One of the many people I interviewed for the Handmade 2.0 story a while back, but was not able to include in the article itself, was a young artist known as AshleyG. Based in St. Louis, she’s sold thousands of prints through her Etsy shop, and her work is now finding its way into both gallery and retail settings. The Q&A that follows is a revised and condensed version of my original interview with her, with some updates and follow-ups built in.
We talked about her career, about discovering blogs and Etsy on the same night, about digital elements of her work and the “handmade” idea, about online selling as an antidote to the fear of rejection, and about what she hopes might happen next.
So what are the basics? I think you’re making a living from your art now, but at what point did that happen?
Yes, I do this full time, along withy my boyfriend, Drew Bell. He is kind of the less-visible part, but our LLC is actually AshleyG and Drew. I do all the drawing, and he’s the computer genius. He scans everything, and I make the color decisions but he’s usually the one physically doing the PhotoShopping, and the actual printing.
Etsy for me was definitely a turning point. I hadn’t gone to a lot of college; I’d taken some art classes, but I’d been waitressing and bar-tending forever. I met Drew met at a restaurant where I was bar-tending and he was waiting tables. We both had a common passion for art, but really no outlet for it. We’re in St. Louis where, maybe there’s a growing community now, but even four years ago when we met, there really wasn’t. So we started working on some collaborations, my drawings and digital stuff – but I was kind of putting drawings in drawers and just forgetting about them, and going back to hating my job.
When I was little it was drawing drawing drawing, that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t really even know that was a possibility for me. And I don’t know, if Etsy hadn’t come to be, if it would have been a possibility for me. I had sort of thought: “Okay, now from age 16 on I’ll work in the restaurant industry, and maybe slowly go to school and things can happen. But I don’t know when I’m gonna get a career, or what career.” So this came as a total surprise, and I just feel exceptionally lucky.
So how did Etsy come onto your radar then? Read more
The widely discussed Product (Red) campaign has come up a couple of times here on Murketing. As you probably know, it involves various companies such as The Gap and Apple and American Express selling special red products: If you buy one, some portion of the proceeds go to fight AIDS in Africa. It’s fair to say that the response to this has been mixed.
One of the most interesting responses I’ve seen so far is an initiative called (RE). As its creators have explained, their view is that the (Red) campaign “implies that corporations, branding and consumption are a necessary and healthy part of involvement in a cause. ” The point of (RE) is to offer non-corporate alternatives for engagement in causes — and to provoke some deeper thinking about conspicuous consumption, engagement, and solving the world’s problems. (The while the name “(RE)” riffs off “(RED),” it’s also echoed by manifestations of the project that explicitly involve re-use.)
Through February 15, (RE) is part of an exhibition called Other Options, at (106) S. Division gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a show originated by InCubate in Chicago. On February 15, the creators of (RE) will auction red items, any red item at all, donated by anyone who wants to donate. Proceeds will go to charity. This is an example of the sort of thing that falls under the (RE) project.
I had a few Qs, and (RE)’s creators, Ryan Thompson and Phil Orr graciously provided some As. Here goes:
I’m curious — having read your F.A.Q. — to what extent (RE) is a response not just to (Red) specifically, but to “cause marketing” in general. (It’s become quite popular, as you know, for products and brands to “give a portion of proceeds” or “raise awareness,” etc. — from the Livestrong bracelet to … well all kinds of things).
You’re exactly right. When the (PRODUCT) RED campaign started back in October of ’06 we saw the opportunity for a timely response to (PRODUCT) RED specifically, but as we continued to expand the project we became aware of its ability to speak to much larger issues — concerns within cause marketing as well as consumption, waste, labor, etc. These aren’t easy issues to engage as a business or a consumer. That shouldn’t mean that we give up on trying, but instead that we look carefully at what supporting a cause in a particular manner does for all parties involved.
