Week 4 - William Chan - Danish Furniture

Danish furniture has been very impactful into the market of furniture. It's a crazy approach that the Danish use to market furniture and it was to 'play onto people's narratives'. What they did was they create/design furniture that is able to somehow relate to people's lifestyles and culture. They found ways to design a table, chair, cabinet, whatever it is, and made it somehow 'meaningful' to people. In a way, they created something that is trendy and evokes emotions. In the article, Networks, Narratives, and New Markets: The Rise and Fall of Danish Modern Furniture Design, 1930-1970, by Per H. Hansen, Hansen brings up interesting points of how the Danish were able to make 'meaningful' designed furniture and how the furniture is suppose to be able to relate to certain people's lifestyles as well as sell simplicity, trendy and cheap furniture that looks of high quality. This type of marketing strategy is interesting because they have found ways to get into people's minds and emotions and it convinces people what they are buying 'suits' them well. It's like going out and buying clothes that fit your sense of style; they are selling this feeling of compatibility and comfort. What also was a smart market move they did was that the fact Danish furniture is foreign so it puts more value on it because its imported from another country. The Danish's market strategy was very wise in playing into people's personal lives and narratives.

Question: Is this idea of marketing or playing into "people's narratives" a way of socially engineering people into a certain image, lifestyle, and perception into life's class and trends?

Works cited:

https://www.google.com/search?q=danish+mafia&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj74_PY-b7KAhVN22MKHcqxBuAQ_AUICSgD&biw=1366&bih=643#imgrc=b51LXgstjjyg0M%3A

Per H. Hansen. “Networks, Narratives, and New Markets: The Rise and Decline of Danish Modern Furniture.”