Page 26 - The Disneyization of Society

THEMING

the senses may be a mechanism for distinguishing a service from that of its
competitors even though the actual services may otherwise be more or less identical.
17
This proposition is an extension of the principle that we have all known for a long
time, namely, that people do not consume on the basis of use value alone. As any
student of Coca-Cola advertisements will have noticed, the company rarely seeks
to sell its well-known beverage on the basis of flavour; instead, it positions itself
as a purveyor of identities and lifestyles. The same kind of formula operates in
connection with many areas of service provision: the themed environment in
affording an engaging location for consumption, becomes a major component of
the service and how it is responded to. Indeed, the nature of the themed envi-
ronment may even connect with the consumer’s identity and lifestyle projects.
However, theming presents several problems for service providers. Two points
can be usefully noted at this stage, in anticipation of some of the points to be
made below. First, it is costly. Theming requires substantial investments without
any certainty that the theme and the way it is presented will be sufficiently
absorbing to warrant the expenditures involved. The costs are likely to revolve
around the expenses associated with supplying the physical embodiment of the
theme in terms of visual, auditory and even tactile stimuli and the costs of train-
ing staff to behave in ways consonant with the theme and other aspects of desir-
able service provision. On top of this, no matter how well the theme is physically
implemented, it may simply be unappealing to consumers. Second, and relatedly,
expectations of themed environments probably operate like a ratchet screwdriver,
in that people’s expectations are constantly increasing. For new entrants to
themed service provision, this means that costs are constantly likely to increase
as the theming stakes grow. For existing providers, they have to face the fact that
what is innovative and exciting today may be hackneyed and dull tomorrow as
new entrants enter the field with more compelling ideas and ever more engaging
ways of implementing them. As we will see, the world of theming is littered with
high-profile casualties, alongside some spectacular successes.

Sources of Themes

The sources of themes are many and varied but modern culture, along with its
distinctive takes on other cultures and epochs, provides a rich source of themes on
which to draw. Referring to built environments in the United States, Gottdiener 6
has identified nine prominent themes: status; tropical paradise; wild west; classi-
cal civilization; nostalgia; Arabian fantasy; urban motif; fortress architecture and
surveillance; and modernism and progress. Essentially, we can see here the impli-
cation that geography, history, and social organization provide rich repositories of
narratives on which the architects of theming can draw. However, Gottdiener’s
list is by no means comprehensive and omits three of the most renowned sources