Astrology & Marketing – Would You Wear Your Zodiac Sign?

rhino-shirt-sm.jpgLast night the soldier and I were talking about astrology and t-shirts…

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “People who try to market using astrology do not understand astrology. They make a uniform number t-shirts, the same number of each sign and they are never going to sell them. They fail to understand that no Capricorn is going to walk around with Capricorn on their shirt. Really, there are only about 3 signs you can sell merchandise to, I’d say. In any quantity anyway. So pretty much anyone who tries to do this winds up losing their ass.”

“Well I wouldn’t wear my sign,” he said. “I’m not going to walk around with a bull on my shirt.”

I laughed because he walks around with a rhino on his shirt most days. “No, I guess not,” I said.

“But I would wear a scorpion. I like a scorpion as a symbol,” he said.

“And you could get away with that because you have a Scorpio Moon. Or you can wear whatever the hell you want but you see the problem here. People by and large are not going to wear their sign on their chest so marketer after marketer fail with their zodiac lines because they don’t understand this. I am quite sure it will always be this way.”

Would you wear a T-shirt that broadcast your sign? Why or why not?

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46 thoughts on “Astrology & Marketing – Would You Wear Your Zodiac Sign?”

  1. I’ve got that problem too. I just say this: “If we are going to wait on me to decide something, we’ll be here all day. Just pick it and let’s go!”

    I usually also thank the person for making decisions for me because I am polite and all. 😉

    (at least most the time)

  2. I got a free tote bag from intoxicatedzodiac.com with a fish on it that I regularly use for grocery shopping. It’s probably not the best “marketing” image for Pisces, at it also features wine glasses. (Although most apropros given the zodiac stereotype!). I wouldn’t wear a Pisces t-shirt, though.

  3. Well, I am fortunate to be a Sagittarius, which I think is a sign with a good market and public image (regardless of the real qualities of the sign, which are basically the same amount for each sign). It’s a centaur, it’s a lovely mythological image. Many other signs don’t have such an appealing façade.

  4. no. people get waaay too many bad ideas about aries. it’s like when i walked around with red hair. i don’t get so many bugs to zap now that i’ve reverted to brunette. 😛

    and virgo is just as bad. in a very different way, of course. i am not a sexless counting machine, ok? just sayin’…

  5. Actually considering a tattoo that does just that …. not sure, though, if it’s a warning, a boast, or an identification. Probably all three. *chuckle*

    But T shirt? Only if it had sparklies. (gemini joke …. )

  6. Sure. Maybe if I had Libra up front on a shirt, people would stop asking me to decide where we ought to go for dinner.

  7. Not my real sign. I like the gylph for Pisces if they weave it into a cool design or something. Most people don’t know what it means anyway.

  8. I think it was about 2003/2004 when it was trendy to wear your sign (the trend lasted about one season). As much as I wanted everyone to know that I was a Leo, I just couldn’t get myself to buy one of those sequined shirts!! Thank gosh I didn’t.
    I did want to get a red Leo symbol tattoo on the inside of my wrist, but I don’t think as a teacher I’d be taken seriously.
    So then I was thinking of getting a small tattoo somewhere hidden of the Leo, Capricorn, Scorpio symbols (my Sun, Moon, ASC). Still contemplating that one.

  9. “people would stop asking me to decide where we ought to go for dinner.”

    lol! For some reason I always end up having this question (or a variation of it) posed to me. It doesn’t bother me, but I always wonder if it’s sincere or not. I actually enjoy making the decisions and planning things, and it seems weird to me why they would give up that opportunity when they could do it, and so willingly too! But my friends say it’s stressful to decide and they’re relieved when someone else takes charge. Imagine that. Needless to say, I’m an Aries w/lots of Capricorn…and I’m put in charge whether I volunteer for the job or not. heh 🙂

