19:06 PM
"Smile!!! Is no so bad"

I want to steal that for my personal text, of which I have none.

Mr Eggs

http://www.higgidy.co.uk/the-higgidy-way

These cunts make pies and quiche. They make them the higgidy way. Have a poem from their smuggity website:

QuoteDaughter is in love with your pies
And praises them to the skies
I like them too
As a change from stew
They come in a van
From the Ocado man
In the fridge they lie
Pleasing my beady eye

Fer fucks sa...BAH! (I'm awful grumpy this evening).