The Approval Economy
Why every purchase is a performance
“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.”
— Thomas Cooley
About a month ago, I published what has become my most trafficked piece ever: “People Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves.” The article explained why the “Pepsi Generation” advertising campaign was so successful. As I wrote:
The Pepsi Generation was revolutionary because it was the first time a brand convinced people to purchase their product by focusing on the type of person that doing so made them…[it was the first brand that focused on] selling not a product, but a better version of ourselves.
Yet it is the last part of that statement that is worth examining, especially in the context of the Thomas Cooley quote at the beginning of this essay.
Put simply, a “better version of ourselves” is almost impossible to distinguish from a version of ourselves that we think other people will approve of. The Pepsi Generation is a perfect example of this: The campaign never would have worked without first convincing people that others would see them in a way they’d imagine others would approve of — youthful, anti-establishment…