There are three (RE) manifestations, or initiatives — were they all devised at once, or did the project start with one idea and evolve to include the others? Read more
I know I just signed off with that last post, but one more thing, okay? Theme Magazine, for its issue #12 (“I Want”), asked me to interview Tobias Wong, and that Q&A appears in the magazine’s current issue, and is also online. Theme says:
Consuming Consumer Consumption: ARTIST TOBIAS WONG speaks to murketing.com’s Rob Walker about consumerism, art, and the irritating lure of the iPhone.
The Q&A is here.
In a rare – indeed, unprecedented — move, Murketing.com brings you now a Q&A with an (https://www.drsunilthanvi.com/phentermine-37-5-adipex/) author. The author is Anne Elizabeth Moore, who can also be described as an artist, an activist, co-editor of (recently departed) Punk Planet, series editor of Best American Comics, and a surprisingly nice person. The book is Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity, and I think it’s quite good. (I should disclose that I was interviewed for the book and am quoted in it a few times, but I’m pretty sure I’d like the book if I weren’t mentioned in it, and possibly even it had singled me out as corporate shill.)
The book is described as “both a scathing critique of of corporate marketing’s dalliances with the cultural underground and a highly entertaining depiction of the absurdity produced by” some of those very dalliances. The description is accurate.
Plenty more on that below in the Q&A, along with interesting observations about 1) how indie culture has changed, 2) whether the argument that corporations are “funding cool stuff” holds water, 3) whether the revolution might take the form of a handbag from a DIY/crafter, 4) the “soul crushing” experience of explaining the book to professional marketers, 5) the surprisingly bad payoffs of “selling out,” and 6) why it’s really important for some things to remain truly “unmarketable.” I know it’s long but please read it all anyway – especially if you are, yourself, in any way involved something that you think of as sub-, or counter-, or indie culture. Take your time. It’s important. amoxil Thanks.
Q. I bet your publisher asked you: “Why did you write this book?” Or maybe not. But if they did, what did you say? And what’s the real answer?
A. No, in fact my editor really never questioned why I would do this book at all, and I believe on at least two occasions I had to ask her why I was writing it. At which point I think the answer was pretty much “because now you’re legally obligated under the contract you already signed,” so there it was.
The short answer to why I wrote it is that I apparently have a space in my brain where I store my discomfort with popular modes of activism, and where I was turning over projects like Dispepsi for years, just chewing on, well, the fact that a bunch of Bay-Area troublemakers kind of made a soft drink commercial unpaid. That is crazy. Why would they do that? And then when I read No Logo, and as I watched marketing change clearly as a result of that book, something clicked. My book does collect about six years of research and thought into these issues that I couldn’t even really get activists to discuss too deeply. Which I do, totally, understand: they are too damn busy to also be constantly re-theorizing their methods. Anyway I guess that space in my brain got filled up and it had to go on paper so I could start thinking about, like, my cat again.
Conceptually, the book kinda came together when, in 2005, Nike SB — long reviled by the skateboarders I’d grown up with — appropriated the image and ethos of the stridently anticorporate band Minor Threat, a part of the Dischord Records crew in DC. Some kind of circle seemed to close at that point. I started to suspect that maybe they were co-opting the underground’s strategy for debating intellectual property rights issues, called copyfighting sort of informally. At which point I just felt like, this has got to stop.
So then I stopped it. It’s over, now that the book has been written. Ha ha ha ha ha.
What’s different about “indie” culture (or whatever you want to call it, you know what I mean) now compared to 10-15 years ago? Read more
A few months back I got an interesting email from a graduate student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Greta Ackerman. She was working on her thesis show, “The Ironic Brand.” It centered on the indie clothing brand Barking Irons, which she’d read about in the brand underground story last year.
Surprised as I was to hear this (I’ve had articles cited in academic papers and articles and books and so on, but this was a new one for me), she was even more surprised to learn that I live in Savannah. So I was quite happy to chat with her at the time, and to check out her actual thesis show here last month. It was impressively comprehensive, exploring print ads, online material, outdoor, even direct mail. The over-arching theme was how an underground brand can sell more without selling out.