  10. My guess would be that all the fixed signs would be okay with this idea, except maybe Taurus, which is too fixed. Just fixed enough is the order of the day.
    My daughter who is 12 and just finished reading my copy of Stephen Arroyo’s Chart Interpretation Handbook had a view on this the other day after I mentioned your tee-shirt to her (I have Libra and I can’t decide), she thought it would be cool to have one that said “Danger: Taurus Grazing” and seemed quite keen on wearing that.
    I have no problem with wearing the Omega glyph for Libra (as I am a Libra) and in fact my father’s watch was an Omega and I was always fascinated by the glyph on his watch even as a child and it struck me when I watched the X-Files that Fox Mulder’s watch was an Omega. My wife went out once and bought me a very expensive watch but it wasn’t an Omega and I was mildly upset, although not truly because I don’t believe in expensive watches (but if someone was going to spend all that money…” She is also a Libra and it was exactly on her birthday while we were at a restaurant celebrating that burglars broke into our house and stole my watch the day after the strap broke (which is why I wasn’t wearing it).

    So, yeah. What was the question again?

  11. You are so right about Caps not wearing their sign on their chests! How obnoxiously obvious. What? Like I want someone trying to pick me up just coz of my sun sign? Right. Get real…

    But I might wear a Laura Roslin/Airlock for President 2008/Caprican Party tee… Talk about a Pluto in Capricorn statement.

  12. I would probably wear some sort of Taurus-themed thing, but not an outright bull. Bulls just aren’t that cute. Taurus Grazing amuses me, though, as does “I have Libra and I can’t decide.”

    Best astrology merchandise ever: Hot Topic has a bumper sticker that says “Never #@$% With A Scorpio.” Had my Scorpio ex had a car, I would have gotten it for him.

  13. If I liked it enough, maybe. Even though I’m capricorn . . Uranus in scorpio in the 11th? I kinda like getting peoples reactions “Whhhhhat happens when I do THIS!” heheheh.

    I wouldn’t want to explain anything about it though so it’d have limited exposure. I did have a necklace with saturn on it that I wore all the time for about two years. Then it was up to me to either say “Well I just thought it was so pretty with the rings and whatnot” or “Its the planetary ruler for capricorn . .”

  14. I started to think no, but then it occurred to me that I HAVE worn a gemini shirt. Dark purple with the disney siamese cats on it – you know, appealing to my scorpio side. It was a kid/teenagers’s shirt, but it wasn’t too tacky outside of the disney relation.

    In any case, I don’t mind “broadcasting” that I’m a gemini because it’s unexpected. Scorpio would be another fun one just for the tail end of the “m”, but I have a shirt with a big male chicken on it to MORE than make up for that little slice of subtle lewd.

    Actually, I think a lot of my non-professional branded attire has a scorpionic or saturn feel to it… Hm…

  15. I was going to write that I would never wear a shirt advertising my sign…but then I remembered actually doing this. Someone gave me a shirt with a mysterious crab scuttling under the moon, and I wore it (this was in high school). And I actually purchased a t-shirt from Forever 21 with a crab and the statement “I’m not shellfish.”

  16. Lynne, It must be Scorpio talking or something! My sun sign, I never just hand that out, because astrology is so freakin’ complex, and most people don’t get that. I learned it long ago. You see their face, and it’s like, “Oh, I love those,” or “oh” disappointedly “my mother in law is this sign so you must be like her. If only they knew.

  17. Shell, you might want to watch for a red tattoo on the inside of your wrist. From a distance, you’ll have all kinds of people running up to you and trying to commit you for being suicidal.

    I think the idea of a really creative tattoo is cool, I’d do it near my foot of course, but I have to wait until my mother dies because she would be so damn distressed by me getting a tattoo that I can’t bring myself to put her through it.

    I like Alice’s tattoo on L word. It a wreath around her upper arm. But of course, Alice would look great in anything.

  18. Eek, Ana, I can stand it when mutable Virgo takes charge of my life, and I even welcome it, but Aries plus cap, your new nickname from me would probably be “BOSSY” after the first 15 minutes I knew you. God knows what your nickname for someone like me might be.

