It Had To Happen Eventually
Hugh Hewitt has now come to the attention of Jimmy Fallon. From last night’s Tonight Show.
Hugh Hewitt has now come to the attention of Jimmy Fallon. From last night’s Tonight Show.
We live in a branded world. The current presidential campaign is an effort for each candidate to establish a brand, and then get America to buy that brand. “Republican” and “Democrat” nowadays function as brand names, as do “conservative” and “liberal.” Increasingly, words like “spiritual,” “religious,” and “Christian” are brand names too. But as branding has moved from a marketing technique for goods, and sometimes services, into how we do pretty much everything, problems are emerging.
Branding started as a way to distinguish products that were difficult to distinguish. They were a short hand for why product X was better than product Y that could not be told in the confines of an ad of some sort. That is to say if you were in a grocery store and confronted with a shelf of canned peas, Green Giant, Del Monte, Stokley-Van Camp, which one do you pick? Branding was a way of making the Green Giant peas look a little better than the Del Monte peas, and there were genuine differences. Green Giant worked primarily in southern Minnesota, Del Monte in other places – their canning processes were slightly different as were the genetic variety of pea. Remember when generic or unbranded products began to appear in stores? They were generally the peas that were safe to eat, but the brands found did not meet their exacting standards. Yeah, generics were cheaper, but they were not quite as good.
But nowadays, with a few notable exceptions, it is a different story. Factory farms sell to all the canners who sell their labels while the peas really are exactly the same. Unfortunately, people have learned this, even if subconsciously. Brands have become image, not necessarily a shorthand for some reality. That has two major consequences. For one it means there will be major battles for people to define, and in some cases redefine, a brand without ever actually changing the product. Secondly, it means people are going to pretty much approach anything cynically. Continue Reading
The audio:
The transcript:
HH: Joined by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida who had a very good night last night by all accounts. Senator Rubio, welcome, it’s great to have you on the show.
MR: I’m glad to be back.
HH: I didn’t have an opportunity to say hello to you last night.
MR: I know.
HH: How did you feel at the end of that?
MR: Well, tired. It was a long debate.
HH: Yes, it was.
MR: But you know, when it got to the end, everybody kind of came on stage and it was hard to get around, and so I didn’t get a chance to walk over and thank you for being a part of it. It was, you know, I felt like it was just another opportunity in front of a lot of people to talk about who I am and what I’m for and what I’ll do. And we got to talk foreign policy yesterday, which was important. Continue Reading
The audio:
The transcript:
HH: I’m joined to continue that conversation, as I am on Thursdays when I am lucky, by Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn, the first thing I want to ask you, since you wrote Steyn V. the Stick, global warming came up last night. What did you make of Marco Rubio’s response on that, and the general exchange on global warming?
MS: I thought it was a big disappointing that Ted Cruz didn’t get to speak on that, because Ted Cruz is far less fainthearted and apologetic about that than Marco Rubio and Co. were to my taste. In a sense, they accepted too many of, I thought, of Jake Tapper’s premises there. They all denied they were deniers, in effect, whereas Ted Cruz said oh, I’ll answer this, I’m a skeptic. And Jake Tapper cut him off and said we’ll be going to another subject. And I thought that was a bit of a shame, because I think that actually that’s a subject on which Ted Cruz would have dealt with a bit more effectively than Marco Rubio there. Continue Reading
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