MURKETING

In The New York Times Magazine: Ospop

WORKER SOLE
A simple shoe for Chinese laborers gets made over for Western consumers

This week in Consumed, a new addition to the centuries-old effort to communicate between East and West. Curiously, it’s a consumer product:

Ospop sneakers. Yes, they’re made in China by Chinese workers. But more unusually, and more to the point, they are inspired by Chinese workers. Specifically, Ospop sneakers are based on a design widely worn by such laborers, but with higher-quality materials and structural improvements meant to appeal to a Western audience — one that is, not incidentally, willing to pay $75 for a pair of sneakers.

Read the column in the August 17, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.

Flickr Interlude

Java Jive Teapot – Tacoma, Washington, originally uploaded by Vintage Roadside.

Caption: “The wonderful ‘Teapot’ building along Highway 99 in Tacoma, Washington. Starting to look a little rough again, but hopefully it’s around for many more decades. A great piece of roadside architecture.”

AntiFriday: Weekly compendium of backlashes, dissent & critiques

NYT story looks at the role that ad campaigns played in making debt (home equity loans) ets., less scary to consumers; ad execs now say ” society’s attitudes about debt shaped the ads, not the other way around,” but I bet they didn’t say that in pitch meetings ….

The Wall Street Journal recounts The Olive Garden’s “mixed feelings” about “rogue brand ambassador” and Hugh Heffner harem member Kendra Willkinson; traffic-hungry blogs pile on ….

In survey, 73% say Starbucks coffee is too expensive ….

Living Oprah, blog of 35-year-old artist, performer and writer in Chicago: “For one year, I will live as Oprah advises…. Additionally, I’ll be charting the cost of living as Oprah prescribes. Will the costs — financial, time spent, energy expended — be worth the result?”  …

Report “focuses on methods of advertising food to kids [via] spreading messages through social networks, and urges lawmakers to restrict junk food advertising to kids online” (via Commercial Alert) …

Anti Advertising agency on plan to limit outdoor advertising (removing 40k billboards) in Buenos Aires….

A political ad making fun of Barack Obama uses the Jackson Browne song “Running On Empty,” and Browne, “incensed,” is suing. …

Shell newspaper ads in the U.K. describing oil-exploration and refining projects as sustainable-energy initiatives spark complaints from World Wildlife Federation, and Britain’s ad-watchdog agency forces the company to withdraw them …

Amusing yet earnest video by Municipal Arts Society about news racks around NYC in clear violation of various laws …

Design appreciation: Foam Number One hand

If I were in charge, the American flag would be replaced with a red-white-and blue foam Number One hand. We’d be the only country represented by a novelty item. How cool would that be?

At the very least, I think Murketing.com should have its own foam Number One hands. Some day, maybe.

Uh, anyway, I’m going to be out of pocket today, so I invite you to read about the history of the foam number one hand on Designboom. (Via Freakonomics blog.) It was invented in Texas! And much more recently than I’d realized …

When I have more time I’ll have to see if anybody’s done the historical research on multicolored wigs.

Flickr Interlude

If you want to get a pic in the Murketing Flickr group highlighted here on Murketing.com, this is a) cheating, and b) encouraged.

Save

Twitter chatter

Adverblog is the latest to ask the familiar question:

What’s the value of Twitter for a brand? It’s just a question of feeling cool and up to speed with the 2.0 era? Or there is (or there could be) more? Is there any brand out there using Twitter fully exploiting its conversational potentials or is it just another broadcast channel?

In a way, the overheated emotions about Twitter are a good example of the medium/message problem: It’s just another way of potentially expressing something, and that is inherently less interesting (to me) than what’s being expressed. I’ve been asked about Twitter a lot, and on precisely one occasion has the question been interesting. It was in the recent Q&A for Crafty Bastards, and if you have read that then you already know what I was asked and what I said, but if not, here it is, answer after the jump:

Q: What do you think of Twitter as a marketing tool? Are people more likely to buy from Zappos because they know what the CEO is having for dinner? Read more

Flickr Interlude

Reaching Star, originally uploaded by EssG.

Mankind’s narcissistic tendencies, the iPhone, etc.

A weird irony of the New Interactive World or whatever is that nobody reads the letters to the editor anymore. Except me! Check out this: Reacting to the David Brooks column I mentioned recently and cast as an example of the media/message problem, a guy who was actually in an iPhone ad wrote to the NYT and said in part:

During the filming, I spoke with the director of the ad, Errol Morris, for 30 minutes about the iPhone’s effect on human interaction and the philosophical implications of its technology on modern culture. We discussed what the iPhone revealed about mankind’s narcissistic tendencies and the vital importance of human connection in today’s world of electronic communication.

Needless to say, none of this made it into the commercial. In addition to recommending you read this guy’s letter, I ask you: Isn’t it weird that Errol Morris makes ads at all?

Just Looking

By Mike Mitchell, via ffffound.

Young people love Obama because he’s so … mass?

