Just Add Fangs

I was at Target over lunch last week and wondered whether the company is considering renaming its store Twilight. As I walked, I saw Twilight magnets, stickers, paper plates, and even Twilight Barbie and Ken dolls. Now, that’s marketing.

In all seriousness, though, and in Target’s defense, it’s not just Twilight; vampires of every ilk are taking over, whether you’re a fan of “True Blood,” “The Vampire Diaries,” Buffy or another series. And have you walked through the young adult section in a bookstore lately? Although vampires have their die-hard fans who love them all the time, they also undergo a resurgence in widespread popularity during economic recession. In fact, some people theorize that the types of beasts enjoying popularity in horror films also correlate to current economic and political times. For example, when the economy is good and business is thriving, zombies tend to dominate — those mindless, insatiable undead represent the general population’s gluttonous spending and consumption habits.

During times of economic recession, however, vampires are the rulers, representing how we all feel sucked dry and drained of life. Moreover, the fantasy world of the vampire enables us to escape the very real worries that accompany recession: financial stress and anxiety, shaky political ground, job losses, etc. Stephen King even wrote about the subject in his book Danse Macabre. None of our mundane worries seems to matter much when we fantasize that we’ll be young and beautiful forever, without a care in the world except who will become our next meal.

What is particularly interesting is that recession vampires are not a modern trend. The economy-related waxing and waning of the vampire’s popularity in film and books can be traced back to at least the 1800s. Some speculate that vampires and horror and fantasy films are popular right now because we need a form of escapism from the “horrors” of the current world. Part of the reason for Twilight’s popularity is that the series hit at the most opportune time, economically speaking. The other part is that the demand for romance fiction has also increased with this recession, and Twilight has it all: fantasy, vampires, romance and even a little bit of horror.

The current vampire hysteria has caused a rash of vampires to appear in advertising. Some brands have jumped into the coffin with “True Blood,” HBO’s hit vampire series. Two of these companies are automobile manufacturer MINI, with billboards and ads for its convertible models that say, “Feel the Wind in Your Fangs,” and Gillette, with its slogan, “Dead Sexy: Vampires Prefer the Fusion Shave.” Other companies using vampires to appeal to consumers include Microsoft in commercials for its Bing search engine and Verizon, with a Twilight/Vampire Diaries spoof.

These companies are using vampires as icons in their ads, appealing to consumers’ embracement of vampires as both a way to escape reality and a way to give physical form to the worry and stress they’re feeling. I haven’t seen it yet, but maybe it’s only a matter of time before we see companies using vampires as an analogy for modern economic times: In today’s economy, most of us feel as though we’re being sucked dry — whether it’s through downsizing, flat pay rates, joblessness or inflation. What better way to give form to this feeling than through a vampire?