Ms. Ackerman was of course at the opening, too — but she had to come in from out of town. She’s now a designer for Merkley i.D., a division of Merkley + Partners in New York. I decided to pester her with a few quick questions about the thesis project, and she graciously obliged.
Q: Let’s start with the obvious: Why this thesis subject, and why this brand?
I’m a fine art student-turned-advertising-designer, so I’ve spent a lot of time toggling between art for art’s sake and art with a commercial purpose. People, especially design students struggling to find a voice, often harp on designers who have “sold out,” applying their design skills or their artistic vision to a corporation to help them draw a profit.
The way I see it, there’s no shame in making a living, but there’s a lot about big business and the way it advertises and brands itself that turns me off. I was attracted by a group of brands on a mission to sell without being perceived as sell-outs, who had a greater purpose than simply profit (although some profit would be nice). I wanted to find out if that was even possible, and if so, how advertising could play a role, even a nontraditional role, in that process.
Barking Irons spoke to me as a brand trying to grow without losing its integrity, but it stood out against some of its fellow indie brands because of its old aesthetic. Read more
I’ve been wanting to do a Q&A with an entrepreneurial type in the wild and woolly underground music business, and I think we have a good one here: Mr. Sam Valenti IV, of the independent avant-pop/electronic record label Ghostly International (Matthew Dear, Tadd Mullinix (aka James T. Cotton, Dabrye), Mobius Band, etc.). My Q’s and his A’s follow on subjects such as: founding a label “on the fault line of mass culture” while still in his teens, why branding matters for a music company, how a record label is like an art museum, what it takes for a new artist’s first CD to break even, and dreaming up new projects and new revenue streams like the USB-as-CD-alternative Ghostly created for the famous design store Moss. Here goes.
Q: So let’s see if I have this right. Ghostly started in 1998/1999, when you would’ve been around 18 years old, basically because you heard and really liked Matthew Dear, and decided to record and distribute “Hands Up For Detroit.” 500 copies, on vinyl I think. How did you go about executing the basics on this, like locating some entity to press the records, and another to distribute them? And wasn’t Napster-mania pretty much full blown by then? Did that have any kind of impact on your thinking about what Ghostly should be, and/or might become?
A: Matthew and I met at a house party. I was a lonely wayward freshman and had been DJing house parties, and he was making music for fun, but we both wanted to make records. After a year of making tracks together, I took a DAT of songs that he did, along with some from our mentor, Disco D, to London, where I found a place that would cut and press your record in one shot. I guess it was wish-fulfillment in a way, that’s how I view my college years, as very fortunate, in that meeting a group of people allowed something to happen.
The idea of Ghostly was there, but Matthew was the inspiration to take up arms and create it. When we started, I felt that we missed our chance twice, in both the beginning with the P2P revolution and then a few years later with 9/11 and the death of the “good times.” I had envisioned a luxury electronic “brand,” but the idea of both pushing high-end goods and running a profitable record label seemed far-fetched after that.
I think Ghostly was founded on the fault-line of mass culture. We use the term “Avant-Pop” to refer to some of our output, in that what we make is popular music that has been subverted by our personal beliefs and preferences, which aren’t in line with what the word “pop” means. This attitude applies across all of our output, this sense of art/entertainment that is not pre-prescribed or “destinational”. There’s a great freedom in not being treated like a demographic or a Consumer, and that’s what Ghostly is about. Read more
I’m pretty sure the first Claw piece I ever really focused on was on a wall in Los Angeles, in 2003. Somebody was driving me around, showing me Shepard Fairey pieces, and there was this big claw symbol next to all of them. The guy I was with didn’t know what the story was. The symbol looked familiar, but I didn’t know the story either, until a little bit later.
The story is that the claw was/is the mark of Claw Money, about whom I kept hearing more and more from various people in the years that followed. Have made a name/mark in NY graffiti, she was doing the same in clothing and products (including, memorably, pillows), in the “streetwear” scene, or the “downtown” scene, or whatever you prefer to call it. She built an underground brand. The recent publication of her book Bombshell, which is about all of the above, and none of the above, seemed like a good excuse to see if she would answer a few Q’s. She said: Okay.
