Pitchfork interviews Debbie Harry, and the conversation turns to CBGB’s, which shut down a while back:
Pitchfork: It’s ironic that it’s living on as a fashion store.
Debbie Harry: Yeah. There’s a double edge to that, too. The girls who started the merchandising and t-shirts for CBGB’s are singers, Tish and Snooky. They used to be my backup singers for a little while. They had a band of their own and used to perform at CBGB’s, so were really a part of CBGB’s from the very beginning. They had a store on St. Mark’s Place where they sold used clothes. They used to buy dresses in these huge bundles form some warehouse. They’d buy these bulk things of old clothes and just make a huge pile in the center of the floor. People would go in there and dig through. That was Manic Panic.
Pitchfork: Could you imagine CBGB’s being better known as a brand than as a punk venue?
Debbie Harry: Well, CBGB’s was always based on finding music. So if you’re actually going to wear the logo, you’re wearing a logo that’s about finding music. That’s kind of nice.
Posted Under:
Retail,
Subculture Inc. by Rob Walker on July 11, 2007
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Irony
Pinot Noir, Montery County, California; South Eastern Australia
$12 (Savannah)
Sincerity
Chardonnay; Casablanca Valley, Chile
$15 (Savannah)
[Note: This is the fourteenth installment in a regular Murketing feature. For previous installments and an explanation, go here.]
Located several shelves away from each other in the same liquor store, these items simply demanded to be purchased in tandem. In fact, I briefly assumed that they must be offerings of the same vineyard. Not so. Still, it’s a particularly interesting showdown in the context of wine-label design at the present moment: Which is better, looks-wise – irony or sincerity? Please continue…
[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.]
In recognition of the recent reports that Jane Magazine is shutting down, two examples of how the publication characterized its readers to potential advertisers.
In Consumed: Threadless: What one T-Shirt company has learned about community power — and avoiding a design mobocracy.
From Wikipedia to “American Idol,” shifting control from experts to the masses has never been more popular. As an example of what this can mean for consumer companies, the herd of anti-expertise experts often points to Threadless.com, which has sold millions of dollars of T-shirts by not hiring star designers. Founded in 2000, Threadless asks for designs from anybody who wants to submit them. These days, according to its chief creative officer, Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Threadless receives about 125 submissions a day. These are winnowed by the site’s hundreds of thousands of user-voters to half a dozen new T-shirt offerings a week and sold in batches of 1,500. Winning designers are paid $2,000; almost everything sells out. The site has evolved to include a variety of clothing for kids; the owners are dabbling in other products through a new brand called Naked & Angry; and in July, the first Threadless retail and gallery space will open in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.
It’s a crowd-pleasing story, but there has always been more to Threadless than mere mobocracy. …
Continue reading via The NYT site, or The Boston Globe site.
Additional links: Glenn Jones’ site; interview with Jones at Threadless. Ross Zietz’ site; interview with Zeitz at Threadless.
I don’t where I’ve been, but I completely missed the news — apparently first revealed here by Pitchfork — that Sonic Youth has been working on what Thurston Moore called, “this Starbucks record that’s coming out.” Sonic Youth, doing a project for Starbucks?
Evidently. And this occasioned a piece on Utne.com, headlined “Selling Out Sans Guilt.”
The partnership between the corporate coffee giant and iconic counterculture band has reignited a discussion about what exactly qualifies as “selling out” these days, given the struggles that the music industry has had marketing artists during the decline of commercial radio and the rise of all things mp3.
That piece mentions the Doors’ drummer vetoing a deal that would have involved Cadillac paying $15 million to use one of the band’s songs. That serves as sort of an old-school example. For the new school, the piece links to this column, “In Praise of Selling Out,” by a writer for the Chicago Reader. The writer reels off a long list of recent entanglements between indie artists and corporations, and basically wraps up this way:
If you remember the days when it was tantamount to treason for an indie rocker to sign to a major label, you might feel like commercialization is eroding a vital but intangible spirit and polluting the noble ideal of art for art’s sake. But people who make music for a living have always needed to support themselves somehow, and they have to change with the industry that pays their bills — if they can’t stay safely in the black by playing gigs or selling records, some of them are bound to choose licensing deals and sponsorships over day jobs or credit-card debt.
That sounds more like resignation than praise. But I think the upshot is the same: My sense for some time has been that the whole concept of “selling out” has largely faded away. Many (not all, but many) indie entities — bands, brands, artists, whatever — see these sorts of deals as essentially co-promotion opportunities, and have found that they pay very little if any penalty in the marketplace for doing them. Thus, turning down potentially useful corporate dough is now viewed by many (again, not all) as romantic at best, and at worst naive.
