Today’s unusual environment has me thinking a lot about Febreze commercials. Specifically, the ones where they talk about nose-blindness. In case you’re unfamiliar, the general concept is your house definitely smells awful to everyone who sets foot inside, but you probably can’t smell it because you’re used to it; you’ve “gone nose-blind.”
That is fantastic positioning for Febreze, and their marketing company should get a bonus. They’ve given you something to worry about… your house stinks. They’ve eliminated your means of disproving their fear-inducing statement… of course YOU can’t smell it, you’re nose-blind. Finally, they stand at the ready with the obvious solution… Febreze. Deceptively brilliant.
And Why am I Thinking About This?
Because I’ve been watching our government handle Coronavirus. While Febreze gets rid of foul smells (real or not), government these days essentially gets rid of our fears (real or not). Worried about terrorism? We give you Homeland Security, the TSA and never-ending wars! Worried about health? We give you Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act! Worried about your job? We give you anti-China rhetoric and a wall!
I’m not condemning or condoning any of those policies or programs today, just pointing out the vast majority of what our government does addresses some fear or another. This creates an interesting – and perhaps not altogether healthy – situation. Like Febreze, might our government have a vested interested in ensuring we all have at least something we’re afraid of?
In the same way Febreze needs to create demand for what they sell, government must do the same thing. I know what you’re probably thinking… “Wait, Febreze is trying to make a profit, people in the government take their jobs to serve their country!” We can discuss that more another time, but let’s at least agree most politicians harbor some attraction to power and prominence and many leave office far better off financially than they entered.
So, if you’ve made government your career, how do you sustain and grow your chosen “industry?” The same way Febreze does… you create demand. Your job exists largely to address people’s fears. If you care about increasing the scale and scope of your career, more fear is actually better, not worse.
What that Means for Us
Our politicians face incentives that don’t necessarily align with those of the voters they supposedly serve. Imagine a world where we weren’t overly concerned about disease, foreign invaders, inequality, the security of our jobs, health care costs or crime. How would politicians campaign for office and justify more spending? It’d actually be pretty hard.
So, if you’re in the business of addressing fears and you have ready access to all kinds of media coverage, are you inclined to get on camera and tell people there really isn’t anything to worry about, even if that’s potentially true? It definitely wouldn’t be good for business. More likely, you would want to play up the reasons to be afraid… maybe just a little bit. After all, better safe than sorry anyways, right?
I’m sure the people at Febreze thought the same thing as they developed their campaign. The difference is, the Febreze folks can’t make decisions that limit or steer our lives and livelihoods. They can’t take our money without our consent. They can’t put us in jail for showing less fear than they’d like. Sure, we may worry what people smell in our house, but that’s far from an existential threat.
A Productive Response
It would probably be good for us all to keep in mind that government is both an industry and a career. We harbor a healthy skepticism when the anti-smell industry tells us the house we clean regularly actually smells like a giant, old sneaker. We’d be well-served to bring some of that same healthy skepticism to the table when the anti-fear people tell how much there is for us to be afraid of. It’s interesting just to quickly think about how much of the stuff you “know” you should be afraid of is due to personal experience and how much of it is because a distant third party has told you to be scared of it.
It’s definitely not appropriate for the same people to be in charge of assessing what we should fear, communicating those assessments to us, telling us what we’ll need to give up to address those fears, and then becoming more powerful and wealthy as they do it.
There’s only one group well-positioned and well-suited to taking the job of assessing risks and determining appropriate responses… that’s us. There’s never been an easier (the internet) or harder (24-hour news and the internet again) time for us to re-take that role. But we can and should be the ones to do it.
Thank you!
Spot on!!!