This Is Marketing: You Cant Be Seen Until You Learn to See

The flags on SUVs are called flares
In 2018, the more expensive a car is, the more likely it is to have slightly
exaggerated flares around the wheels.
These flares are easier to make than they used to be (robots bending
steel), but they remain a signifier. A message about the status of the car and
its driver.
They have no real function. The flare is more than six inches away from
the wheel. But they remain.
And in the aftermarket, you can pay extra for an even bigger flare, sort of
surgical augmentation for your car.
Do that too much and your status goes down with most bystanders, not
up. Just as it does with plastic surgery.
The Cadillac XTS goes even further. There is a tiny flare on the back of
each tail light. Again, no useful purpose, except to remind some people, just
a bit, of the Batmobile (or the 1955 Lincoln Futura).
These flags of status are everywhere we look.
Alex Peck points out that driving gloves have a big hole in the back.
Why? Perhaps it’s left over from when men with cars wore big watches,
and the glove needed a hole to give the watch a place to poke through.
Over time, we forgot the big watch and just kept the hole. It’s a symbol.
These leftover utilities have become symbols, and once a symbol
becomes well known (like the tiny details on an Hermès handbag) it’s
quickly copied, manipulated, and spread, until it ceases to be scarce and
then becomes merely a signal of changing taste.
What’s your flag? Why would someone fly it?

---

The flag is not for everyone
It’s worth restating that the smallest viable market gives you the freedom to
pick those you seek to serve. And those people are seeking a certain
symbol. It’s likely, if you’ve chosen the market well, that the symbol they
seek is quite different from one that would work for a larger audience.
There’s a paradox here. If we want to make change, we need to go first,
hanging over one edge or another. But often, that innovation reminds
(some) people of a past event that went wrong. We begin by serving an
audience that’s okay with that, because it’s the only audience that will give
us a chance with our new thing.
Send a signal that feels like a sign we already trust, then change it
enough to let us know that it’s new, and that it’s yours.