Apparently "Neiman Marcus Neo-Marxist" Wasn't That Far Off

My dear friend Red and I have a longstanding joke about how to reconcile our upscale personal tastes with our overarching concerns for making sure government helps those most in need. "Limousine Liberal" is, of course, the old term for this, but we felt the concept needed a more descriptive, updated, sobriquet. And so... we eventuallt settled on "Neiman Marcus Neo-Marxist" (I think we originally called it "Neiman Marcus Neo-Liberal," but that wasn't sufficiently radicalized).

In any case, apparently we're not alone. At least not to Neiman Marcus. This morning, scrolling down through Daily Kos, I stopped dead at their paid ad:

 

 

I suppose there's a point here - a Versailles related one, even - about how the Great Orange Evil shows its true colors with advertising aimed, obviously, at an upper middle class consumer; clearly Neiman's thinks there's enough commonality between its products and Daily Kos readers to at least test an ad placement. And yes, in a number of ways, just thinking about that can be disconcerting. On the other hand... why do we (on the left) sort of retroactively assume that being liberal and liking nice things is somehow mutually exclusive? Can't we be pro-Choice and pro-Prada?

Ponder those class issues, my comrades. And later we can discuss them over lunch at Saks. :)

Comments

[Susie from Philly]

The ads on Daily Kos (and most of the big blogs) are keyed toward the individual reader and recent browsing habits. So if you're getting Neiman Marcus ads, it's because something in your (obviously high-class) online activities indicates you'd be interested. (When I go to DK, I get eBay ads!)

[weboy]

Damn that search engine optimization!

It's a good point, and I don't generally think about it - partly because I don't shop online all that much (fancy or otherwise), and partly because the ads that get served always seem hilariously inappropriate.

There's a longer discussion to be had, and I never get around to it, about my general sense that online advertising is generally an enormous fail, for many of these reasons. When I worked in online marketing, click through rates for most ad content was abysmal; I doubt it's improved much, overall, and I was always skeptical of the insistence of senior marketing types that other, more aggressive efforts (marketer created websites, blogs, and now stuff like facebook pages for products) were making the difference. In general, I think ad money on the web gets thrown at a lot of creative exercises in wasting nearly everyone's time. And one small example is anyone thinking that a box ad for Neiman Marcus for a DVF dress and bag would cause me to do anything at all.

Thanks for the insight, though, just confirming my own Neiman Marcus Neo Marxist status. ;)

[Red]

It's just "Neiman Neo-Marxist". :)