What can we as Marketers learn from client #9?

What does $4,300 buy you?  Put another way, what service could you possibly sell with a market value of $4,300 an hour?

After a series of informal, highly unscientific polls, we pretty much all agree that Eliot Spitzer, aka Client 9, paid $4,300 for something.  It wasn’t the girl — he had to ask the dispatcher to remind him of what she looked like.  Was it the sex?  Kris Kristofferson once wrote, “Ever since the first I had, the worst I had was good.”  So if it wasn’t the girl, and we all agree that there’s no way on the planet, even with the most bizarre fantasies imaginable that it was the sex — what did Client 9 buy? Starbucks sells coffee, right?  Coffee is much cheaper in other places, and even Consumer Reports showed that McDonald’s coffee outperformed Starbucks in taste tests.  So if it’s not coffee they’re selling — what is it?  Is it the funky jazz and the baristas and the heavy cardboard cup with the now-considered designer overwrap?  

 

In my head — there are two questions at the core here.  One (and I guess the least important for this discussion) is how in touch are we, as consumers, with what it is we’re buying — really?  Are we aware of why we do what we do — why we think we love Starbucks?  I guess this is where I really don’t want to believe we’re all a bunch of lemmings. 

But the second issue is — as marketers, how in touch are we with what it is we’re peddling?  Do you know what it is you’re selling, really?  Tiffany’s understands what they’re selling and it’s not the jewelry.  Starbucks used to be crystal clear on what it was marketing, too.  What about the rest of us?  If we run a restaurant, is it just the food?  

 

What are your thoughts?  

 

On a side note, if anyone out there can come up with something to market for $4,300 per hour, give me a call!!