There are not many of these jewellery sales
channels on television but those that exist run a highly effective sales operation,
each with its highly skilled, highly trained girls at the focal point of doing
the selling. Many of them undoubtedly bringing to the role their own natural
personal abilities so that to the independent, observant eye, each in their own
way provides what may best be described as a masterclass performance.
Occasionally there are a few lads doing the business but quite frankly their
technical ability as sales vehicles is as nothing when compared to the sheer
razzling brilliance of the ladies. The rapport they have to create with their
undoubtedly large audiences of potential customers is crucial to their daily
performance of flogging off jewellery gear in quantity and each little item
they sell has to be repeatedly talked up as an absolutely must have item.
Talking a thing up and turning it into
something unique and special is at the heart of each sales pitch. It is the
point at which the psychology of each viewing individual is gently massaged
into play. Both the unique and special aspects, coupled with what appears to be
a tasty affordable price for what that unique and special thing is, form the
psychological linkage between bank balance and need so if any of you think that
the abilities of these girls in flogging stuff off is simply sales technique
then you’d be wrong. What they’re actually doing is playing to the personality
of their viewers, most of whom are women aged 30-50, and worming their way into
a generalised psychology of loneliness and need. They are in fact taking hold
of the psychology of necessity that many women have who are single and out of
their first flush of youth.
The jewellery they sell is more often than
not bought for personal possession, for personal adornment by women who seek to
brighten their lives with a little small something shiny and special. Something
perceived as warm in the absence of real human warmth which is something
desired more than anything else. In other words the purchase of jewellery by
woman customers of these sales shows on television is a displacement activity,
occasional at first but likely to become increasingly regular. A single, lonely
woman, may want to spoil herself with something colourful and bright that she
regards as attractive, as a kind of compensation for her lonely state of being.
This need is skillfully played on
throughout with a variety of words, phrases and specific display modes of each
item. The verbal induction into the process for each item is initially meant to
engage, then with repetition and display on finger, ear, wrist or neck, quite
frankly drown. One has to do little but listen to the opening words of each
pitch to appreciate the creation of fantasy. One in particular stands out and
that is lorique, a word that’s entirely contrived. Made up!
Nowhere to be found in any dictionary. It is in fact a symbol. Its sound and
meaning a compendium of luxury and unique and it rolls off the tongues of
the masters of selling like it’s a reality when in fact it actually means
nothing at all. To say that however is a mistake because to the women being
initiated into making a purchase it actually means how it sounds!
Something unique, something luxurious! The induction however is bolstered by
detail. The origin and rarity of the gemstone, often from what are said to be
unique and difficult to get to sites in Africa or Asia found nowhere else in
the world! Just that single small mine where their extraction is supervised by
the television jewellery company who ensure that fair wages are paid, thus
entitling them to be regarded as ethical
employers! Such ethical employers
stuff being a very recent addition to the sales patter! You know, wealthy
European ladies feeling that they’re doing
the right thing for those dusky guys sweating under the ground to give them
a bit of glamour!
Sorry to sound cynical but it’s imperative
in these post-colonial days to give every hard sale an ethical rationale… as though the selling process itself and the stuff
being flogged are all so unreservedly kosher.
That said let’s take a look at the jewellery, at the gemstones that go to making it up. The claims often made for some of these minerals are extraordinary. Many are described as gemstones or gems when strictly speaking this is simply untrue. In the recent past, before the jewellery channels came along, many of these minerals were described and known as semi-precious, especially when cut and polished. Particularly well known were silica dioxides such as Rose Quartz and Amethyst with their titanium and iron impurities giving them colour. The category of precious gemstone however was singularly limited to the Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby and Diamond. In recent decades this narrow category has widened to include such rarities as Alexandrite. For the jewellery sales channels however the distinction between semi-precious and genuine gemstone material has been so far stretched that it has become almost meaningless and that anything highly polished with a lively sparkle is described as gemstone material or a gemstone. The truth is that in their rush to sell jewellery, established scientific test and definition have been stretched to the ludicrous with the motor-mouth sales girls pumping out information to audiences that are semi-ignorant at best about the true character of materials they’re selling.