  19. Yeah, that’s so right Loonsounds. As I’ve said before, people want to peg you. “Oh, you’re this,” or “you’re that,”. When we are all really so much more (well, especially if you have advanced).

    I mean knowing a person’s sun sign certainly gives you a heads up, but I’m almost surprised that we don’t all go around giving out our rising sign instead. That’s the face we present socially, isn’t it?

  20. I would not wear my zodiac sign on my T-shirt, but I was thinking on creating one with my chart on the back, to make sure that I get the right followers, what do you think? Leo, Aquarius rising.

  21. lol Loonsounds. That’s why I wait till others present their suggestions first, I’m asked, or I suggest something last. Otherwise I’m sure I would get the same nickname 😉 My presence itself seems to have this effect even before I’ve said anything…so I tone it way down.

    But everybody is different and opposites tend to attract. I don’t actively seek out being in charge of most things, but I end up with it anyway. Most of the people who gravitate toward me tend to be less decisive, so when I present an idea they go with it w/o much comment. I do wish they would give some feedback or suggestions of their own sometimes. It does work out most of the time though for both parties – they get a decision and a plan and I get to take some action and do something 🙂

  22. Lynn – when I read this (without reading the posts above first) ““Not my real sign.” LOL Loonsounds! Is that Scorpio talking maybe?”

    I read it as though you were responding to someone who was saying that they’d wear a shirt with a zodiac sign that then said somewhere on it “Not my real sign”.

    I think that’s best idea (zodiac shirt-wise) ever!

    It would be a guessing game – some people would buy their own sign and wear it with that on it just to confuse people. And people who wish they were some other sun sign (or just admire another one) would buy the one they liked – and have license to wear it.

    And some people would just enjoy the confusion straight out.

  23. As far as wearing a shirt with my true zodiac sun sign on it – I would if it were cool (and it was flattering overall – I have issues w/ standard T shirt cuts).

    Cool for me would be, maybe, showing the symbol with some positive and sassy note about the sign that it usually “likes about itself”.

  24. Loonsounds I know what you mean about the disappointment. I actually make the same mistake myself – I suppose it’s just nice to see a pattern somewhere – a synchronicity.

    I remember my Astrology teacher saying to me that because I have a Scorpio moon I would feel extremely uncomfortable talking about my feelings. Your comment rang that bell for me, I apologise for the assumption.

  25. I really like your ideas Althera, a t-shirt which is not really a t-shirt (I am in total agreement with you about the t-shirt thing, I buy mine from Victorias Secret) with some stuff about a sign and then the words “Not my real sign.” I have never seen anything like that and I’ll be it would be a huge conversation piece and also, people who want to meet someone or flirt, they would have fun. I want one already!

  26. Avatar
    Little Miss Hermit

    As a Virgo, I would say I wouldn’t – because of the widespread misconceptions surrounding the sign. You never see anyone sporting a Virgo tattoo, either, although there are tattooed Virgos…;) I however have a top with a dragon on it (the emblem is in a style I would associate with China – very cool) that I love and wear a lot. I was born in the year of the Dragon and have Sag rising and Scorpio on the MC.

  27. Nope, no t-shirt for me. But a tattoo I would do, maybe close to my Vag just right above the hair line, or maybe a little in the hair line so the scorpion looks like it is scurrying out of a “bush”. haha T.M.I, maybe.

  28. Wearing a scorpion might be cool, but I’ve re-thought it a dozen times. Each time I admired a Scorpio pendant, earrings or tattoo, I later thought how cliche’ it looks to draw unnecessary attention to myself. I don’t like wearing name tags or monogram items either.

  29. Sure, I would. The same day I wear a Christmas sweater with sparkly rickrack from the Old Ladies Craft Bazaar, and a tarnished gold necklace that spells my name.

  30. lol that is funny. only 3 signs out of 12 like to buy their own horn or toot their horn. 😛 it’s definitely not the capricorn/cancer axis. i dont see virgo/pisces axis doing so either.

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