MURKETING

To Do: Boston (area) Buying In event tonight

So … If you’re in the Boston area, and you took advantage of my earlier open call to join me at an invitation-only party for Buying In, then I’ll see you tonight. And maybe you’ll even pick up an outstanding limited edition (of 50) poster by none other than Amy Jo, pictured above. (More on Amy Jo later.)

And if you’re in Boston and you simply ignored my open invitation … well … what can I tell you?

UPDATE: Huge thanks to the folks at Continuum, and to all the friends, old and new, who made it out. A very fun evening for me, and I hope for you all, too.

AntiFriday: Popcorn hoax; product placement ban; etc.

After skipping last AntiFriday, I’ve already shared some anti-ness and backlashing on Murketing this week: complaints about a new means of show-interruption on TBS, and mixed feelings, at the least, about street artist Fauxreel’s Vespa work (see The Aesthetic Poetic for an earlier take on that). Here’s what else I can offer from the week in dissent and critiques and complaints and like that.

1. Advertising & Marketing Made Easy and Wired both address the recent cellphone-radiation-pops-pocorn viral video — which has apparently been viewed 4 million+ times, and which turned out to be an ad. In truth, I haven’t personally seen a ton of backlash about this, but people have asked me about it. The answer is: I’m not a fan of this kind of thing, at all. But it does seem to have gotten this company’s name around. Whether it does much for the client or not, I’m guessing the marketing firm that made the thing will get some new business as a result.

2. “On July 1st, the Anti-Advertising Agency and Rami Tabello of IllegalSigns.ca will give a free workshop teaching you how to identify illegal advertising and get it taken down. You will leave this workshop equipped to have illegal signs removed in your neighborhood.” Details.

3. Variety:

The U.K. media minister has attacked product placement in TV shows and said he will not allow the practice on British broadcasters even though it has been approved by the European Union.

The news is likely to infuriate TV companies, including beleaguered terrestrial giant ITV, which are all trying to find additional revenue streams as new media continues to make inroads into traditional advertising. Read more

Tonight’s event

Friday night July 13 is the New York event for Buying In. It’s at the Art Directors Club, 106 W 29th St. (Doors 6:30, activity starts at 7.) Free and open to the public.

I’ll be in conversation with Danielle Sacks of Fast Company, and then taking audience questions. Books will be sold and signed, a limited number of beautiful letterpress posters will be given away for free, Barking Irons will be screenprinting (and selling) T’s on the spot, Fast Company will be giving out free magazines. Plus catering, booze, and mingling, all put together by PSFK.

Now I mentioned all this a while ago, and maybe you clicked through and RSVPed, or maybe you clicked through and learned that it was “sold out.” Several people have asked: How can a free event be “sold out”? The anwer is that the number of RSVPs exceeded the amount of space available — but of course we have no way of knowing how many of the RSVP-ers will actually show up. Or for that matter how many people who did not RSVP will show up anyway.

So that’s what’s going on; just trying to be as open about it as possible. If you did RSVP, I recommend that you show up — and in fact I recommend that you do so closer to 6:30 to 7. I think it’ll be a fun evening. Hope to see you there.

This Week on Murketing.com: Three Q&As with Austin Craft Mafia co-founders

Beginning today: Three Q&As in three days with three founders of the Austin Craft Mafia.

This is partly a tie-in to Buying In: The book is officially published tomorrow, and the Austin Craft Mafia is an important part of one of the closing chapters. While Buying In is not really about the DIY/craft movement (see this Time Magazine review for a good snapshot of the book in general), the final section offers some forward-looking explorations of where our relationship with branded and material culture is going — and where we might make it go. The craft scene plays into that in one chapter, and in the course of that chapter I tell a bit of the story of the ACM.

I thought it would be kind of cool, then, to give a kind of instant update of three figures whose stories are partly told in the book: After all, a book is a static object, and things can change between when it’s written and when it’s read. But here I have the more real-time Murketing.com at my disposal, and happily for me ACM co-founders Jennifer Perkins, Tina Sparkles, and Jenny Hart were all willing to take time from extremely busy schedules to play along with this stunt.

I should mention here that the Austin Craft Mafia has nine formal members altogether. The ones I don’t know, but who each have great stories of their own (it’s hard to deal with nine people in one chapter), are: Susann Keohane of All Dressed up and Shy; Vickie Howell (more here); Hope Perkins of Hot Pink Pistol; Karly Hand of Identity Crisis Clothing; Jenifer Nakatsu Arntson of JNA Designs/Arntson Designs; and Jesse Kelly-Landes.

Learn more about the Austin Craft Mafia at their site (or, of course, in the book).

First up is Jennifer Perkins. That Q&A will post in a matter of moments.

