Blog Posts By: Greg Jensen

I'm in the middle of reading a terrific book by the late professor Randy Pausch called "The Last Lecture". Yes, I know that this was a best seller and that I am probably the last person in the country to read this book, but that's beside the point.

I just read an interesting chapter where he referenced teaming up with another professor from Carnegie Mellon University who interestingly taught Drama (Randy Pausch was an IT Professor at Carnegie Mellon). The partnership resulted in the development of "The Entertainment Technology Center" and a completely new 2 year Master's Program in which artists and technologists worked together in developing a variety of cutting-edge visual effects."

Last month, the National Hockey League announced that four teams will be participating in an "overlay" advertising experiment during the 2009-2010 regular season. The expansion to four teams comes after a trial run last year by the MSG network on a series of New York Rangers games. The trial conducted by MSG Network was deemed successful in terms of generating additional advertising revenue both for the network as well as the team. Given the economic challenges facing the NHL (and other sports leagues in general) it is not surprising to see the experiment expanded to four teams this season.

Upon my arrival home from a recent business trip, I was greeted with three different catalogs from the same well-known outdoor clothing and apparel company. While each catalog focused on a slightly different area of interest what really got me thinking was simply the volume of catalogs I received in this instance coupled with the fact that I receive catalogs from this same  retailer every two or three weeks year-round. My first thought involved the production and mailing costs this retailer must be incurring in sending me catalogs as frequently as they do.

Market forces are brutal. I still remember one of the most insightful things I heard during graduate school was one of my economics professors saying "for all of the good things a free market does, people tend to forget one key point: the market shows no mercy". With all of the depressing economic news in recent months, it is easy to understand why companies are standing pat and generally not taking on new marketing strategy and infrastructure projects.  That said, there are companies that realize that an economic downturn can be the best time to build market share and strengthen their position within a given industry.

In 1899 the Economist Thorstein Veblen coined the terms "Conspicuous Consumption" and "Pecuniary Emulation" in his classic text The Theory of the Leisure Class.  In this work, Veblen evaluated the behavioral characteristics of the super-rich and the middle-class of his day and developed a new school of economic thought, Institutionalism, which still holds relevance today. Veblen posited that people make purchase decisions not necessarily based upon the usefulness (utility) of the products purchased but instead based upon the perceived status such products bring. As a result, "Conspicuous Consumption" refers to purchases made primarily to demonstrate one's wealth and status to others as opposed to purchases made out of necessity.