A few things are not covered in the Q&A that follows. One is that according to her recent interview on The Weekly Drop, she’s now making some art on canvas. Another is that her dog, Peepers Marie Saint (that’s PMS, she points out), turns 12 this year. But a lot is covered — graffiti, fashion, the book, her appearance in the documentary Infamy, being the first female artist ever to do a Nike artist series/”Tier 0″ sneaker, and what you might have said to her 15 years ago that would have inspired her to spit in your face.
Here goes.
Q: You’re a well-known graffiti writer, who also has a clothing line. Once upon a time that would’ve sounded strange, but not so much now. I think the essay by DAZE in Bombshell suggests you were into fashion before writing. The way the book is done, the fashion and the graffiti work all run together. Is that how you always thought about it?
I had a passion for fashion long before I got my hands on a can of Rustoleum. I’m an FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) dropout, and it was at that point that I picked up my graffiti habit. It wasn’t the other way around. I started in my 20s, which is late for a graff writer.
To me, graffiti and fashion come from two totally different places, but I’m lucky enough to have eventually merged them. And really, so many graff writers have clothing lines! West FC, one of the graffiti greats, is actually one of the founding fathers of streetwear. The company he started with his high school homeboys Sung Choi, Zulu, Bluster and Brue, is of course the one and only PNB. (Unfortunately this line been recently resurrected without any of the original members and in my opinion is destined to be terrible.)
I don’t consider my collection “graffiti clothing.” My logo is the “throw up” that I painted on walls illegally, but other than that, it’s not meant to evoke graffiti associations. I did it a a joke. Who knew it would be a hit? And as far as my book is concerned, it is not a graffiti book, or a fashion book– it’s the real story of Claw Money: artist, designer, family girl, dog lover and all!
WEST is in the book, too. He remarks on how the claw is “more of a symbol than a throwup.” But you weren’t thinking the claw could have a life beyond walls? Read more
Murketing noted with interest the recent announcement by Jen Bekman, founder of the jen bekman gallery, that she was planning a new project called 20X200 — “prints in limited editions of 200, for $20 each.” The concept raised some interesting questions, about the value of art, the boundary between the inclusive and the exclusive, the state of cultural expertise these days, and the possibility that as products become more like art, art is becoming more like products.
So, I posed these questions to Ms. Bekman, who graciously answered them.
Q: I noticed in the comments to your announcement somebody said something like, “This is great, an alternative to Target/Ikea blahness.” Is this project a more exclusive alternative to mass-ness, or a more inclusive alternative to the rarified high art world?
A: It’s both really, which is why it’s so exciting to me. It’s radically different than typical artworld fare because the work is so inexpensive and the editions are big by normal standards, but how can an edition of 200 of anything be mass market? 20×200 is bigger in scale than most fine art editions, but I’m not selling posters at the Met.
You mention TinyShowcase as inspiration — how is this different?
It’s very similar, really. Our aesthetics are slightly different, although I am consistently impressed with the TS choices and there’s definitely overlap. (Amy Ross, the painter who just had a solo show with me, recently did a TS edition that sold out in three minutes, literally.)
The biggest differences:
* I’m doing photo editions in addition to mixed-media and print editions, which is a natural for me since my photography program is strong.
* They’re artists, I’m a gallerist. We’re all curators, but there are some fundamental differences in how we approach things.
One of the things that’s so cool about TS is their whole DIY approach, artists doing something cool with other artists, with no pretense and a very laid-back style. My style is different, by virtue of my background as a business person and the fact that I own a gallery. I’m certainly not uptight, but I’m definitely trying to figure out how to make a business out of this — I see 20×200 as something that supports my gallery’s program and will definitely use it, in part, to market shows and existing inventory. Read more
The mission of The Anti-Advertising Agency is rather strongly suggested by its name. But to be a bit more specific, it is funded by a grant from the Creative Work Fund, and “co-opts the tools and structures used by the advertising and public relations industries. Our work calls into question the purpose and effects of advertising in public space.”