This of course matters little when the
stone is attractive and being sold at low to rock bottom prices. Does no
potential customer ever wonder how items whose prices start at hundreds, even
thousands of pounds, drop in minutes to one tenth the price! Such enquiries
would generally be countered with contention that careful buying prices at
source coupled with mass sales enables the company to offer their jewellery to
a mass audience at a highly competitive price and that the price drop is only
part of the selling technique! What is actually a genuine bargain is often
a very debatable point. Debatable relative to the carefully manicured desire of
the potential customer rather than any expert knowledge that customer may have
about the rarity and perfection of gemstones! Most items offered, however, are
those for a mass sale of anything between twenty to sixty items, and for
decidedly technical reasons. A particular show may have say one hundred different
lines of jewellery to sell in a given time period with a specific number of
each item for sale so the idea is to end up with the price cheap down from
expensive and let the sale of each item roll fast with the brilliant patter of
the motor-mouth egging it on.
And it’s a real treat to listen to the names
of the women purchasers roll off their tongues. An analysis of these can be highly
instructive. They’re invariably from the same socio-economic working to lower
middle class background. Very few Judys, Henriettas, Nigellas or Elizabeths
from anywhere north of Oxford but plenty of Samanthas, Melanys, Chantelles and
Tracys from Essex and Kent! There again, nothing plain common like Betty and Brittany
or Chelsea! When the telephone sales commence, the same names are rolled out
show after show and seem to have a certain inevitability about them, like they’re
coming straight from a prepared script so either they’re all manufactured and contrived
or else a plain straightforward feature of a class structure that produces this
type of woman. Lonely, needy, and with a little spare money in her account she
can treat herself with. Yes and it is indeed mainly women!
All
those lonely women… where do they all come from? All those lonely women… where do they all
belong?
Another thing that’s instructive is to
carefully observe the size of any stone or stones set in a ring on a finger or
hanging in an ear and contrast it with the size of the finger or ear itself. Do
that and you’ll invariable find that the actual
size of the stone is tiny and that the way the ring is shown in camera focus
tends to magnify it. Nothing illegal of course! Camera angle and focus are just
some of the tricks of the trade, helping massage your mind and taking you in
hand for the sale. It’s really a bit like orgasm, ladies. Once you start coming
you don’t want to stop. Buying jewellery from the television sales channels is
much the same thing. One sniff of the bait and you’ll want to sniff more and
before you know where you are you’re Hayley from Hornchurch, impulse buyer with
fifty quid off her card for a little red garnet treat surrounded with diamonds
half the size of a pinhead. No, whatever the stone, cut and polished, it’s
crucial to visualize its size sitting there on your own finger. THAT’S ALL YOU NEED DO… JUST
THINK HOW IT WILL LOOK. Sitting there on your finger! Whether it’s
really as big as it seems or whether the endlessly lorique-ing patter you’ve
had stuffing your brain, from country of origin, colour and rarity, that’s it’s
a one off offer and will never happen again in your lifetime, no,
never… never… never… from the motor-mouth salesgirl about the bargain
on offer, you’re ready and ripe for the take!
The techniques don’t work so well with men.
You’ll rarely hear a man’s name. Men are more often vain. Altogether less
needy. Far more difficult to exploit. The bit of extra money is more often for
clothing. Something they can show off in a social capacity. To their mates or a
woman they’re after. The needy woman prefers to keep her newly acquired little
sparkling thing to herself. More as a personal treat. A private possession! The
needy woman isn’t so vain, but don’t you or anyone else go calling her sad.
Treating herself isn’t sad. It’s really a pleasure!
And that’s what those who sell jewellery on
television channels understand more than anything else. The hidden
psychological character of personal pleasure. Something that has to be liberated.
A touch of self-indulgence freed from constraint. That’s the real message. It’s
quite simple really.
GO ON, WHY NOT SPOIL YOURSELF? IT’LL MAKE YOU FEEL
GOOD!
And before you know where you are ladies you’ve
been loriqued!
No comments:
Post a Comment