Ashton Nichols

Alchemy – Senses relating to the transformation of substances, esp. of base metal into gold. (2 min. read)

How peculiar is it, that the term alchemy is thought of as an archaic practice of east Asian mystics, medieval warlocks, or western snake oil salesmen. 

Alchemy in fact, is everywhere. Not the changing of toothpicks into gold bars per se, but rather the change of things perceived to be rather mundane or useless from value-less, to valuable.

Take the concept of fake houseplants for example. From a purely logical standpoint, it makes almost zero sense to purchase one from your local discount department store.

Firstly, the majority of the time you can tell that these things are fake plastic excuses for décor anytime you enter a home. Their counter-intuitive existence of trying to look natural while serving no look or function of an actual plant would be a head-scratcher to those taking a fully logical view of interior design.

But people don’t buy fake plants to be like real plants, they buy them because they liven up their home as well as require zero resources to maintain. 

Also, the sight of houseplants, real or fake, seem to indicate that the owner cares about the look and atmosphere in their home, and therefore signal to others that they take themselves and the things around them seriously.

The concept of making a cheaper and useless replica of something, only to have the effects be relatively the same, is a prime example of alchemy.

In a practical sense, the ultimate goal of marketing or advertising is conducting some form of psychological alchemy to get a consumer to buy a product.

Here is another example:

A pharmaceutical company was discovered to be using the same medicine in multiple kinds of pain relief products.

One might think that this was discovered fairly quickly, but in fact it took years for the public to catch on. Only after the medicines were tested by outside parties and determined to be the same was the pharmaceutical company accused. Why?

The active medicine they used in their products was ibuprofen, a common anti-inflammatory drug you can find anywhere. The company had multiple products listed to fix ailments such as “headache relief,” “back relief,” and “muscle pain,” all while in fact using the same ingredient.

How did they get away with this for so long?

Well it turns out the placebo effect works, and at a large scale too. 

Hundreds of thousands of people used the company’s various products, and there was not a single accusation of repurposing the same medicine and dosage for products that were supposed to help with different problems.

This is not to say that companies should be falsely branding similar items to lower costs and increase profits, but they should invest more in mastering psychology and consumer behavior.

The real key to marketing and advertising is becoming an alchemist, someone who can turn lead (customer preferences) into gold (sales).

This is not always best achieved by improving all logical uses of a product or service and then generating as much awareness as possible. The days of mass advertising and Madison Avenue are gone.

Master alchemists pay attention to the subjective mind of the consumer. They do not necessarily need to create the most functional and efficient product, they just need to appeal to the reasons behind what make people tick.

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Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “alchemy (n. & adj.),” September 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2271366924.

Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “placebo (n.),” December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9108156041.

Sutherland, Rory. Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life. Custom House, 2021.