Past AAA projects have included a collaboration with Graffiti Research Lab called Light Criticism (an idea that might politely be described as the inspiration for the Boston Adult Swim marketing campaign that kicked up such a fuss a few months back) and, with Amanda Eicher, PeopleProducts123, the shopdropping workshops mentioned earlier on this site.
The AAA’s CEO is artist Steve Lambert (visitsteve.com), who was most recently in the news for a project he’s developing at Eyebeam called AddArt, “an extension for the Firefox browser which removes advertising and replaces it with art.” Mr. Lambert graciously agreed to answer a few Murketing Qs. Those, and his As, follow.
Q: Of the various projects the Anti-Advertising Agency has been involved in, which ones do you think have been most successful?
A: I don’t really know for sure. To know we would have to do what is done in any marketing campaign, which is an impartial evaluation — surveys, testing, etc. And we don’t have the budget for that. I can track some things empirically, like web hits, and I can hang out near where projects are installed and gauge reactions.
But then, what is success? Our goal is rather tough to measure — to cause the public to re-examine advertising and the role it plays in public space. But I think we reach that goal with anyone who spends more than a moment looking at our work. It’s some measure of success if they look at it at all. And if they do, how much do they take away? This is what I dwell on when I think of “success.” Read more
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This post was written by Rob Walker on May 22, 2007
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The other day I came across a pretty interesting photo set on Flickr. It’s called “Dressing Rooms,” by Gretchen Ludwig, who has been taking a series of retail dressing-room self portraits. Apparently, this series developed out of a project for a digital photography class. The explanation continued: “While politically, I hate the idea of being marketed to and I hate https://lakesidepethospitalfolsom.com/prednisone-over-the-counter/ the amount of consumption that goes on in the States, at the same time, I am a slave to it as well.”
That sounded pretty interesting, and a lot of the photographs were really striking. After spending a day or two wondering whether it was worth trying to ask the photographer a few questions, or if she’d just write me off as a weirdo who scours Flickr for pictures of women in dressing rooms, I decided to give it a shot. Happily, she either didn’t think I was a weirdo, or decided to answer my questions anyway. And the answers were interesting — even ranging into some of the unexpected effects the project has had on her shopping. The brief Q&A follows, and there are more of her images after the jump.
How did you hit upon the idea of the dressing room as a site for exploring that love-hate situation that you describe in your explanation of this set?
I have an aversion to marketing, advertising, and any other ploy to get me to buy zolpidem products that are extranneous. This anti-advertising politic has developed even further to become anti-corporation. However, even though I am able to intellectualize all of this, at the same time, it’s so easy to fall prey to a good ad. Underneath it all, I have a weakness, and it’s for fashion. I try to attribute it to my visual arts upbringing and tell my friends it’s because I’m attracted to exciting visual stimuli (and there are some very exciting things going on in fashion, artistically) but the fact of the matter is, I just love clothes. It seemed so perfect to exploit this weakness in my own convictions, and to then turn my consumerism into something more, something that, once photographed, becomes anti-consumer. Read more
Today I’m pleased to present a Q&A with Jeff Staple, of Staple Design, The Reed Space, etc. I’ve forgotten now how I first met him, but as an example of where he fits into “the scene” these days, consider this Consumed column about a collaboration between New Era (the old-school baseball cap company with surprising street cred) and NYC “custom bling” jewelry artist Garbiel Urist — put together and overseen by Staple.
Anyway, the story of Staple’s success has been told many times in magazines like Theme and… I don’t know, lots of magazines, but that Theme piece is one that I remember. The point is, the part of his story that seems to get the most attention is that he says he got into the streetwear/T-shirt/design business by accident (made some T’s for friends, stores wanted to sell them, etc.). I’m interested in what happened after that, because to me Staple seems a bit ahead of the pack in terms of building a real business. If I had to bet on one brand-underground entitity that’s really going to “make it big,” not just as a brand but as a business as well, it would quite likely be Staple. (Luckily for me, I don’t have to bet.)
