[The Product Is You is an occasional Murketing series collecting advertising that is aimed at advertisers: Magazines or television networks packaging up their consumers — that is, you, the potential ad target — in ways designed to attract advertisers. Previous installments here.]
This somewhat recent summation by Seventeen Magazine of who its readers are, and why advertisers want to reach them, is a model of the form. The first page panders to the marketing-world viewpoint that today’s teens are incredibly difficult to understand, practically another life form, and whatever “your idea of teens” is, it’s wrong. Then page two brushes aside the entire notion that teens are scary aliens — or at least the teens who read Seventeen aren’t. In fact, they are consumption machines. They have money to burn, and you need to get your brand in their face right away. By advertising in Seventeen, of course.
After the jump, a second ad from the same campaign further reassures potential advertisers that not only is the Seventeen reader jarringly shopping-mad, but so are her friends — and she works hard to make sure they follow her example. Please continue…
I’ve read a slew of articles suggesting trouble for U.S. brands in non-U.S. markets, as the global opinion of America has soured in the last few years. Nevertheless, USA Today reports that consumers are “developing a taste for American-brand products” in … Iraq!
The story quotes one Baghdad resident describing the flavor of Pringles as “incredible.”
A couple neighborhoods away at the upscale Honey Market, shelves are stocked with Duracell batteries, Dove soap, Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal, and Kent and Marlboro cigarettes….
Any anti-American sentiment does not extend to commerce, shop owners said.
Via Agenda.
Blogger Tokyo Times claims there’s a “burgeoning predilection for casts and covered body parts” as a fashion statement (or, um, something that some people find attractive) in that city. Above: “Kegadol, a book bursting at the steams with such stuff.” Maybe it’s all just a prank. Via Vulture Droppings.
Posted Under:
Consumer Behavior by Rob Walker on August 3, 2007
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Coudal says: “Posters from the original Swedish releases of Ingmar Bergman’s films. Lovely collection, including many I’ve never seen before.”
Posted Under:
The Designed Life by Rob Walker on August 3, 2007
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Anya Hindmarch, designer of the cotton tote with the words “I am not a plastic bag” printed on it, which has inspired some consumers to stand in line and in a few cases knock each other down to acquire it, is sticking with her story that if the fabulous people in her customer base blare their eco-concern, the rest of us will fall in line. “There was a time when what was cool was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes,” she tells Time Magazine. “Now it’s all healthy living, and I think fashion had a part in that–people seeing photos of models and celebrities–Gwyneth Paltrow walking around carrying yoga mats and bottled water.”
Bottled water? Wait a minute. I thought that the taste-maker set was against bottled water these days, having figured out that, among other things, discarded water bottles clog up landfills and take ages to degrade. (Just like plastic bags!) In San Francisco, ground zero of anti-plastic government efforts, the mayor has moved from banning plastic bags to barring the use of city funds to buy water in plastic bottles. And according to something I read, some restaurants there no longer sell bottled water, etc. Various articles in the press — such as this much-linked Fast Company piece — have railed against the foolishness of plastic water bottles. And so on.
Despite this, bottled water sales are robust, and now I know why. Because of Gwyneth Paltrow! Those of us down in here in, you know, the herd, we’re looking for signals from her, and last time we saw her she was loaded down with all those yoga mats and — I remember now — bottled water! She looked great, too. That’s when I gave up coffee and cigarettes and decided to get healthy. I bet you did, too.
Anyway, I guess the problem is that there’s nobody like Anya Hindmarch making really fashionable alternatives to bottled water. The Time piece mentions that Stella McCartney has a $495 cotton shopping bag on offer, and LV has one for a little over $1,700.
But who is making the high-end Nalgene alternative that celebrities can brandish? Apparently nobody.
One of these trend-leading designers needs to get it together and offer reusable water bottle that’s made of, say, platinum, and get it into some award-show goodie bags ASAP. To make sure the rest of us get the message, make sure it says, “I Am Not a Plastic Water Bottle,” on the side. Preferably in diamonds.
