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No Laughing Matter, but We Can Still Hope

by David Vazdauskas

A couple of weeks ago I woke up to a beautiful midsummer's morning. The birds whistled Puccini arias; the morning sun glistened off the dew-moistened John Deere lawn tractor; and a cool breeze carried a hint of lilac into the house. Or maybe it was my wife's shampoo. In any case, it was a Saturday morning, and I was in a great mood.

After an old-fashioned country breakfast, a leisurely perusal of the New York Times, and an invigorating hike around the neighborhood, I thought to myself, there's only one thing that could possibly spoil this wonderful mood.

I was going to an antiques show.

Imagine going to a wake—not an Irish one, mind you, but the kind that features very sad people. Now imagine that instead of one casket at this wake, there were many. You could walk up and down numerous aisles and peek into a faux parlor outlined by faux walls, presided over by morose attendants with faux smiles.

That was pretty much the image that kept popping into my mind during the midsummer antiques show I recently attended. I won't single out the show sponsors. You can fill in the blank with your own experience at any number of somewhat lackluster shows that you've recently attended as a collector or a seller.

Oh no, you think. Not another whiner about the impending doom of the antiques trade. Can't we all just be happy for a change, you wonder. And that's just the point.

Sometimes we're too much in the middle of things. We get so caught up in what we're doing, we actually don't notice the way we're doing it. It's kind of like the habit my dentist had of asking questions only after inserting his complete toolbox of dental instruments into my mouth. At some point you wonder if he's actually talking to himself. "Can you still feel any pain?" and "Let's clean that out" provide psychological insight into the deep loneliness of the dental profession.

Likewise, at many of the antiques shows that I've attended, the dialogue of our profession has become so routine and assumed that we've actually ceased to communicate. We think we've asked a question or greeted a customer, but the truth is, our lips haven't moved.

Talk to Me

When I walk through antiques shows, I think I look like a buyer. I'm dressed nicely, and my shoes are shined. I'm of an age, 44, that in this business makes me not old and not young. I could be midstride in my collecting, building up a full head of steam, perhaps ready to step up to the big league. I could be a beginning collector, ready to take the plunge.

I'm ready to communicate. In visiting about 50 booths in the show I recently attended, however, here's why I couldn't. In ten of the booths, no dealer was to be found. Other dealers were minding these booths from across the aisle, perhaps for a few minutes, perhaps for the whole day. (I had visions of dealers throwing their hands up in the air in frustration, maniacally shouting "I'm going to Disneyland," and never again returning to the show or to the profession. Things were so slow that day.)

Within the other 40 or so booths I visited, I saw a fascinating variety of leisure-time activities—the kind usually associated with long hospital stays or rainy days at the vacation house. I saw crossword puzzles, knitting, lots of novels by Sue Grafton (memo to Sue: when the time comes, "U" is for underbidder), and cigarette packs waiting patiently next to cell phones. So that's where the missing dealers had disappeared to.

Now let's shift focus a minute and imagine that instead of an antiques show you are in an upscale mall. At this mall the salesperson in the Armani store reads a magazine as you browse the latest couture collection; the woman at the cosmetics counter at Bergdorf Goodman knits while you're testing the eyeliner; and the diamond specialist at Tiffany & Company works the crossword puzzle as you peruse engagement ring settings.

Why not? Aren't most of the people in these stores just looking? What is it that these retailers are thinking that causes them to require their salespeople to greet customers and offer a helpful pointer or two? In a customer service environment where even a waiter introduces himself by name, why does the antiques trade sometimes refuse even to acknowledge a potential customer?

Back to the antiques show. In only a few cases did the reading, knitting, and crossword puzzling cease when I—or others—entered the booth. I'd say about half of the dealers didn't acknowledge us, even as we entered the inner sanctum of their displays. Of the other half, most of the acknowledgements consisted of a grudging hello and the kind of smile that just barely caused the corners of their upper lip to break a horizontal line.

Now, I don't mean to pick on antiques shows. On numerous occasions I've entered single-dealer antiques shops and observed the same absence of greeting, smile, or offer of assistance. It is a weird strategy—a kind of antimarketing, which (who knows?) may become quite trendy some day. In the meantime, here's what it feels like. It feels like a museum.

The Difference Between My Shop and a Museum

Think about your last museum trip. You probably wandered from room to room, pausing longer in front of some pieces, not so long over others. In several rooms of the museum, especially the ones containing the good stuff, a museum staffer was probably standing or sitting quietly in the corner of the room, perhaps watching you, perhaps staring off into space, but definitely not communicating. In the antiques trade, that person would be the dealer.