If you’ve somehow managed to miss the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom about “Obama as brand,” Ad Age has a recap, without a hint that anybody might question it — but with a new twist.

Neil “Millenials” Howe pops up to reiterate the assertion (noted here, and met with skepticism my Murketing readers) that he made in a recent Brandweek interview: Gen Y digs a big brand. And Obama is a big brand:

According to Mr. Howe, Gen Xers required niche marketing: “If too many people liked something, it wasn’t cool.” But mass brand experiences, from the iPod to Harry Potter, appeal strongly to millennials, who have been shown to be a more communal, pro-social generation than their predecessors.

While critics see Mr. Obama’s penchant for mass gatherings as arrogant, Mr. Howe finds it perfect for millennials: “They’re more civically connected, and they find strength in numbers.”

The medium/message problem

I’ve said to a number of people in casual conversation that crowds will now line up for an iPhone the way people used to line up for the midnight release of some noteworthy musician’s new CD. David Brooks gets at something related to this in a column recently (I linked to it already last week, in the linkpile rotation at right) in which he argued that “over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste.”

He talks about 1400 to 1965 as a long reign of a hierarchical version of good taste; this was followed by 40 years when “status rewards went to the ostentatious cultural omnivores.” And now?

On or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status.

Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it….

Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel.

Whatever you make of the specifics, I think that from a broad perspective he’s onto something here, a kind of medium/message problem: There’s a lot of celebration of various media that will bring us interesting new messages that the old setup squelched. There’s a lot less evidence that the messages we get now are really that much better (as opposed to different).

You might disagree, but for the moment I don’t want to get bogged down in that specific argument.

Rather what I want to say is that I’m thinking (hoping?) that what Brooks is talking about isn’t a tectonic shift, but a phase. I think we’re having a little trouble sometimes figuring out the relationship between technology and culture — which shapes which, and how. But at some point the focus will shift from “imagine the potential” to “here is the new cultural expression that has emerged that is exciting on its own, because of its message, not because of the medium.”

Meanwhile, I poked around that American Scene blog Brooks mentioned, and it’s pretty interesting. I think maybe two of the posts he’s referencing are this one and this one. Worth reading for yet another point of view.

The Page 99 Test

An unexpected bonus of the whole Buying In thing has been getting introduced to interesting online book-related projects. I mentioned Seen Reading in an earlier post. More recently I got a note inviting me to participate in The Page 99 Test, which was inspired by Ford Madox Ford’s assertion: “”Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” Here’s my bit.

In The New York Times Magazine: The Zune

AntiPod
Are Zune buyers motivated by what the device is – or what it isn’t?

Today in Consumed: Who chooses to buy a Zune, and why? The marketing of the device has stressed its “social” features. But is that really the attraction?

Community and togetherness seem like a reasonable counterpunch to iPod’s supposed attraction as an individuality enabler that allows owners to wallow in their own tasteful personal soundtracks. But in real life, the cafe patron checking for other Zune owners is less likely to find one than to arouse mild curiosity about his eccentric product choice. Meanwhile, owning an iPod seems roughly as individualistic as a gray flannel suit.

Read the column in the August 10, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.

Flickr Interlude

promise., originally uploaded by crookhaven.

Just Do It (Yourself?)

I’m happy that the Beautiful Losers documentary is getting plenty of attention, and I look forward to seeing it. I’m a fan of many of the artists who I gather are in it, and I both like and respect Aaron Rose. He is interviewed in the current issue of Complex talking about a spinoff project: “Make Something!! Workshops,” and I like the sound of these, too. The film’s site says:

Working with public school art programs and youth mentoring programs, MAKE SOMETHING!! will invite local children to participate in creative workshops such as sign painting, photography, skateboard graphic design, toy design, filmmaking, tattoo art, footwear design and zine making.

Workshops will be hosted by renowned artists from the Beautiful Losers “do-it-yourself” art subculture, which include Ed Templeton, Tobin Yelland, Geoff McFetridge, Shepard Fairey, Mike Mills, Todd James, Cheryl Dunn, Kaws, Mr. Cartoon and Aaron Rose. The work created in each location will form a continually evolving exhibition, which will be open to the public to view.

Sounds good.

And yet … despite all my good vibes about this … I must say that my reaction to the version of the movie poster above was: What’s the swoosh doing on there?

These workshops, apparently, are courtesy of Nike. Was that really necessary? “Make something” is obviously a fine message — but to me the whole idea of doing-it-yourself kind of loses its oomph if the doing has to happen under the auspices of the almighty swoosh. After all, did the various artists and creators celebrated in the film have to rely on a multinational to learn to express themselves? I think not. On the film’s site, the tab for this project is simply “Nike Workshops.” Ew.

I think this a bad move on Nike’s part — if Swoosh Inc. wants to do something good for the kids, then just do it (to borrow a phrase) and for once keep your logo to yourself.

I also just think it’s, you know, a general all-around bummer.

Not that any of this will stop me from seeing the doc. In fact I wish I could make it to the U.S. premier, in New York City, tonight.