You might not know who Clotaire Rapaille is but he claims to know the hell out of you and what drives you. A former child psychiatrist who worked with autistic children, Rapaille is a “cultural anthropologist/marketing guru” who, under the employ of half of the Fortune 100 companies, cracks cultural codes, that these companies then use to sell shit to us that we don’t want.
You want someone to blame for the PT Cruiser? It’s Rapaille. From an episode of Frontline titled “The Persuaders”:
When I start[ed] working with Chrysler, they told me: “We have done all the research. We have all the questionnaires and focus groups and everything, and we know Americans don’t want cars anymore. They want trucks; they want big SUVs; they want minivans. They don’t want cars.” And I told them, “I think that maybe you are making a mistake here, because you listen to what people say; I don’t.” So I suggested to Chrysler: “Let’s do some kind of work the way I do this. Let’s try to break the code, understand what is the code. What I believe is they are not buying cars because you’re not delivering the reptilian car they want, but if you find out the reptilian code for car and you make a car, you create a car like that, you’re going to sell it.”
So we did this kind of work. We went back to the first imprint. The result is the PT Cruiser. The PT Cruiser is a car [that] when people see it, they say, “Wow, I want it.” Some people hate it; we don’t care.
The “reptilian code” that Rapaille is referring to is finding the first imprint or a series of signs that touch us in our bathing suit area, or in scientific terms, the reptile or limbic brain, because according to Rapaille, its needs will always trump our higher functioning cortex.
Kerry should dress differently. He takes off his expensive coat, and he still looks rich in an expensive shirt. He should start shopping at Kmart and buy a ranch. Go drink beer with the guy in the local bar. Listen to real people.
Why do people love George Bush?
He has a ranch. Reagan had his ranch. You invite people to the ranch. You drink beer. Everyone in America, in a sense, has a horse in their family tree. Compare that with Kerry’s $5 million home in Sundance, Colorado, to ski; that is… more European, like a house in Gstaad.
Consumer semiotics flavored with psycho-social-cultural moderators isn’t a new thing but this Rapaille mofo is everywhere. Mary Milan found an interview with him in this month’s issue of “Elle,” in which he expounds on the work he did on seduction for L’Oreal. Apparently, the blonde code in America has the same imprint as it does in Europe - beauty - but in America, we also have an imprint of being blonde as being dumb (hell-oooo, no-doy). Of course, brunettes have the code of being strong but here’s the shocker, according to Rapaille:
Unconsciously for men, a brunette who bleaches her hair can be even sexier because she isn’t a real blonde. So she is a woman who is strong and can pretend she is a bimbo to please a guy.
Huh? And it gets better when he hits high heels:
You’re telling men you can’t run away, you’re available, you can be caught. Same with skirts - easier access than pants. Put the two together, bingo.
(Read: We’re reptilian rapists!)
Belly T’s and low rise jeans:
If you wear jeans that are low, you’re baring your belly button. The belly button is the center of the universe; it’s the place where the umbilical cord comes from. So the belly button is directly showing you are a woman who can have children. So that’s not your sexual side, it’s your maternal side.
(Read: Men are reptilian rapists who want to make babies!)
Mary Milan takes umbrage with him because of the PT Cruiser and his utter lack of concern with cortex functioning. Oh, and his smug ass flaunting of the Jedi mind tricks that one learns in psychology. Mary Milan says, “All he’s doing are ethnographic projective tests. That’s gay. Plus, he’s repackaging old research. Ridiculous.” I think Mary Milan is drinking the Haterade on this one because she would love to do what he does.
As a former marketing consultant who traveled America trying to find nuggets of consumer truths for Gillette, Seagram’s, Campbell’s, et. al., I agree with Rapaille’s assertion that focus group and questionnaire market research is bunk; talking to the 12 dumbest people in Cincinnati is just going to get you bad data. I can’t tell you how many times I scribbled, “respondent ‘x’ is an idiot. Disregard everything he/she says,” in my notebook while sitting in the darkened anteroom, watching them through the one way mirror. The best ideas never tested well; the most mediocre ideas were the ones that people loved because they were familiar.
However, I take do umbrage for the implication that my game is so poor that I need girls - Mary Milan specifically - to wear high heels so I can catch them. That’s ridiculous - Easy Spirits, dog. Remember, heels that look like heels but feel like sneakers?
Was it Saussure, Freud, or Paris Hilton who said, “Easy Spirits? You can play basketball in them shits.”
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COMMENTS / 3 COMMENTS
Ethan Ubell added these pithy words on Jun 25 06 at 9:52 amThe problem with Rapaille is not necessarily that his analyses are incorrect, but rather that they are trite and overdetermined. His greatest mistake is throwing out the baby with the bathwater by assuming that since one cannot always rely on what people say, that therefore one can never rely on what they say. What does this leave him with? His souped-up methodological tool, which is nothing more than Nietzchean close-reading with a sprinkling of Freud (imagine what ol’ Friedrich would have made of the etymology of Rapaille’s name!).
His conclusions (GWB is a Hummer! John Kerry is a Hybrid!) are so obvious that one is shocked to find that canny marketing execs are not light-years ahead of him in sophistication. Of course, as JHK has rightly observed, one look inside the sausage factory lets you know that the success of of this Francophone geek is driven largely by the infinite insecurities of thise same marketing execs, who know full well that they owe the success of any marketing campaigns to the felicities teased out at the margins by the artists they hire to execute them. Focus groups, mission statements, and especially high-paid intellectual consultants are for ass-covering.
Lee-Roy added these pithy words on Jun 27 06 at 2:35 amIs the “can can” in that easy spirit ad meant to subliminally suggest the image of paris hilton parting her legs?
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