Conversation With A Mannequin

The other day I was wandering through Marshall Field’s and I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. I looked around, but no one was in sight. No one, that is, except a mannequin who was staring at me obliquely with a cold, vacant look. He was well dressed, polite (in a quiet, Minnesota-nice kinda way) and he had a head. You know it’s really difficult to find a mannequin with a head these days. Look around. Most new mannequins are headless. Must be the current mannequin chic.

“Hey man, how you doin’?” I asked.*

Reluctantly, and without any acknowledgment, he replied, “......”

“I like your shirt. Where’d you get it?” I said jokingly.

He disregarded my comments entirely, and responded with a terse, “.....”

This was difficult. I had no idea of what was going through his head. I said, “You know this conversation reminds me of an older marketing era.” He offered no response, but I sensed bewilderment on his part. I continued, “Well, I said I’m in the communications business and before the Internet, marketing conversations were one way. It was boring...like having a conversation with a mannequin. We sent our messages out, but didn’t get much feedback. It was really difficult to figure out if what we were saying was working or what we could do to improve. We had very little idea of what was going on in the minds of our customers.”

He listened dispassionately, and offered no rebuttal or additional comments.

I added, “In the book, The Cluetrain Manifesto,**Doc Searle and the other authors said the Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate. Formal, ‘corporate speech’ is being replaced with natural ‘human speech.’ In the book, they say markets are conversations and we can build relationships with people and carry on a dialogue in an open, natural human voice. Because markets are conversations we can also learn from each other. That’s why blogs are becoming so popular. They are conversational.”

The mannequin seemed uninterested in what I was talking about. Another nearby mannequin that was dressed to the nines joined him in his indifference.

I addressed them both. “You know it’s too bad you guys can’t talk. This interactive thing is really a big concept. It’s revolutionizing the way we do business. In The Cluetrain Manifesto the authors state it well:”

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter; and getting smarter faster than most companies.

“Now we have the tools to reach people; learn from people; engage and interact with people. We can even take the offline tools of the previous era and re-task them to work as more robust interactive components.”

Continuing I said, “Besides, they made a popular movie called Mannequin, and it wouldn’t have been very interesting unless something made the mannequin (Kim Cattrall...Sex and the City...yowsa!) come alive and be able to interact with Andrew McCarthy.

The mannequins appeared unmoved by my thoughts. As I left Marshall Field’s, Starship’s song, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, from Mannequin was playing in my head, and I was gratified I was no longer living in the past marketing age. It’s just too frustrating trying to communicate with mannequins.

Now there is a wonderful world of real conversations we can have with people and with customers all over the country or the world. Conversations just like this.

*Disclaimer: This is only pretend. Do not attempt conversing with a mannequin in public unless you are a professional actor.

**Available and, in fact, encouraged as a free download. The book, “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” was quite controversial when it first came out in 2000. Today many of its 95 Theses appeared to have been uniquely prescient.