Here, then, my Q’s, and his A’s.
Part of my interest in the so-called brand underground (so-called by me, of course) was the creative side, but part if it was always in the entrepreneurial side. I feel that by and large being sort of openly entrepreneurial is seen as not just acceptable, but kind of cool, for this generation. (I forget how old you are, but basically I mean contemporary youth culture.) But there’s still some stigma around “selling out” in the “wrong way.” Maybe I’m wrong about all that, so what do you think?
The way I see it, there are a whole lot of creative people in this world. The differences are the ones that are able to make something out if it. Even back in design school for instance, tons of kids had a great eye, great talent, and graduated with great grades. But what you were able to do with that talent was the deal breaker. Maybe it’s because I am now so neck deep in this industry, but in my opinion, there is a HUGE chasm between being an “entrepreneur” and “selling out”.
My company is somewhere floating in the middle of this chasm. I’ve been doing this long enough to remember the days when doing a shoe with Nike or designing a soda can would automatically be deemed as “selling out”. Now it’s a badge of honor. I wonder why this is sometimes. Read more
Several weeks back I got an interesting email from Jade Schulz, telling me about her new T-shirt brand, Maak Eebuh, which had just released its first line of three T’s, called “The War Series.” The official site explained: Each Maak Eebuh t-shirt series is theme-centered and is made in limited quantities,” the official site explains. “Currently, The War Series reflects on the war in Iraq. As a commitment to social and economic development, 10% of our proceeds will be donated to Project HOPE in Iraq.”
At first I thought maybe she had mistaken this site for one of those influential spots on the Web that touts this or that new product, bequeaths coolness, and helps sales. That’s not my thing, of course, but it turned out that she knew that. We swapped emails for a while, and I decided it might be interesting to make Maak Eebuh the subject of an occasional Q&A series: Since the brand has just started up – at the moment, it’s available only through the site — it’s an opportunity to follow along as Schulz and her partner try to “make it,” as it were. They have no financial backer for the project; they’re funding it with their own savings. The attempt to deal with serious issues – and it doesn’t get much more serious than the Iraq war – makes the project that much more challenging, and more interesting. So I asked some questions, and she provided answers, and that resulted in the below. I’ll check back in a few months to see how things are going.
Schulz is 28, and has worked in costume design and “high end fashion,” and still does freelance design work and other projects. The T’s are priced at $59 each.
So when did this project get started?
I guess I thought of the idea two years back, but really started to do the actual making of the shirts in the past year. Originally, I started doing it by myself and then a partner, Kim Situ (a friend from high school; she has more of a business-school and fundraising background), joined me later.
Read more
Here’s the second part of the No Mas interview; part one focused on appropriation, free speech, and the law. Part two deals with why founder Chris Isenberg turned to a brand as a vehicle for expressing ideas about sports, given his background as a writer, plus details about how he got things off the ground that should be of particular interest to any of you creative-entrepreneur types out there, plus the story behind the shirt that first got me curious about No Mas. Here goes.
You’re a writer, so of course I’m also curious, if you had a set of ideas about sport and culture, why did you choose this medium as opposed to say, writing a book?
Well, I guess in my own way I had tried very hard to create a career for myself as a dude who wrote long, sports feature stories for magazines. That definitely was my original intention to be A.J. Liebling or Gay Talese or Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer or Roger Angell—to be a high-minded writer of feature pieces for magazines. And I discovered that career really was basically gone.
I have had tastes of how great a job this could be. Right out of school, I got a commission from Sports Illustrated to write a feature about the Oxford Cambridge Boxing Match. Full ride travel and a decent fee, and I wrote something I was very proud of and they said they loved but held for a year and never ran. I also tried to get funding to make a documentary about the Oxford Cambridge boxing match and failed (now of course, ten years later someone else has done it). I got an assignment from Vanity Fair to do a small profile on the bullfighter Francisco Rivera Ordonez which they killed because W came out with a story about Ordonez right before my piece was scheduled to run. I did a long piece for a magazine called Icon about Michael Ray Richardson, the former Knicks point guard who had been kicked out of the NBA for drugs and went to play in Italy, and that magazine folded right before my story was supposed to run and then a big documentary about him came out.
