The industries that thrive on fear and hope

With a title like the one above I bet you are thinking about organized crime but you are way off base. In fact a rather larger portion of our economy is based on those emotions.

The insurance industry is based solely on fear alone. The fear of losing something and not being able to afford to replace it is the basis for home owners insurance and car insurance. Fear of the unknown is the basis of health insurance and life insurance. Those industries play on our fears in order to sell more insurance to us everyday. Car insurance TV ads show realistic car accidents that startle you, life insurance ads show a wonderful family with a voice over that says “what would they do if you are not there?” Fear of someone breaking into your home is a boom to home security companies and locksmiths. Even the fear of getting old has the cosmetic industry making millions on making people look young. How about that TV commercial with the old woman laying on the floor of her own home, calling out “I can’t get up” in order to sell Life Alert security? Not only does fear sell products but it is BIG business.

The other side of the coin is the hope industry. That industry rises up out of a down turn in the economy. It can be something simple as a chain letter emailed to you with a “good luck fairy” inside. You must send the email on in order to receive good luck. Prayer websites have an increase in visitors.

The gardening industry starts to turn out more “good luck” plants like the “Lucky Bamboo” and the “Money Plant”. I have an interesting tale to tell about the Money plant. I bought one of those plants, not because of the name but because I liked the look of it. I bought it about 10 years ago and had it for a few years when some of the larger leaves dried up and fell off. At the time I thought nothing of it but I did start to watch the plant more closely after that. It seemed when ever the plant had a large leaf fall off, an unexpected bill would show up. If the plant grew a new leaf and it grew large then unexpected money would show up. We moved to another state just over 4 years ago and I gave away all my plants before we left. I don’t remember what happened to the Money plant but it was an interesting plant to watch for a few years.

I learned about the “good luck” industry from a woman that came from China. She collected elephants that had their trunks raised in the air. That pose was a sign of good luck. When I started my own small part-time business she gave me a large Chinese poster of a painted horse on rice paper. The horse symbolizes a wish of good luck for a new business.

The huge gambling industry is based on hope and it does a good job on persuading individuals in parting with their money in hopes to win big and change their lives forever.

When you think about it a large portion of the industries that are in business today have an element of fear or hope as a selling point.