Tina Sparkles is Tuesday; Jenny Hart Wednesday.

Have you made your own bag yet?

You can make one out of a map (via Craftzine):

Or, if you prefer, out of a book (via Coudal):

Or if you’re extra ambitious: Make a messenger bag — out of bags! (Trash bags, no less.)

Thingdown: You Buy It, You Break It … and more….

Time for another fortnightly Weekend Thingdown. This isn’t a list of stuff to buy. It’s just a list of stuff that’s interesting. Continues after the jump.

“Fragile” Salt and Pepper Set, Via Coudal

Read more

Reminders

No Consumed column this Sunday, and no Journal of Murketing email either. Both return March 30.

Also, if you missed it, the earlier Nike/Mike cease-and-desist post drew an astonishing set of comments, quite interesting to read.

That’s it.

Have a good weekend.

The paint scheme that is sure to save Starbucks

An unusually love-song-ish story in the WSJ today tells us all about Michelle Gass, a Starbucks executive who is apparently a key architect of whatever comeback strategy the massive chain is supposedly pursuing. My favorite detail:

At Starbucks’s Seattle headquarters, Ms. Gass converted a conference space down the hall from [Howard] Schultz’s office into what she dubbed the “transformation room,” where she huddles with other executives to hash out the new plans. Ms. Gass had the room painted red and purple with the hope it would help create an atmosphere of action.

Oooooh! That is so outside the box! That is crazy — a red and purple room, man that is really going to inspire some action. (Ms. Gass explains that she is “not a traditionally trained strategist,” and never even worked at McKinsey or Bain, so that’s how she comes up with those kind of ultra-rad ideas like a red and purple action room.)

Apart from reminding me just how glad I am that I work for myself, what this made me ponder was how a detail like this can be treated at different points in the arc of a company’s story. In this article it’s definitely serving as an indicator of energetic behind the scenes action.

But if the same thing came up after the fact as a reporter was piecing together some kind of aftermath “what went wrong” story about some brand/company that had gone off the rails, I guarantee you this detail would be evidence of how that brand/company had lost its way and taken its eye of the ball. “They painted a room red and purple as a way of inspiring action — too bad they were spending time and money on conference room paint jobs instead of innovating and serving their customers,” etc. etc.

Not that I’m saying Starbucks is off the rails, I have no opinion on that. I’m saying the “meaning” of details like this can be spun a number of ways, depending on the context.

The ultimate demographic?

In a column about Smith’s, New York Magazine restaurant critic Adam Platt notes the need for such eateries “need a specific target demographic in mind.” And he spots “the living embodiment of possibly the most desired demographic of all.” To wit:

“Do you know who that is?” said one of the hulking gentlemen at my table. “That’s Anna Wintour’s personal assistant.”

Unlooked-at pictures: A question

A column in the Times today in which the writer describes organizing photos taken on a family vacation includes this:

The downside of being able to shoot and store all the photos you want at little or no cost is that you can shoot or store all the photos you want. (Experts are suggesting that the average number of times a photo is viewed is dropping from one toward zero very rapidly.)

It’s the part that I’ve put in bold that interests me. Maybe it’s just a joke. Is it? Or is anybody familiar with any research or expertise or studies of this subject?

Random quote of the week

From “Agamemnon’s Truth,” by Javier Cercas, in Granta:98:

I know you’re not going to believe me, but the truth is there’s nothing better than success. Nothing or almost nothing, as long as you know enough to keep the idea out of your head that you’ve stolen your success from someone who deserved it more, and that all success is disgrace and humiliation, and that it’s always contaminated in some way by stupidity…

Minor site note

By popular demand (well, as a result of two request/complaints), Murketing.com now has a search feature. It’s in the sidebar to the right, and is labeled “Search.”

Last bit (for now) on ‘Handmade 2.0’

As I type this, the story has made it to number nine on the NYT’s “most emailed” list. Weirdly pleasing.

Anyway, my collected del.icio.us links on Etsy are here, on DIYism here, and on reactions to the article here, if you happen to be a del.icio.us freak, as I am.

Back to regular murketing programming later today.

Ethics, book reviews, blurbs

Romenesko points to the results of a survey on the subject of book reviewing ethics. (Potential conflicts, whether reviewers have to finish the book, etc.) The question that I’m curious about is number 11: “Should a person who has written an unpaid blurb for a book be allowed to write a fuller review of the book?”

An unpaid blurb? Are there paid blurbs?

Uneasy

Uneasy
Originally uploaded by R. Walker

Just so you know: I’m away from home for a bit, and while I thought I’d be able to keep on top of the Murketing thing, it’s proving to be harder than anticipated, for web access reasons. So, there may be some posts this week, and there may not. If not, Murketing returns to normal programming next weekend. Thank you.