MURKETING

links for 2007-06-04

• NPR : Brother Ali: Hip-Hop from a Unique Perspective
  “Brother Ali is a minority, but not in the ways you might expect. First, he’s a white rapper in a genre filled with mostly black artists. Second, Brother Ali is an albino.”
  (tags: music)
• Sure, You Read Me, But Who’ll Friend Me?
  Howard Kurtz puzzles over social networking: “It almost seems like the point is to collect a long list of names rather than establish relationships outside your immediate circle.” No shit.
  (tags: socialmedia)

Vintage trend

In Consumed: Wine chains: Turning a purchase requiring specialized knowledge into something for Everyman — everywhere.

Consumer sophistication is on the rise. Just look at what we drink. Not coffee from a can or mass-market beer, but complex lattes and fine pinot noir. When there is a great enough thirst for sophistication (or anything else), something becomes inevitable: a chain of relevant franchises. Or in the case of wine, a couple of them: one recent list of fast-growing franchises included both Vino 100 (with about 60 locations open) and WineStyles (about 110 locations)….

Continue reading at the NYT site.

links for 2007-06-02

• Fops and Dandies: Rebellion (Lies)
  More skepticism regarding recent Consumed subject Credit Covers: “If we really wanted to throw off our consumer shackles, we certainly wouldn’t be embracing these embarrassing designs.”
  (tags: updates)
• Dutch TV Kidney-Giveaway Show a Hoax. (Probably. Sort Of.)
  Freakonomics observes: “If your goal is to call attention to a serious issue that people are deeply conflicted about on moral, medical, and legal grounds, I’m thinking that a theatrical hoax is kind of a suboptimal way to accomplish it.”
  (tags: entertainment)

Icon Team-Up

Barbie, Hello Kitty.

links for 2007-05-31

• Letters From New Orleans, the last review ever?
  “What is left of the city he came to love?”
  (tags: rw)
• Stay Free! Daily: Green screens
  Carrie McLaren, not a fan of the product in last Sunday’s Consumed: “To the guy who sells this crap: You want to be carbon neutral? Stop breathing.”
  (tags: updates anti)
• Frida Kahlo Tequila
  (tags: foolhunting)

Winnings

The winner of the contest in the most recent installment of the Journal of Murketing email newsletter is: Shawn of Iridesco.

Possibly more interesting than the contest, and certainly more interesting than the fact that (with one exception) all of you failed to win it, are the details of the prize package. The explicit purpose of this contest was to draw praise and attention to Mr. Josh Neufeld, becauses he deserves praise and attention. Even if you didn’t win the contest, you can still enjoy his work by checking out his ongoing series A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge. Or by clicking links below that will lead you to places where you can buy things.

The prize package consisted of:

Issue Number Two of The Vagabonds. (Mr. Neufeld provided Murketing with several copies of the issue some time ago, perhaps thinking that I would keep one and could give the others to really cool people who would enjoy them. I did that with a few issues, but still had one left to give.

Titans of Finance. I have a bunch of these, for obvious reasons.

Drawn Bits, a collection of comix and writing related to comix.

A Titans of Finance postcard.

Pretty good, huh! I’m sorry that you didn’t win! Except for Shawn, I mean. Who did win.

links for 2007-05-30

• Hippies: The brand
  “The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reveals there are 107 registered “hippie” trademarks that peddle products or services somehow strategically aligned with Day-Glo paint and paisley.”
  (tags: metabrands)
• Dutch Reality Show: Win This Person’s Kidney! – washingtonpost.com
  “A 37-year-old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor wants to donate a kidney before she dies and will choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television”
  (tags: entertainment)

links for 2007-05-28

• Publix | The opposite of Wal-Mart | Economist.com
  Past Consumed subject Publix “has ranked number one out of supermarkets on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, published by the University of Michigan, since it began 14 years ago, whereas Wal-Mart ranks last.”
  (tags: walmart updates)
• Newark Battles Murder and Its Accomplice, Silence – New York Times
  Very good, and kind of bleak, story about Newark’s troubles. The end is pretty chilling.
  (tags: urban)
• Counterfeit Chic: Credit Card Cover-Up
  Excellent post following up this Sunday’s Consumed: “In other words, CreditCovers invites customers to display their individuality and escape the corporate uniformity of financial tools by purchasing presumably unauthorized versions of other corporate sym
  (tags: updates)