[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 is from a couple of years ago, but I’ve hung onto it because it’s one of my favorite examples of the transaction being proposed: Hey advertiser, we would like to sell you this guy.
Sarah Rich in WorldChanging.com writes about “an extensive consumer survey” by two UK organizations looking at the relationship of eco-concerned consumers to the marketplace:
They point to the effectiveness of marketing tools and labeling systems that make apparent companies’ intention to provide their customers with authentic stories of corporate responsibility. They acknowledge, however, that such “voluntary consumer-facing initiatives” have always hit limits to their potential impact, perhaps succeeding in facilitating wide adoption of their gesture, but with little demonstrable change to the overall problem. Consumers either reach a point of fatigue with the decision-making process, or they readily opt for the more sustainable product, but then feel they’ve done their part and halt the progress towards wider shifts.
When I read this story the other day, I of course thought it was nuts:
Judging from the biological reactions, test subjects were just as engaged while watching fast-forwarded advertisements as they were while viewing opening scenes from the NBC show “Heroes” at regular speed.
In other words, those ads you blast past with a DVR fast forward button are as “engaging” as the ones you used to sit through. The source of this research is NBC, which wants to convince advertisers that the money they pay for commercial time isn’t being thrown away just because a certain percentage of the audience fast-forwards past the spots.
Absurd, right? Just more desperation from networks trying to salvage their business model. And that may be the case.
On the other hand, while a fast-forwarded ad may not be as engaging as an actual, watched ad, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has no effect at all.
One of the big mistakes that people often make about advertising is that it works (or fails to work) in purely rational or linear ways. That is: Consumer sees ad; consumer is persuaded; consumer goes to store and buys product. Of course, that almost never happens. The brain is a complicated thing, and as you probably know, a great deal of the work it does takes place at a non-conscious level. One famous book on this general subject is Timothy D. Wilson’s Strangers To Ourselves, which was a major (cited) influence on the best-seller Blink. It’s not a book about advertising by any means, but I belatedly remembered and looked up one passage that’s relevant here.
Basically Wilson makes the point that regular advertising often works the way that people believe subliminal advertising (naked figures in ice cubes in a liquor ad or whatever) works: By communicating with the non-conscious part of the mind.
People fear subliminal advertisements (which have no effect) more than everyday advertising (which often has powerful effects) because they worry that they will be influenced without knowing it. But ironically, everyday advertisements are more likely to influence us without our fully recognizing that we are being influenced. It is not as if we go to the drugstore and think, “Should I buy the house brand or Advil? Well, if Advil is good enough for Nolan Ryan, it’s good enough for me…” Instead, we might find a name brand more comforting or familiar and not realize why we feel that way. So we shell out the extra cash for something that is no different from the house brand…
A failure to recognize the power of advertising makes us more susceptible to it … because we are likely to lower our guard while watching commercials or fail to avoid them altogether. …
He adds that he and a colleague in one study (which I haven’t read) used the term “mental contamination” to describe the process, “because our minds can unknowingly become ‘polluted’ with information we would rather not have influence us.”
The upshot is that while maybe you’re not engaging with that Taco Bell ad the same you would if you were sitting there hanging on every word. But a) how often do you hang on every word of an ad even real time, and b) even at super-fast speeds, you may still processing the fact it’s a Taco Bell ad. Does that mean you’ll march like a robot to Taco Bell afterwards? Of course not. But maybe Taco-Bellness has taken up one or two more bits of your nonconscious mind just the same, and maybe that will make a difference later without you ever consciously thinking about it. (And maybe the more certain you are that you’re ad-proof, the more likely it is to occur.)
A little esoteric-sounding, perhaps. But the point is that it is possible that a bit of “mental contamination” is getting through after all. And if it is, then maybe advertisers do owe networks something for such scenarios — because delivering such “pollution” is the name of the game.
Like everybody else, I guess, I was a bit caught up in the hype last week around the iPhone. In my case, I was strictly observing: I had no intention of actually going to stand in line or whatever. But I was amazed at the level of mass participation involved in the phenomenon. It became, like any mass event, more about being part of something big than about the particular thing being consumed. Even here in Savannah, people were waiting in line at the stores that promised to have the device on offer from the get-go. It was like “Star Wars” or Woodstock or something — people seemed to want to be involved just for the sake of being involved.
In the aftermath, what is there to say? Nothing, I thought. But this entry on the site Carbon Neutral Journal makes the point that, as a result of iPhone-mania, a lot of perfectly good mobiles must now be gotten rid of. It points to CollectiveGood.
The Unconsumption page of Murketing.com lists a variety of other options.
