MURKETING

Beyond the working vacation

Kind of a bizarre, but funny, story in the WSJ today about people who work while on dates.

A typical working date for Scott Friedman, 47, of Denver, a motivational speaker and humorist, starts with, “‘Look, I’m busy. You’re busy. Why don’t we order in and we’ll work?'” With one recent partner who also has a demanding career, they would dine on Chinese food at his kitchen table, admiring the city lights from his windows. “Then we’d work for a few hours,” he says. “At least,” he reasons, he could glance at his date across the room. After that came dessert or a trip out for ice cream. “The actual social part of a four- to five-hour date would be 60 to 90 minutes,” he says.

Draw your conclusions about what “social part” refers to.

It’s not clear to me whether this is an actual phenomenon, or just another case in which America is such an enormous freak show that you can find a few anecdotes to support any “trend.” That said, I do think there’s some truth to this, which is listed as one of the underlying factors:

More people are plunging into all-consuming entrepreneurial ventures at younger ages; “as an entrepreneur, you don’t really separate” work and life, says [some expert].

Here’s a link, but it might a subscriber-only thing.

Liz Claiborne

I was surprised to see the obituary for Liz Claiborne this morning. The piece says that the company that bears her name (which she basically hasn’t been involved in for more than 15 years) is not doing particularly well right now. Nevertheless, one way of measuring cultural significance is whether or not a given figure becomes the basis of notorious (false) rumor, and Claiborne is central to a particularly famous one.

Anyway, the obit doesn’t mention that, but does have the more practical facts about her actual impact:

Ms. Claiborne correctly anticipated a market for affordable business-like clothes that women could wear to compete with men in professional workplaces. In her no-nonsense way, she became a role model — and her label an inspiration — to those who were looking to break through glass ceilings, as she had done.

As a designer, Ms. Claiborne did not care to be considered a trendsetter. She placed practical concerns over the glamour of the catwalks and the prestige of designer prices. Her arrival as a fashion brand was well timed, catching the beginning of a great change in American society as women headed to the workplace in large numbers.

She created a new foundation for a modern working woman’s wardrobe, which had begun, she once acknowledged irritably, as the bland reinterpretation for women of a man’s navy blue suit and tie. Blouses that closed with frilly bows did not appeal to Ms. Claiborne. Her creative expressions were made of colorful tailored separates that could be mixed with other pieces to create many outfits.

As women made headway in corporate America, Ms. Claiborne expanded with office-friendly sportswear that conveyed a potent blend of intelligence, strength and femininity. It eventually transcended the workplace, becoming a lifestyle brand. One of her first designs was a velour peasant blouse; she sold 15,000 pieces in one season.

The Product Is You, No. 2

[The Product Is You is an occasional Murketing series looking at 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 installment here.]

I watch Bravo. “Top Chef,” “Project Runway,” sometimes that Kathy Griffin thing, maybe other stuff too. So it’s only fair that the second installment of The Product Is You should take a look at the sequel to the previously mentioned Bravo ad. This one offers up a deconstruction of the typical Bravo-watching man. In other words: This time the product is me.

Like his mate, Bravo Guy greets the world with a blank and empty gaze, toting fresh purchases, his credit cards visibly at the ready for more shopping.

Some details:

A “rock t-shirt” that he “bought online, but he still digs the band.” In other words: He’s a poseur with a Peter Pan complex. (And who apparently doesn’t even have it in him to wear his “rock t-shirt” unless it’s covered up by a borderline-generic button-down.)

The “latest cell phone,” crammed with individuality-boosting ringtones and wallpapers, plus a Bluetooth earpiece that is “part design statement.”

Credit cards “most recently used at the mall for lunch and shopping.” Ah, lunch at the mall. It’s the perfect setting for a Bluetooth design statement. Stop by Hot Topic for some new T’s when you finish those waffle fries, rocker.

A linen blazer: “Learned to ‘make it work’ by watching Project Runway.” Translation: Takes orders from the little flickering images of good-looking people on his TV set. That’s why you’ll love him most of all, advertisers. Get to this bundle of insecurities before his next self-medicating shopping trip. He’s waiting for your help ….

Bottom line: Now you know what I’m really like.

The International Review of Wine Packaging and Aesthetics, Vol. 13

Bitch
Barossa Grenache; Australia
$16 (Savannah)

[Note: This is the thirteenth installment in a regular Murketing feature. For previous installments and an explanation, go here.]

Let’s face it: If you buy a wine called Bitch, you know full well that you’re buying the label, and whatever’s inside the bottle is pretty much an afterthought.

