Between Vanity and Pride
Luis Ayala, Editor of "Got Rum?" magazine, Rum Consultant and Founder of The Rum University.
Rum brand owners will do everything in their power to make sure their finished products (rum bottles) are as visually appealing to potential customers as their budgets will allow. This emphasis on outward beauty can be construed as a form of vanity or self-idolatry, which is an important –some would even say essential component of marketing. Many cellar masters or master blenders would, on the other hand, prefer to focus on the rum’s quality, serenading consumers with each sip of their creations. This emphasis on inner beauty can be construed as a form of pride, which may take either a negative or a positive connotation, depending on how it is expressed and interpreted.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality.” Mason Cooley, too, wrote that “vanity well fed is benevolent. Vanity hungry is spiteful.”
So which is better, vanity or pride?
The answer is that neither one is necessarily good or evil, and neither one guarantees that a product or a marketing campaign will be well-received. Both are, however, intricately related to the brand personality and should be a reflection of the core values of the company behind it.
To further complicate matters, even when properly executed, both the outward expression of vanity and the inward expression of pride may fail at capturing the attention of potential consumers, if they are not part of a well-planned marketing campaign. For new brands attempting to become established, this dilemma may be paralyzing, but it also afflicts already-established brands, since any attempt to re-brand themselves carries the risk of alienating their existing followers.
And so it is, that many bottles change shapes, labels become more or less adorned and rum formulations deviate to experiment with new compositions, swinging between vanity and pride, looking for the elusive muse of consumer acceptance.
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher