Is The Dollar Depreciation Due To Bad Looks?
Economy | November 16, 2009 at 1:00 amI never knew that currency, these days, may be valued or devalued for its looks! Till dollar architect Richard Smith came with this novel idea of giving the dollar a makeover, I never knew that the look of the dollar was a significantly plausible reason for its lowering worth in the present times. This is what Richard Smith has to say “our great ‘rival’, the Euro, looks so spanky in comparison it seems the only clear way to revive this global recession is to rebrand and redesign.” So now, it seems that recession and politics are hollow reasons in comparison to the look of the dollar as an explanation to its depreciation! Richard Smith has, in fact, put up a contest asking people to come with ideas for redesigning the dollar, on his website.
Well, the concept is not as frivolous as it appears to be. Have you heard of corporate rebranding? Some struggling organizations would revamp their looks to present a fresh face to the world. Many times this would work as we humans have a tendency to readily accept old wine in a new bottle! Playing with branding has been a clever strategy of marketing psychologists to make a slumping company or product bounce back into the market. How many times haven’t you seen companies changing their names, color and logos to win attention? Smith feels that rebranding the dollar to make them 
connect better with it is going to play on the emotion of the people. The psychological perspective opines that depressing facts about the bad economy, such as negative media news and discouraging economic indicators are not the only reason for the development of negative feelings towards the dollar, but emotional factors like the face value and the feel can also play an important part in determining the way people connect to it. According to Smith then, rebranding is going to work by igniting our passion for our dear old dollar.
To a certain extent I do agree with Smith because I think when something bad happens, we generally detach ourselves from that. Maybe when you look at the dollar you remember the economical catastrophe the country has seen and you don’t feel like using it. Now a rebranding is going to liven up your spirit. You should take a look at the new design of the dollar. It’s really stunning! At least the looks and feel might draw you closer to the dollar and you feel more like owning it and using it.
It’s not only Smith who’s talking about rebranding the dollar. Michael Bierut, according to a New York Times report, feels that the rebranded dollar can work wonders for the American Economy. So of all measures that we are taking to bring the dollar to its initial glory, will rebranding work more than anything else? Raising dollar value, then is only about changing its face value?
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