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February 23, 2005
The Professor (Doesn't) Wear Prada?
An exercise in uncomfortable silence
For a group of people ostensibly 100 grand poorer for their two years in graduate school in a big city, my business school classmates' penchant for snobbery -- specifically related to profligate consumption of overpriced luxury goods and services -- never ceases to amaze. Perhaps it's a byproduct of their choice in graduate school (I mean, you'd expect the money-grubbing/ consumerist folks to end up at b-school), or just a function of living in New York, but I am perpetually amazed by the brands of attire and gadget that grace the hallways. I imagine the folks getting their masters in comp lit aren't dressed quite as well.
All that said, I was still floored by an exchange in one of my classes yesterday. The professor in said class is an accomplished marketing professional who has held jobs with a number of the world's leading consumer packaged goods firms. Her industry expertise is what landed her the teaching gig -- she isn't a lifetime academic. She is bright, experienced, and certainly makes a very professional impression. This is no frumpy bookworm; she's well-dressed and certainly in touch with consumer tastes and trends.
To open a discussion of luxury goods marketing, this professor held up her backpack and announced that she had purchased said backpack in Chinatown for fifteen dollars. The backpack had a Prada label. So, she asked us, do you think that this knock-off Prada backpack was hurting Prada's business?
Immediately, a hand shot up with the urgency of second-grade teacher-pleaser. The professor pointed at the owner of the hand. Okay, what do you think?
"Well, it's patently obvious to anyone that that's not a Prada bag. Prada would never make something like that."
(And the needle scratches off the record.)
Translation: this question is irrelevant; even the most declasse bargain-hunter from Kansas would be able to see that cheap counterfeit for the harlequin arts-and-crafts project it most surely is.
In retrospect, the confidence of her faux-posh Brit accent and the disdainful finality with which she punctuated the end of her statement ("No need for further discussion; we've closed the book on this one!") probably made it that much worse. Still, she could have said it in the Cartman voice and it would have still been awful. Ugh. On the bright side, it at least bisected the ennui of an otherwise slow day in class.
And people wonder why no one likes MBAs.
Posted by thatkid at February 23, 2005 4:48 PM under
MBAwesome!
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