Read more
One of the projects on the brand underground scene that I’ve been sort of fascinated by is No Mas. The man behind it is Mr. Chris Isenberg. You’re going to get the full scoop below, but here are the basics on him. When I approached him for a Q&A, I had high hopes that I’d get something interesting out of it, but turns out he blew my expectations away. In fact, there was so much interesting material that I’ve decided to make the unprecedented move of turning it into a two-parter. Today’s installment covers some of the most thoughtful material on logo/visual remixing, intellectual property, and free speech — not to mention sports and culture — that I’ve encountered anywhere.
Part two will be in Monday, but meanwhile if the issues above are relevant to you, I encourage you to take the time to read the below.
Q: So I’m curious about the initial decision to start No Mas. Did you see it as a brand, as an art project, as a business, all of the above?
A: I definitely did not have a clear idea of starting a “brand” in the way I now think of No Mas as a “brand”, when I made the first t-shirt with a No Mas label in 2004.
Sometime in about 2001 I think, I saw a picture from 1964 of Muhammad Ali, at that time called Cassius Clay, training at the 5th Street Gym in Miami. The photo was just before the 1964 “shock the world” fight with Liston. In the photo, he’s wearing a t-shirt that says Cassius Clay in a sideways script font that looks very much like it was inspired by the coca-cola script.
The picture that was here is not here anymore.
It’s funny, Ali was really doing the exact same thing that a lot of us do now. He kind of appropriated and parodied the visual identity of the coca-cola brand to lend power to his own personal brand. That’s classic Ali. Not only was he the greatest fighter, but he was the greatest promoter and marketer. Anyway, I just wanted that Cassius Clay t-shirt really badly. So I made a run of about twelve at a screenprinter in Brooklyn. I wore them myself and I gave them to a few friends.
Wearing this particular shirt in New York City was like conducting a very complicated sociological experiment. Here I am, this white, Jewish kid wearing a shirt emblazoned with a name Muhammad Ali rejected as a slave name. It is a name that has the power of celebrity but also the power of taboo. Muhammad Ali was furious at fighters in the sixties and seventies who still called him Cassius Clay. He famously tortured Ernie Terrell who refused to call him Ali, yelling, “What’s my name fool?” as he pummeled him in their 1967 bout.
So for the people that noticed the shirt it usually produced one of two reactions:
One was basically, “Yo, that’s dope.” “That’s the coolest t-shirt I’ve ever seen.” Etc. I am not gassing myself here because all it really was a well-timed reproduction of Ali’s own work, but literally I would get at least four or five comments every time I wore that shirt out. And a lot of times the conversation ended with, “Where can I get it?” So it became clear really quickly there was a market for this product. Read more
One of the most interesting brand-specific blogs that I’m aware of is StarbucksGossip.com. Its proprietor is Jim Romenesko, who has a couple of other blogs you may have come across. He knows what he’s doing! (You may not have come across one of his pre-blog-era projects, Death Log, but that’s really cool, too.) Anyway, he was kind enough to answer a few questions as part of Murketing.com’s ongoing series of brand-blog Q&As. Here goes.
Why Starbucks? There are any number of chains or companies out there to blog about, what was it about Starbucks in particular that made you say, “I should do this.”
I frequent Starbucks stores in the metro Chicago area (and occasionally in Wisconsin) on a daily basis. I overhear discussions between baristas and employees that are sometimes interesting and not typical of a customer-clerk relationship (they’re usually more personal). I thought it would be interesting to move those conversations to the web, and toss in commentary from Starbucks critics, too.
Starbucks has more diehard fans and haters than any company I know, so I figured the online discussions would be passionate and occasionally raucous. I was right. Some of discussions about Starbucks are serious and should be read by management — the issue of high-sugar/high-fat/trans-fat products, for example.
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