Events

We all know that marketing is a huge business. The focus on raising our base instincts for competition, material ownership, and desire into economic transactions is the most successful marriage of science and art in history.

I watch almost no television. Like smoking, all my exposure is second hand, seeing it out of the corner of my eye in a public venue or at somebody else's home. Display surfaces I have in plenty, but they carry content that I control.

High end goods are rarely marketed on television anyhow. Perhaps recognizing that the distribution channel caters to a lower common denominator, high end marketing happens in different ways.

One of them is The Event.

Events are over the top affairs designed to attract a high end crowd and their hangers-on. Sometimes they are public events, but more often these days they are private events with a semi-public face. The key is to create buzz and an envious desire for affiliation with a new product and its fans. Whether it is to introduce a new champagne, a new fashion line, a new face, or a new car, high end marketing concentrates its dollars on events.

And why not? For a few million you can buy a broad demographic ad campaign, or a tiring spectrum of narrow channels such as specialty magazines where you must compete with hundreds of other ad pages. Or you can throw one hell of a party. Celebrities, a famous band, high end food and wine, over the top decor, beautiful wait staff and, of course, exclusivity... all are possible at a well-managed event.

I wrote earlier about the RED Armani event during London's Fashion Week. NYC Fashion Week followed, more of the same. Ferrari had the roll out of their 599 GTB, a throwback to their elegant Pininfarina designs but with definitely modern underpinnings. (We attended it for a brief half hour, just enough time to cruise through the aperitif menu and avoid any car crazy people I knew.) There was even an exclusive event for swim suits earlier in the year where they built an indoor tropical beach. It is very clear Jenny or I could spend our entire lifetimes going from event to event, maybe two or three times a week, collecting freebies, avoiding cameras, and wolfing down wines, champagne and canapes. And then partying afterwards.

What a life. It makes me feel sorry for Paris Hilton. She never had a chance to build a moral resistance, did she?

No, cancel that. I don't feel sorry for her at all.

This reminds me that the best event Jenny and I attended in the past twelve months was the Adult Video News (AVN) exposition which generally runs concurrently with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). My theory is that the two shows run together to cater to the Asian businessmen who can use CES to justify a visit to Las Vegas and then fill their digital cameras with photographs of mostly naked women from AVN. I kid you not, at least 75% of the people lined up for snapshots with porn stars were Asian males in business suits.

Yes, I understand that AVN is not really a high end event. But it is a niche event of sorts. It has a public side where fans come to worship their starlet of choice, and an industry side where starlets come to talk shop and redistribute genetic material.

Fortunately while I was with Jenny no starlet recognized me from my previous Las Vegas escapade and there were no personal offers for genetic exchange. (Jenny, of course, knows about that event, but it wouldn't help to be dramatically reminded of it.)

There were a few exhibits relevant to our Xanadu pleasure room, but for the most part it was ogling the starlets and the crowds around them. I had scored tickets to the actual awards ceremony which was a fun event. Our table had a high silicone to brains ratio and a low signal to noise ratio.

Interestingly, something about the show atmosphere made Jenny partly excited and partly jealous. There is no polite way to say it, so pardon my language when I say, Jenny fucked my brains out that night and through the next morning. Well, she did.

Like I said: the best event we attended in the past year.