I almost hesitate to bring this up. The two recent posts here about green hype have not exactly been hits with you readers — the comments mostly seem to be saying that I’m a big spoilsport for failing to be excited about the alleged eco-consumer revolution. So don’t misunderstand me. I’m not raining on your parade, iPhone freaks. Enjoy your new gizmo to the fullest. But, as a bonus, you can also get a hit of unconsumption satisfaction, too, by getting rid of your obsolete (you know what I mean) ex-phone in the most responsible manner possible. You’ll feel that much better when you do.
Given my post the other day complaining about green hype, I should point out the article about the alleged green-consumption trend that appears in (of all places, the Times Style section today:
Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.
The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources.
Steffen, writing in World Changing today, says that’s not really what he said, nor what he thinks:
I believe something quite different: that the genuine solution is not a matter of consumer choice at all.
There is no combination of purchasing decisions which will make the current affluent American lifestyle sustainable. You can’t shop your way to sustainability, as I’ve put it before. On a planet running up against so severe a set of deadlines — global warming, the extinction crisis, the poverty crisis, etc. — prosperity as currently delivered is frankly immoral, even when purchased with an eco-chic package….
The reality is that the changes we must make are systemic changes. They involve large-scale transformations in the ways we plan our cities, manufacture goods, grow food, transport ourselves, and generate energy. They involve new international regulatory regimes, corporate strategies, industrial standards, tax systems and trading markets. If we want to change the world, we need to forge ourselves into the kinds of citizens who can effectively demand such things.
The rest of his post is here.
This relates to what was saying the other day, which I tried to clarify in the comments of that post.
When marketers, designers, gurus, pundits, and others hyping the idea that Main Street is going green because Eco Product X is selling surprisingly well, they frame the larger debate in particular way. They ignore contradictory consumer behavior (steady sales of luxury SUVs), and rarely address what I’ve called unconsumption behavior (that is, how we dispose of things, what we don’t consume, etc.).
Thus they leave impression that the marketplace — consumer shopping patterns — is already solving any eco problems we might face:. The “taste-makers” are leading the way, there will be “tipping point,” and we’ll all be eco-safe, and no one has to make any particular sacrifice, and there’s no need for pesky regulations or whatever. Etc.
All of which helps to marginalize more system-oriented points of view like Steffen’s.
Anyway, both Steffen’s post and the Styles story are worth reading, and gave me more to think about.
1. There is no Consumed column, and no Journal of Murketing email this weekend.
2. Since the recent design tweak to this site, a constantly updated list of entertaining, distracting, or useful links appears in the sidebar at right.
Thank you.
Posted Under:
Uncategorized by Rob Walker on June 29, 2007
Comments Off on Please recall
Following up on yesterday’s post about Robert Frank’s book Richistan: I mentioned my favorite example of how wealthy consumers feel compelled to move on from anything that gets too widely adapted was in the category of watches. I have been interested in the watch market for some time, without ever really coming up with a good way to write about it.
Frank cites data from an organization called The Luxury Institute; in 2006, it conducted a poll of people with a net worth of $5 million or more, to learn what the most prestigious wristwatch might be. Cartier came in 13th. Rolex made the top 10, but “barely,” Frank writes. First place went to Franck Mueller, “a newcomer from Switzerland that sells fewer than 4,500 watches a year in the United States.” The brand’s cheapest offering costs $4,800. The most expensive: $600,000-plus. “Frank Mueller,” Frank writes, “has become the timepiece of choice for the New Rich.”
The interesting thing about watches as a carrier of prestige is that watches have, in recent years, become so superfluous for most of us. If you have a cell phone, you have the time on you; you don’t need a watch. And indeed, I have read that mainstream watch sales are hurting.
Luxury watch sales, however, are not hurting at all. (Recently even Timex has been repositioning to try to cut more lux-oriented deals.) One suspects that this is precisely because high end watches have very little to do with knowing what time it is. Indeed, Frank points out that Frank Muller’s “most popular watches the Crazy Hours, a $20,000 timepiece that features mixed-up numbers on the face.” Even a company spokesperson admits that actually using it to tell time can be “tricky.” Frank cites Business Week reviewer suggesting that maybe the best strategy is to wear this watch in addition to a second one that you can actually read.
Funny. But I’d suggest a different direction: Why not make a watch that is purely aesthetics-based, and does not tell time at all? Think of the design possibilities a watch could offer if you didn’t have to worry about the whole time-telling trope, with the annoying minute, hour, and second hands, which all seems pretty played-out anyway. People who pay twenty grand for a watch not only have a cell phone and five other gizmos at hand to tell them what time it is, they also have a variety of flunkies to drive them around and make their appointments for them. Leave watches that track of hours and minutes to the proles.
