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Looking for a way to avoid doing your job or answering your email? Waste some time enjoying this massive collection of Jamaican record-label designs. Don’t miss the “trashed labels” section. Via WFMU’s blog.

To Do in Milwaukee, February 9

The Paper Boat Boutique, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, presents an impressive twofer: Installations by Kate Bingaman (“Obsessive Consumption: Thanks for Shopping”) and Stephanie Syjuco (“Everything Must Go (Grey Market)”.

Impressively, both artists will be on hand at the gallery for the opening Friday night. I happened to be chatting with Paper Boat owner Faythe Levine yesterday, and she mentioned that the two have never met in person, so this is quite a coup. I gather it’s about two degrees in Milwaukee right now, but, still, if you happen to be there, this is clearly the scene to make.

More on Bingaman in this Consumed column.

More on Syjuco’s “Everything Must Go (Grey Market)” at her site. (And more on her famous Counterfeit Crochet project here at Counterfeit Chic.)

Dress warmly, y’all.

Starbury scoring?

Both Business Week and Brand Channel have done pieces recently on the success of the Starbury One sneaker — which sells for the startlingly low price of about $15. I will admit that when I heard about this sneaker, I was pretty skeptical. But Business Week says “3 million pairs have sold since its August debut.” (Although somewhat oddly, the source on that is Stephon Marbury.) Business Week continues:

The Starbury and its ilk have the potential to undermine Nike’s basketball sneaker business. According to researcher NPD Group Inc., the low-cost shoe market — sneakers under $50 — has grown nearly 9% over the past two years and now makes up more than half of the $16.5 billion of branded athletic footwear sold each year in the U.S. Nike sells its own cheap sneakers, but doesn’t have much traction against such low-cost entrants as the $35 Amp runner, a creation from Payless ShoeSource. “If I were a branded athletic company right now, I’d be reconsidering my whole approach,” says Jeffrey Bliss, president of Javelin Group, a sports marketing firm.

I don’t know about any of this threatening Nike’s business model. I think they’re doing pretty well these days.

BrandChannel adds this:

Though the brand was promoted in influential basketball lifestyle publications, a major ad budget wouldn’t keep those shoes priced below $15 for very long. So over the summer Marbury embarked on a series of launch appearances dubbed the Starbury Movement Tour to introduce the brand at Steve and Barry’s stores throughout the US. (Marbury was paid no money up front, unlike his previous endorsement deal with sneaker brand AND1, but receives royalties on sales.)

Also, Marbury apparently wears the shoes during games: “And even as his on-court performance occasionally (all right, more often than occasionally) incites 20,000 fans at Madison Square Garden to boo (or worse), Marbury burnishes his good-guy image with a brand that is accessible to nearly anyone.”

I definitely agree with that last point, and I basically thought that was all this brand was going to achieve — making Marbury look good. But I guess it’s actually resonating with some group of consumers. Is it parents buying these shoes for their kids? Is it adults who just want some no-nonsense sneakers and don’t care about whether they’re “cool” or not? Or are kids really into them? I would think that there’d be some risk of schoolyard stigma associated with wearing a brand basically known for being super cheap. But maybe I’m wrong about that.

Fanfic: stigma fading, becoming more marketable

Reason has a piece about fan fiction, written by a fan ficiton writer, arguing that “Fanfic’s stigma seems to be receding: Some fan writers have snagged lucrative contracts, either for original works or for books based on older literary classics not protected by copyright.”

While the piece is largely positioned as a response to a particular anti-fanfic “diatribe” that apparently appeared in 2005, it’s still somewhat interesting.

Take Solo for the Living by Tanya Golubchik (a 27-year-old Australian molecular biologist who writes as “Tango”), a work in progress that is currently a hit in the Phantom of the Opera community. A novel-length sequel to the 2004 film that unfolds against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian War, Solo features an original and sophisticated story that develops the film’s characters in an entirely new direction as well as a vividly depicted and carefully researched setting that rivals any published work of historical fiction.

Of course what I’m interested in there is the idea of the “Phantom of the Opera community.”

Anyway, the piece also mentions FanLib, which I wasn’t familiar with, and upon visiting the relevant site, still don’t fully understand. Its slogan is “people powered entertainment,” and its “software and services” promise to deliver “value” for marketers, and “fun” for fans. Hmmm.