Related (and possibly useful, as opposed to a mere rant like the above) links:
1. Greener Penny overview of reusable plastic bottles.
2. Craftzine.com post on things to do with plastic bags.
[Time story via Agenda Inc.]
I am flattered to have been asked some interesting questions by some very clever people lately.
Shawn Liu, of Hear, Hear, published this Q&A recently. It was a lot of fun, and there’s a picture of my dog. Hear, Hear publishes many good interviews, and I’d particularly recommend this one with Draplin Design Co. Thanks, Shawn.
Alissa Walker, writer for Unbeige and many design publications, interviewed me right here in Savannah, with a fancy digital recorder, for Core77’s podcast. We were sitting outside, and the ambient noise is almost as entertaining as Alissa’s questions. Thanks, Alissa.
Posted Under:
rw by Rob Walker on August 2, 2007
Comments Off on Thank you…
The following terms, whether used ironically, humorously, knowingly, or in any other manner whatsoever, are no longer acceptable:
1. Internets
2. Interweb
3. Intertubes
Please make a note of it.
Okay, that last post was a little cranky. I better repent, before someone says I’m a dinosaur who doesn’t get it.
How about this. Let’s embrace this exciting new showcase for citizen creativity — and simultaneously devise a way of sustaining (or even starting) widespread interest in the race for the presidency. Let’s have a parallel competition, a sort of talent show of candidate questioning. Let America vote (via text message obviously) for their favorite YouTube question-videos in each debate, judging them on creativity, production values, originality, and, if you like, substance. The top vote getters get to ask another question in the next debate — although of course they’ll also continue to compete against others who have advanced, in an ongoing, elimination-style tournament.
As the number of questioners gets whittled down, more of each debate broadcast will be devoted to learning about them — who they are, what their aspirations are, how much their new branded T-shirts cost and where we can buy them, etc. At some point, all the remaining questioners should probably have to live together in a loft-style apartment, maybe in Ohio. As their fame grows, the candidates will be expected to ask them questions.
Then the final showdown: After the primaries, we have not only two presidential candidates going through the motions of the familiar leader-of-the-free-world thing, but two YouTube question-video makers, squaring off to be America’s Next Top Citizen-Celebrity! (If Bloomberg or another independent gets involved, we could bring back some of the more annoying eliminated questioners in some kind of sudden-death YouTube press conference format.)
Fun, right? See, I get it!
As you probably know, one of the questions posed via YouTube video in the recent Democratic debate, came from a snowman figure, with a Mr. Bill-like voice, who asked about global warming. What is the significance of this? Is it the end of decorum? The dawn of a new era of interactive accountability?
Don’t be absurd. It’s a branding event!
The snowman has a name, which is Billiam. According to the WSJ, the two “unemployed” brothers who created Billiam:
have done interviews with local television, snagged a spot on the Wisconsin Public Radio game show “Whad’Ya Know?” and are working on a line of “Billiam the Snowman” T-shirts. They’ve also launched a “Billiam the Snowman” presidential exploratory committee — online….
The Hamel brothers couldn’t be happier about the attention. At last count, the question has been watched 130,000 times on YouTube. “It means our 15 minutes of fame may stretch to 30,” says Nathan, 26 years old, who created the snowman with his 23-year-old brother, Greg, who does the voice.
Once again, an example of co-promotion: Citizen-whateverism that’s not about participating in a brand or an event or a process. (After all, global warming questions are hardly a breakthrough or novelty in presidential debates.) It’s about latching onto a brand or an event or a process that seems likely to draw attention, and stealing some of that attention for yourself, and your own idea or cultural offering … however threadbare that may be.
“Pursuader.” It’s a handbag. But it’s shaped like a machine gun. Cost: $289. Details, and images of the item modeled by a woman in bikini and jackboots, on the designer’s site. Via BB.