Maybe it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy that by creating a museum vibe in our antiques retail spaces, we have in fact encouraged museum behavior. Look but don't touch. Stay within yourself. Don't put prices on the objects because people will think they're actually for sale. And because show promoters charge an admission to shows, they are unwittingly (I'm sure) reinforcing the museum mentality.

Maybe dealers who exhibit at shows really don't want to sell. I suppose there are a few who just want to get out of the shop and into the scene, but I do think that when a dealer asks another "Did you have a good show?" the inquiry has more to do with commerce than social success.

As a marketing guy and a branding specialist I can't resist getting caught up in semantics. Words such as "exhibit" and "show" sound pretty museum-like. The next time you go a day without a sale, think about what, if any, difference exists between the atmosphere of your antiques shop and that of a museum.

Back now to the "attitude" thing. Have we as an industry become unconsciously morose? Will this rub off on customers? Have we lost our self-confidence, or worse, our humor? Think Bill Clinton versus John Kerry—both smart, dedicated, passionate people. Right now, the antiques trade is more Kerry than Clinton, but what we need is the elusive charisma that immediately engages a room.

To welcome new people into the fold and to mitigate all this hand wringing about dishonesty and fraud and buyers' premiums, we need less Merchant Ivory and more Ron Howard. We need more of the nuances of Alias and less of the just-the-facts Dragnet (the original television version, that is).

When was the last time we engaged our customers with humor? Take a look at our ads. One wonders if we have a sense of humor at all. Humor sells. Ask Volkswagen, perhaps the first automaker to run commercials that actually made people laugh for the right reasons. More recently there is Geico, the company that pulls off the impossible feat of making the topic of car insurance a giggle fest.

We think that the photos of "important" pieces in our advertisements will differentiate us. Perhaps they might on that day. But a successive photographic parade of nice-looking objects, no matter how rare, will not in the long run build a brand personality.

The most striking and memorable print advertisement that I've seen recently has been for Tiffany & Company. As I remember it, the ad featured close-up photography of a woman's hand and neck. The interesting part? The woman wasn't wearing any jewelry. There was no sales copy. The ad created a mystique, a story that the observer entered in midcourse. Tiffany & Company was selling an emotion, perhaps a sense of anticipation or of giving.

The Tiffany brand, like many other luxury brands, is defined by much more than just the objects it sells. In fact, the product rarely defines the brand. Neither does a technology. It's why the Walt Disney Company can seamlessly branch into the cruise line business. It's why Starbucks is getting into the music business and Amazon.com can offer more than just books.

Can We Not Be Serious for a Moment?

Strong brands—or industries—don't have to be morosely serious. One of the most successful recent efforts to lighten up an entire industry has been the wildly successful campaign for milk. Only ten years ago milk was maligned for its fat content and shunned for soft drinks and designer juices. The "Got Milk?" campaign indeed got everyone to rethink the traditional beverage. It didn't pull this off by spouting nutritional platitudes. It engaged us through humor.

Does the antiques industry need its own shot in the arm? Here's the current situation. The trade is having a navel-gazing identity crisis. In one corner we have the Internet zealots and in another, the bricks and mortar Luddites. Issues of fraud, misrepresentation, and evil chicanery are dominating the conversation. It's become somewhat of a sport in this trade to point out what's wrong rather than what's right. If we're so down on ourselves, how can we possibly inspire a new group of dealers and buyers?

Our trade associations are addressing some of these issues. After all, the stated objective of the Antiques Dealers' Association of America is, according to its Web site, to "make more professional the business of buying and selling antiques," and it seems to focus on education and ethics, worthy goals indeed. Another organization, the National Antique & Art Dealers Association of America, is composed of members "mutually pledged to safeguard the interests of those who buy, sell, or collect antiques and works of art," according to its Web site. Again, a fine goal.

Creating organizations to mitigate a negative, however, is not the same as pumping the positive. There's a certain spirit of cleverness and derring-do in the antiques trade that's lying dormant at the moment. We won't see the blockbuster thriller with Matt Damon as the adventurous antiques dealer or Renee Zellweger as the flighty auctioneer, because right now the antiques trade has no identity. (Although either one of these imagined movies would do more for the industry than a parade of celebrity estate auctions, especially in reaching a younger audience.)

So, how can we give the antiques trade an identity that once again inspires and delights? What makes us laugh? Maybe it's time to lighten up a little—or a lot—and in the process, let a little morning light into the room.

David Vazdauskas is the founder of Victory Branding, a Maine-based marketing and brand identity consulting practice. He welcomes comments and suggestions for this column, which may be sent by e-mail to david@victorybranding.com; by mail to 14 Middle Street, Suite 2, Brunswick, ME 04011, or call (207) 725-4447.