links for 2007-05-27

• Where does a critic’s authority come from?
  (tags: authority)

links for 2007-05-26

• An Interview with Amy Gunther
  “A model, an actress, and a smart young businesswoman who’s turned her passion into a successful venture.”
  (tags: SubcultureInc)
• Science Friday: Predicting Music Hits
  “Could math help record companies score hit singles?”
  (tags: music)

links for 2007-05-25

• Lawsuits: MiracleGro Sues Sellers Of “Worm Poop” For Trademark Infringement – Consumerist
  Consumerist weighs in on Scotts suit against TerraCycle (reported on earlier in the WSJ, Ad Age, and of course Consumed): “The whole lawsuit seems rather silly to us.” Sounds like the strategy noted in Consumed is working out pretty well.
  (tags: updates)
• Businessmen want to flip McJob definition
  Proposed: McJob dictin definition should be altered “reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding and offers genuine opportunities for career progression.” Riiiiiiiighhht.
  (tags: foolhunting)
• Coca-Cola acquires Vitaminwater maker glaceau for US$4.1 billion in cash.
  August 22, 2004 Consumed subject Vitaminwater, bought by Coke. As noted in that column’s last graf notes, some parallels can be made between Coke and Vitaminwater.
  http://murketing.com/?p=567
  (tags: updates)
• Pieces of trash sold in clear plastic bubbles
  I’ve asked before whether trash-into-art projects should count as unconsumption. No answers yet.
  (tags: unconsumption)

links for 2007-05-24

• NPR : Army Specialist in Recruitment Ad Killed in Iraq
  “Army Spc. Astor Sunsin-Pineda of Long Beach, Calif., enlisted straight out of high school and was featured in a recruitment ad on Spanish-language TV. He was killed earlier this month by a roadside bomb.”
  (tags: war advertising)
• Make-It-Yourself ‘Star Wars’
  “In essence, Lucasfilm is going to legitimize and streamline a pastime that has become increasingly popular on the Web.” Now they can “monetize” it, an expert observes.
  (tags: fandom)

links for 2007-05-21

• Summer of Love: The Brand
  Nice article by John Leland. “In contrast to the first time around, this summer’s activities will be spectator events, not participatory ones, replaying the Summer of Love as something you watch, not something you do.”
  (tags: metabrands)
• Don’t Mess With Our Chocolate
  A consumer mobilzation site opposing changes to the FDA’s “chocolate standard of identity” — that is, the definition of chocolate.
  (tags: anti)
• A half-assed theory of the boring
  “Boring, like pornography, is a structure that can be pleasurable or frustrating, largely because of the expectations one brings to it.” Via Marginal Utility
  (tags: boredom)

links for 2007-05-19

• Clan of the Caveman – Martin Agency
  Fast Company profile of the Richmond, VA-based agency that did the Geico caveman ads, and now has Wal Mart as a client. The Rob Walker quoted at the end is, obviously, not me.
  (tags: advertising)
• ALLA PRIMA
  Paintings by Robert Chunn. [Via: madeinmississippi.blogspot.com]
  (tags: artists)
• Panda chair is just plain wrong
  (tags: products)
• How Many Cro-Magnon Jokes Can ABC Fit Into One Trailer?
  The Hater hates the Cavemen.
  (tags: entertainment)

News

Elsewhere on Adrants, this:

Meredith Turner from the Rosen Group is working on a news item that will appear on a major nation news show (we know what it is, we can’t tell you but you’ve definitely heard of it) and is looking for advertising addicts. Turner is interested in “interviewing someone who can wax poetic about advertising all day long and rattle off One Show ‘Best of Show’ winners like nobody’s business.”

Rosen Group is a PR firm. A PR firm that’s “working on a news item.” Does anyone find it curious that sources for a “national news show” are being filtered so directly and openly through (and even interviewed by) a PR firm? Will the news show disclose this? Doesn’t the news show have any employees of its own who could reach out to Adrants in its search for sources for its “news item”? Who is the firm’s client? The news show itself? Or some entity that will be featured in the news item?
Maybe this is routine in TV news, but it just struck me as weird.