[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.]
Soapnet viewers are “#1 in Engagement” — that is, they “just can’t look away” from their favorite soaps. And there are more of them all the time, particularly in the age-groups that advertisers love most. Or so claims this ad.
Posted Under:
The Product Is You by Rob Walker on June 29, 2007
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Clearing my desk of assorted magazines, clippings, and junk, I came across two related articles that I’d set aside to store in my “consumer ethics” file. Both concern SUV sales. Every single day, it seems, I read something else about the enlightened, green-conscious consumer who is transforming the marketplace as we speak. Sales of hybrid cars often come up in the list of anecdotes, right after the inevitable survey statistic about we Americans are concerned about the environment. And as one of these articles notes, Toyota’s famous Prius has sold more than a million units worldwide.
But the reason I’d set these articles aside is a couple of other facts and figures that jumped out at me. One is from the June 11 issue of Business Week: While sales of small cars are up fairly significantly this year, “luxury SUV sales have held steady,” accounting for 28% of new-vehicle sales.
That’s a pretty high number, seems to me, particularly at a moment when not only is Main Street supposedly green-crazy, but high gas prices have been a consistent media story.
The other clipping is from the June 11 issue of Brandweek, and examines this very point more specifically, under the headline, “What Gas Crisis? SUVs Still Cruising.”
While the Prius is doing well, the story notes, Honda is dropping its hybrid Accord, which has sold poorly. There are some hybrid SUVs on the market, but those aren’t taking off — whereas “the massive Ford Expedition, which gets a sluggish 15 mpg, has seen its vehicle sale shoot up 20% through May,” writes Steve Miller.
Both articles include suggestions that the trend may still be moving away from huge gas guzzlers, etc., and that may turn out to be right.
But I believe the time has come for the legions of experts touting green-mania start to gauge it a more complete way. I’ve read the poll data. I’ve heard about increasing sales for this or that “green” product. I want to hear about falling sales of conspiciously not-green products. Even better, I want that kind of information to be included in the analysis — even if does not immediately support the green hype. I want the commentators, especially the ones who are basically marketing gurus and consultants, to acknowledge that eco-consciousness is not simply a matter of what consumers buy. It’s also about what they stop buying.
Okay, just had to get that out. Back to cleaning the desk off.
Because of the day job, publishers sometimes send me books, most of which I have no interest in whatsoever; meanwhile, most of the new books I really am interested in, those never get sent to me. But in a rare exception, I got in the mail from Crown a book called Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, which I did in fact find interesting. It’s by Robert Frank, the Wall Street Journal writer (not to be confused with Robert H. Frank, the economist who wrote Luxury Fever, among other books).
Given all the detail in the subtitle, I guess there’s not much reason to explain what the book is about. It was of interest to me because I’ve mused here about the Four or Five Americas, and maybe this is one of them. Frank divides his Richistan into three (lower-middle-upper) parts: the 7.5 million households with a net worth of between $1 million and $10 million; the 2 million households with a net worth between $10 million and $100 million; and those with a net worth higher than that, which number “in the thousands.” (There are around 100 million households in the U.S., I believe.)
The middle group is most interesting to me: $10 million is a lot of money, and 2 million is a lot of people. Enough people to form something like a common worldview, or a cultural consensus, among them.
Here’s a quick bit that I found interesting in terms of how Richistan relates to the other Americas: The spending/consumption of the broad group that Frank calls Richistanis is of course motivated in part by peer comparisons, but also by something else:
Richistanis are also spending to outrun the hordes of Richistani wannabes. The growng ranks of affluent consumers are increasingly trading up to buy goods once reserved for the rich. Luxury companies, to grow sales, are happy to sell cheaper version of their high-end products to serve this new crowd of aspiring shoppers. Marketers call it “mass luxury” and, oxymoron or not, it’s made life miserable for Richistani spenders.”
I’m used to thinking about the chasing-luxury game from the non-rich point of view: How people like say, me, will buy something like a wallet with a luxury brand name attached to it, blissfully unaware that it’s just some mundane object stamped with ersatz prestige by way of one of the licensing deals that fuel lux-company profits. Clearly it’s true that if enough people like me glom onto a lux brand, the lux crowd doesn’t want to be associated with it anymore. (An extreme version: Burberry’s chav problem.)
What I’ve given less thought to is that once Richi dumps whatever I’m buying, he has to find something else to buy, with a suitable prestige level attached to it. The example Frank offers that I like the most is the watch category. More on that tomorrow.
Posted Under:
America,
Lux by Rob Walker on June 28, 2007
Comments Off on Burdens of wealth
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