Marketing


View at Zeughauskino - Deutsches Historisches Museum
  • Genre: Documentary film
  • Year: 1953
  • Runtime: 00:17:02
  • Description: A central message of the modernization program, which was the ERP, lay in the promise that the increase in productivity would also, and above all, benefit the consumer via the resulting fall in prices. Marketing proves the need for changes that take the consumer into account. His example is France, or more precisely Paris. He contrasts the already modernized factories there with the conditions that the people working there find at home. The apartments: cramped and impractical, the goods: too expensive to cover more than daily needs from their wages. Market researchers make their excursions, have the captured questionnaires carefully evaluated, after all, the interviewees are possible customers who are able to provide valuable information, if they are heard. The film takes a comical approach to the subject of standardization: bumpers of different heights do not fit together, to the detriment of the cars. The variety of buttons in use for men's shirts makes the search for suitable replacements an exasperating enterprise. "What a fantastic waste of everyone's time and money." Effectiveness - everywhere the film looks, it's (still) lacking. Packaging isn't precisely fitted to goods, doorknobs are impractically shaped, even hangers haven't caught on everywhere in the ideal shape. The inventory of so many obstacles to the production of high volumes, with which price reductions could first be achieved, at least concludes with a hopeful outlook. Rationalization and standardization are gaining ground. In addition to pork chops, which would now also be accepted by the consumer already packaged in foil, and self-service stores, the example of men's made-to-measure clothing is cited as a low-cost alternative to the tailor. This gives an idea of how far back in time the secrets of mass production were first brought to the European public. © Rainer Rother (machine-translated from German)
  • Keywords: VICTOR-E project / commerce / manufacturing process / shopping / researcher / consumerism / product design / standardization / goods
  • Provider: Deutsches Historisches Museum
  • Rights: In Copyright / USIA - Embassy of the United States of America / Press Office, Berlin
  • Production company: Son et Lumière Films, Paris; Film Centre Ltd, London for MSA
  • Colour: Black & White
  • Director: Pierre Long
  • Sound: With sound
  • Collection: Films of the Marshall Plan
  • Language: en