One-Upping

"I was going 93 on the expressway when I saw the cop. I slammed on my brakes, rolled down my windows so he couldn't see my tints, never mind the fact it was 8 degrees in January, and I still managed to avoid the ticket."

"Yeah, well I was going 105 in a 45MPH zone at two in the morning when I saw three cops. I wasn't 21, I had four cases of beer in my car, my neon lights were on under the car's chassis, I had an unregistered gun under the backseat, my license was suspended, and I picked up a hitchhiker who was clearly an illegal immigrant but he helped me pay for gas and bought me a bag of chips. And I still didn't get pulled over."

That's called one-upping. It's the constant struggle to claim righteous glory over everyone else and their experiences. Another example:

Person A: "My grandma had cancer twice but she beat it both times."
Person B: "My grandma had cancer four times and lost both of her ears in a sewing accident. While fighting with her last cancer bout, a comet fell through the roof of her house destroying everything. She's fine though."

But then there's product and brand one-upping. For example, I could eat regular wheat or white toast, but then I discovered raisin bread. Why would I ever want to eat plain toast again when I can be eating raisin toast? Rice Krispies? Ha, I'll take Cocoa Krispies please. Adding elements to an existing formula of success doesn't always work, like New Coke or Shrek the 3rd. But one-upping can be surprising and get people to recognize a brand's work and products. I'm definitely not a fan of Domino's new pizza recipe, but the damn commercials touted it up so much I couldn't help but try it. Their efforts to show off how they one-upped themselves got me to reexamine my relationship with Domino's pizza. (Can't say the same thing about those bread bowls though.)

People are on this subconscious quest to experience and find the next and best of everything. It's why we like to brag about listening to Vampire Weekend before anyone knew them or talk about moving to Colorado. So how does brand loyalty fit into this? Think about it. Someone drives a Chevrolet Impala for their entire life. They trust the reliability and safety of the car and expect as they buy/lease each new Impala it'll one-up the last one. It'll have a better suspension, stronger looks, nicer rims, etc. Brands have to one-up themselves constantly. Some brands do it well- Apple or BMW for example. Some brands struggle- Starbucks has been a bit rocky lately and I still don't know how I feel about Pike's Place Roast. Other brands sort of just rely on tradition without changing virtually anything. They refuse to challenge themselves. Tradition is important, but innovation is just as important, if not more important. It doesn't always yield the best results, but for a company to deny innovation and attempts to one-up themselves, is like a refusal of human nature.

But I guess there's two approaches people can take once they finally reach the pinnacle of success. They can either accept it, succumb to success and ride it out or they can take those successes and build on top of them. Reaching that success in the first place is no easy task, but trying to one-up that success is even harder. Especially if you're the dude who took seven shots and three beer bongs in ten minutes.