Good Disguise

In Consumed: The 501st Legion: Can shared fandom for pop-culture iconography convert escapism to engagement?

[Note: Normally I link to the no-registration-required RSS link for the column on the NYT site, but for whatever reason, Consumed was not included in the Times Magazine’s RSS feed this week. So, the entire column follows, or, you can use this Times link, but it does require registration. Sorry. I have no control over that stuff.]

Some people might resent being mocked on national television by Bob Eubanks. But Mark Fordham is philosophical. Fordham, who is 43, is the commanding officer of the 501st Legion, an organization of Star Wars “costume enthusiasts.” Dressed as Darth Vader, he was among the 200 or so members of the club, all in shockingly convincing Star Wars villain outfits, who marched in the televised Tournament of Roses Parade this year, which was the occasion for Eubanks to crack that all of them were “groupies” who “need to get a job.” Of course Fordham found this annoying and wrongheaded, for reasons we’ll get to. On the other hand, he says: “Think about it — what we do doesn’t make sense. It transcends the reasonable.”

Extreme manifestations of fandom frequently transcend the reasonable, at least from the point of view of outsiders. And Star Wars has inspired extreme fandom and consumer behavior from the day of its blockbuster 1977 opening. Still, the 501st Legion is remarkable, and not just because it has 3,385 active members in 43 countries and enforces rigid costume-authenticity standards. The club was founded 10 years ago, after two fans in storm-trooper outfits attended a Star Wars rerelease opening. One of them, Albin Johnson, posted some pictures on his Web site, then started posting pictures other people sent him of their storm-trooper costumes. This led to the formation of a group that could, Johnson has explained, give the hobbyists a “collective identity at the conventions — a family of their own.” Such expressions of quasi community on the basis of shared admiration are common enough, but within a few years, the 501st had added a surprising dimension to its group fandom: costuming for charity. Read more

I give up

Reuters reports: “Ground Zero becomes backdrop for fashion show.”

Another model backstage, Zuzana Gregorova, said the location was unique.

“It is a nice view, except you keep thinking about what happened, but I think you have to get over it,” said the 17-year-old Slovakian.

Have a nice weekend.

And the winner is…

The Boston Adult Swim Terror Kerfuffle has been a major PR marketing bonanza for one brand above all others. That brand is Peter Berdovsky, the guy who was arrested and yestserday gave what Boing Boing calls a “Yippie-esque” press conference.

I’m not old enough to have first-hand experience with the Yippie thing, but from what I understand, they weren’t paid stooges of multinational corporations.

Berdovsky, previously unknown, is now described all over the media and the blog world as an “artist” or “performance artist.” And maybe he is. But this campaign was not an art project that he dreamed up to express an idea. Nor was it an act of fandom or “brand evangalism” on behalf of some obscure cultural product. (I don’t expect law enforcement authorities to know their Cartoon Network shows, but Adult Swim is a major pop-culture phenomenon in at least one of the four or five Americas; it was actually the subject of one of the first Consumed columns back in 2004.) The idea of “LED throwies” was invented by Graffiti Research Lab, from whom the marketing agency Interference Inc. seems to have stolen the idea, and then meted out a few hundred bucks (from whatever sums Time Warner division Turner Broadcasting paid them) here and there to guys like Berdovsky to do the grunt work. “Just more mindless corporate vandalism from a guerilla marketer who got busted,” GSL says on its site — though it also adds: “FREE BERDOVSKY.”

Berdovsky himself has apparently said regarding the marketing materials he was paid to distribute: “This is a piece of art and installation.” (Steve Lambert of The Anti Advertising Agency is the only commentator I’m aware of who has said flatly: “When someone from an advertising firm is paying you to do something that is their idea, it’s not art.” (Not that I’m suggesting he agrees with my point of view here; probably not. Actually, I just got a note from Mr. Lambert, and it turns out he does pretty much agree with my point of view there, so never mind that cautious caveat I just crossed out.)) [February 8 update: Wooster Collective chimes in with similar thoughts.]

Obviously I don’t think Berdovsky should “take the fall” for the various biters who paid him, and I’m sure he does interesting art of his own and has to pay the bills in the meantime, etc. etc. But let’s face it: All the other flunkies who got hired to put these things up in other cities remain unknown, and he’s now a notorious “Yippie-esque” artist.

