Geiz ist geil!
Geiz ist geil: Wie geil sind Sie?
FRANKFURT - In 2001, the German electronics retailer Saturn introduced the advertising tagline “Stinginess is cool!” - in German, “Geiz ist geil!” - and soon found it summed up the nation’s mood with a slogan that left the advertising world and entered popular culture.
The new-economy bubble had burst, unemployment was rising and as consumers were reining in their spending, Saturn offered its customers some moral support. It assured Germans, in a campaign that ran the gamut from television to print media to leaflets, that searching for the lowest price was hardly shameful.
The notion gained a life of its own, and Germans embedded “Geiz ist geil!” in their everyday language as though it were an ancient proverb. Politicians even justified budget cuts with the line, turning Saturn - a 124-store division of the Metro Group - into the unwitting author of a maxim for a nation turned stingy.
But now, as a strong economic upswing in Germany slowly extinguishes the rationale behind the slogan, Saturn recently announced plans to wind down the campaign.
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At the least, the slogan was very un-German by the country’s standards of consumerism, which have always emphasized paying for quality. A Mercedes-Benz or a BMW, the theory went, was well worth the hefty price tag because of its peerless engineering. But “Geiz ist geil” flipped that equation, and suddenly the price justified all else.
“It’s a terrible notion, but it has become a slogan for our culture,” said Alexander von Gizycki, chief executive of the Lueg Group, a large chain of auto dealers that sells premium brands like Mercedes. “In reality, it is a sign of our own poverty.”
But times are changing. Since last year, German consumers have kicked their spending into higher gear, as unemployment has dropped and their outlook has brightened.
“What we can tell now about customers is that they want to indulge themselves in a little more happiness,” said Holger Jung, a co-founder of Jung von Matt. “And when you do that via low prices, you’re never sure whether you got the best deal.”
Put another way, if encouraging consumers to be tightfisted six years ago was daring, these days it might be downright dumb. Saturn hooked legions of buyers with the campaign, but now that Germans have more money in their pockets, a new slogan will probably encourage people to quit fussing over price.