I haven’t been truly affected by advertising for years now, instead picking and choosing and searching for the brands that fit into my lifestyle, and my quest for some of the finer products available. My sunglasses for instance, I had never seen an advert for them. I found them by going to eyewear shops and asking them for the best sunglasses on the market. If you search around long enough, you will find what you really want. To me, really good brands don’t need to advertise much. Their customers refer more customers via word of mouth. I’ve never seen an advert for Serengeti sunglasses, and yet I wear them as my personal choice in sunglasses. Maui Jim are also up there, and yet you and I have never seen adverts for them…and their lenses are in my opinion, the finest on the planet.

Oakley on the other hand push their marketing in your face at every turn. Most shops carry massive Oakley metal and glass cases, where there products get displayed in at the front of the shops. Oakley are just like Red Bull, marketing machines. Like McDonalds, who are not really about the burgers. They are more about being one of the largest purchasers of real estate on the planet. Why didn’t the McDonalds near the Cape Town stadium move during construction? Why was it not bought out? Because it’s valuable to the McDonalds brand.

Oakley products are placed in movies and they sponsor key athletes who are going to give them huge exposure. Look, their lenses are great, but they are more about marketing than anything else. Especially when you consider the various names they have used to describe the materials used in their sunglasses.

What shocks me most though, is that many people think these names are actual scientific names of materials, when they are actually thought up by marketing teams. Here is what they use to describe a pair of Radar sunglasses:

“Durability and all-day comfort of lightweight, stress-resistant O MATTER® frame material” — Plastic frame
“Optimized peripheral view and side coverage of POLARIC ELLIPSOID™ lens geometry” — Polaric Ellipsoid, don’t know what that means? Well don’t worry, it sounds high tech, and it is trademarked, so it must be good, right?
“UV protection of PLUTONITE® lens that filters out 100% of UVA / UVB / UVC & harmful blue light up to 400nm” — Plutonite? Another word for polycarbonate.
“Glare reduction and tuned light transmission of IRIDIUM® lens coating” — Iridium:? Just that shiny coating on Oakley lenses, not actually some rare mineral sourced deep within the earth.
“Multiple interchangeable UNOBTAINIUM® nose pad options for customizable and comfortable secure fit” — Unobtainium? Well that’s just rubber really.

And so you can see how marketing works, and how scary it is. Uninformed people read that and go ‘Wow, they are using materials no other sunglass manufacturers are using!’ Meanwhile it’s all plastic really. And this isn’t written to bring the brand down, their optical clarity is fantastic and they produce some rad sunglasses, and also some not so rad ones. Unfortunately they have picked up that jock image over the years, but models such as the Plaintiff, Holbrook and Inmate are really cool. But just keep a look our for marketing terms such as these, and use some common sense when deciding on which products to buy.

Just because a brand is in every magazine doesn’t really mean it’s the best product for you. It just means they have the best marketing team. And we all know you’re not buying a marketing speech, you’re buying a product.

Be conscious of the brands you buy.

Search for quality.

Don’t fall for marketing terms.

I’ll help you along the way too, searching for the best stuff that I can find.

Just stand by my side, because I’ll be there for you.

Wow, that was terrible! Anyone want some more cheese with that?

HA!

*Hmmmmmm…twiddling thumbs*