Persecution from dopey authorities has proven to be good news in the long run for many an artist. And when you’ve got persecution from dopey authorities and the I-was-only-following-orders-from-my- corporate-masters defense, when you can claim rebel/martyr status and there’s a high likelihood that Time Warner Inc. will cover your legal bills — well, it doesn’t get better than that.

Then again, maybe he’s given up on the whole artist thing by now, and will just open a marketing firm. Why not? He’s got a knack for it. And the money’s better.

Doing lines in L.A.

In other update news: Brand Underground co-stars The Hundreds have opened their store in Los Angeles.

Cyberoptix update

Got a note the other day — okay, the other month, it’s been busy — from Detroit-based artist/musician/DIY creator Bethany Shorb at early Murketing Q&A subject Cyberoptix. I’d asked for updates, and she said: “We’re growing like mad and things are good.”

Aside from lots of new designs in the Tie Lab — including a collaboration with Detroit’s Ghostly International, below — Cyberoptix now offers a range of … ascots! “100% charmeuse silk, hand dyed and hand screened ascots/scarves. All edges are hand-finished with silk thread.” Available through the Tie Lab and, I gather, a Los Angeles store called All Purpose. The Raven design, above, looks quite nice on the tie-as-medium as well.

In other news, while she was too modest to mention it, her music project Dethlab played at the Guggenheim! And it sounds like more attention, from mightier forces than Murketing, is on the way. I’m glad to hear it.

No charge

“The most expensive thing is the journalists themselves. That’s why user-generated content is interesting.”

— Nicholas Ascheim,
director of entertainment, video and audio,
New York Times Digital

“The campaign becomes the story”

Boston temporarily closed parts of bridges, subway stations, an Interstate highway and even part of the Charles River on Wednesday after the authorities found what the police described as suspicious devices at nine places.

But the devices, which included circuit boards, turned out to be part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting to advertise a cartoon television show, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”

Well. I assume that this is generating a lot of opinionizing about whether all buzz is good buzz and so on. One version of the story is near the top of Yahoo’s most-emailed list right now, but the quote above is from The Times’ version, which explains:

The devices are dotted with blue and purple lights and are shaped like “Aqua Teen” characters, mooninites. One character, Err, seems angry, with slanted eyebrows and what appear to be raised middle fingers.

I also think it’s worth noting the name of the marketing firm that apparently pulled this off: Interference, Inc. How perfect is that? At the moment, the company’s site doesn’t appear to be accessible, but here is an old interview with its CEO, in which he “raps about the tricks to a successful guerilla marketing campaign.” Among other things, he observes that, ” thing about guerilla marketing is that the media can buy into it and the campaign becomes the story.”

That is neat! Certainly in this case the campaign has become the story, and it’s possible that the story will last for a while. Turner Broadcasting has apologized, but it sounds like Boston politicians and law enforcement, not surprisingly, don’t seem quite satisfied.

Having written plenty of stuff about the general drift of commercial persuasion into day-to-day life — that’s what “murketing” is, y’a’ll — I can’t say I find any of this surprising. The tactic doesn’t surprise me, the flash of authority outrage doesn’t surprise me. But if anything significant comes of it — aside from a robust opening for the forthcoming Adult Swim movie — I will, in fact, be surprised.

Update: But Wait, There’s More! The incident is assessed, in all places, by WFMU’s blog, which offers the point of view that, basically, Boston authorities are fools! Don’t they recognize recurring Aqua Teen Hunger Force characters when they see them? “Why were no other cities sent into terrorist-attack panic mode by these innocuous and even kind of swell-looking ads? Can we safely assume that Boston has the fewest adult swim viewers per capita? Can we also assume they have the most high-strung residents and/or law enforcement team in the nation?”

Hunh. Okay. Well, maybe this isn’t a story about over the top murketing — maybe it’s a story about a humorless police state? The WFMU post points to this CNN story saying that some freelance artist types who helped execute the campaign have been arrested.

2nd Update: Boing Boing says Boston authorities are stupid, and points out that someone has already made a pro-Adult Swim T-shirt referencing the incident. So it’s all over. The campaign is a success, murketers are artists, and The Man should let them be.

Gorilla Suit Day

Well, yesterday was National Gorilla Suit Day.

Every year, we talk about getting some gorilla suits. We never do it.

Where can you get a good gorillla suit? I think it would be a really good thing to have. I think it would pay for itself.