Indianapolis Star today says: “There were 462 mentions of prescription drugs on TV last year, more than double the number from just two years earlier.” Viagra, Vicodin, Botox, and Prozac are a few popular ones. It’s not clear how many placements are incidental (apparently Tony Soprano’s mentions of Prozac were uncompensated, for instance) and how many are paid brand-builders:
Some pharmaceutical companies have acknowledged paying for TV plugs. In one episode of the NBC situation comedy “Scrubs,” a logo for the contraceptive brand NuvaRing appeared 11 times, mostly on posters placed in the background.
The brand’s maker, Organon Pharmaceuticals USA of Roseland, N.J., told trade magazine Brandweek that it had done placement deals with several television shows, including CBS’ “King of Queens” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”
I haven’t seen that Brandweek piece, either I missed it, or it’s in an issue I don’t have yet. But pharma placements seem kinda creepy, no? How can that strategy be permissible? Do they scatter warnings of potential side effects on other background posters?
Via Commercial Alert.
Somehow, the people behind this managed to get my home address (maybe they inquired and it’s slipped my bind) and mailed to me their multipage newsprint piece on behalf of Buyameter.org. The point of it is this:
One in four households in Hale County [Alabama] is not connected to a municipal water system.
Without this service, families get water from sources that can be contaminated with sewage.
It costs $425 to bring clean water to one of these homes.
Help a family. Buy a meter.
I know nothing about the underlying facts here. But it certainly does seem shocking that anybody in America should be dealing with such a basic issue.
More about the project and those behind it here.
In one of the handful of scenes in the second episode of Mad Men that was explicitly about advertising, main character Don listens to the ideas his creative team has come up with to sell an exciting new product: Right Guard, in an aerosol can.
The ideas turn on the excitement of this new technology, which the creative gang says ought to be linked to, you know, rockets, and the exciting future. (The assignment is a clever choice by the show’s writers, given that aerosol cans, which no doubt really were seen as a breakthrough at the time, were eventually demonized as an environmental menace.) Don says this approach is all wrong, because plenty of people fear the future, and because while the product is for men, it will be bought by women, and the rocketships & progress approach won’t work for them.
Put aside whether these observations are original, or even true. Instead consider the way Don arrives at them: it’s an instinct, a hunch, a feeling in his presumably golden gut. Please continue…
In Consumed: The Buddha Machine: A portable music player serenades fans by eliminating the element of choice.
A few years ago, an experimental music duo called FM3 toured Europe, playing a 40-minute set that the duo’s founder Christiaan Virant describes as “very reductionist, very minimalist, very sparse.” He and Zhang Jian, who are based in Beijing, performed on laptops. Some of these compositions were later released on a CD by Staalplaat, a specialty label based in Amsterdam; it sold about a thousand copies. In the context of avant-garde music, that’s not bad: “If someone can sell 2,000 CDs,” Virant says with a laugh, “they’re like a superstar.” So it’s hard to find the right superlative to describe what happened when some of that same sparse music was released again — not on CD but in a little plastic box called the Buddha Machine. Two years later, sales are approaching 50,000 units and still going strong….
Continue reading at the NYT site.
Additional links: FM3; Forced Exposure; Disquiet interview; Boomkat interview; Studio 360 episode.
[The Product Is You is an occasional Murketing series collecting advertising that is aimed at advertisers: Magazines or television networks packaging up their consumers — that is, you, the potential ad target — in ways designed to attract advertisers. Previous installments here.]
Here is a Channel 1 ad, promising those who would advertise on the in-school television network that doing so will “connect teens to your brand.” What sort of teens does Channel 1 have to offer? Apparently the sort of teen who is concerned about such issues as high gas prices. But the key is why is concerned: “I have to spend my money on gas and not other things I’d like to buy.” He is tuned in to the big issues of the day — because he recognizes that they might have an effect on his personal consumption habits. Perfect.
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