Many labels that are meant to stand out from old-school “traditional” designs do so by presenting a more approachable, unpretentious image. Bitch, however, is an example of what might be characterized as a ’tude wine, with a label that’s not so much unpretentious as defiant. Please continue…

Label decoding

I meant to bring this up earlier, for those of you who have an interest in wine packaging: There was a really interesting segment on KCRW’s Good Food a couple of weeks back about “the best method for reading a wine label and finding the perfect wine.” In this case that doesn’t mean evaluating packaging aesthetics, it means “decoding” the factual information about the wine, its geographic origins, production history, and so on, which turns out to be a little more complicated than one might suspect. And a good amount of the information is provided in text form here (scroll down when you get there).

The wine label can tell what the grape is, where it came from and how much of a specific grape is in the bottle. This detail can range from a general location, “California,” to a more detail reference — where in California, what region, what vineyard location and literally which row and vine number within that vineyard. (Think of a vineyard as a neighborhood, within a state, region or country.)

Decoding a wine label can make us more savvy and multiply our pleasure with the wines we select.

Meanwhile, speaking of labels, the International Review of Wine Packaging and Aesthetics returns, after an inexplicable hiatus, later today.

Urban’s image

Something I did not know until pretty recently is that Urban Outfitters has a cool-spotting-ish kind of blog. One recent post pointed to the work of Barnaby Barford — “mass produced ceramics get remixed,” the site says.

Another post points to another web project called Free Yr Radio. “Urban Outfitters loves College and non-commercial radio so we’re putting on shows in our stores to help raise money so they can keep their share of the airwaves.” Also mentined is that Free Yr Radio is “crafted” by Urban Outfitters, and Yaris. Yaris is the Toyota car brand that seemed to be trying, a year or so ago, with the DIY/craft asthetic. (Its slogan was “D.I.Y. — Drive It Yourself.”) This got a mixed reaction. Urban, meanwhile, has kind of been a favorite punching bag of indie designers, crafters, and so on, because it’s got a reputation for stealing ideas.

I’ve heard many anecdotal reports of Urban trying to reach out and do damage control with the indie community. I’ve not heard many reports of anyone being convinced. I’m not sure how these online projects will help or hurt those efforts, but I’m quite curious.
Something to monitor.

Sprayable Zen

Here is Recue Remedy, stress-relief spray. Actually, “A Natural Stress Relief Spray.” When you’re stressed, I think you spray it in your mouth. Or maybe if someone’s freaking out in a meeting, you spray it in his or her mouth. Also said to be good for pets.
Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t there something a little Saturday Night Live about this? According to the company site, it’s Yoga In A Bottle. They’ve trademarked that phrase, so watch out. “Your Inner Calm On Call.” It also comes in a liquid form that dose your water with, but I like the spray idea better. I want to be able to spray my inner calm.

Stories and T-shirts

Stories are a pretty important part of consumer behavior. Sometimes that means the story of the consumer him- or herself. Sometimes that means the story of the product.

Here is an interesting experiment in linking stories and consumption: A just-launched clothing brand called Graey, which is offering up part one of an online comix-style narrative, featuring characters in Graey apparel. It happens at Graeyny.com, which I believe “went live” today.
So far the story — both the story on the site, and the story of the brand — is pretty much in the germinal stage, so it’s hard to make a judgment about any of it. But I’ll keep an eye on it.

To Do in NYC June 27: No Mas Lottery Event

The always-interesting team over at No Mas (see the Murketing Q&A with No Mas mastermind Chris Isenberg here) sends word of an event Wednesday night in New York that I can’t go to, but maybe you can:

The Lottery
Wednesday June 27
31 W. 19th Street / Between Fifth & Sixth
NYC

Happening the night before the NBA draft — where the drawing of random ping pong balls from a hopper determines the order in which general managers get to make their selections — the project/event “examines the role of fate in life and basketball.”

In this Lottery, the ping pall balls will turn seven lucky attendees into ‘general managers’ who will get to draft their pick of artwork from a giant wall of 8X10 portraits — one for each of the original 105 players drafted [under the lottery system]. It’s a process that Isenberg hopes will get attendees to ‘think about how weird it is that the lottery exists and has a huge effects on these players’ lives’ and to reconsider ‘the famous, the fallen, and the forgotten in relation to this ritual.

The project was inspired, he says, by Patrick Ewing (the Knicks’ dream-come-true-via-lottery choice in 1985) and Len Bias (the Celtics’ jackpot-turned-misery choice the following year).

Sounds promising! More here — including RSVP info;I gather that you need to do that if you want to go. So check it out.

Trading Partners

In Consumed: Coudal.com’s Swap Meat: How one online cool-stuff experiment evolved from promotion to swapping to selling.

Creative people want to express that creativity. Meanwhile, they need to make a living — possibly by finding an audience for some buyable form of that creativity. This is an old predicament, but the Internet enables new experiments in resolving it — like the Swap Meat, a project of a Web site called Coudal.com. Coudal Partners is a small firm based in Chicago that does branding and design work for clients and has also created products of its own. Coudal.com is certainly a promotional tool for the firm, but just as certainly a constantly updated trove of interesting links and cleverly entertaining goof-off projects. Which is more or less how the Swap Meat started. Please continue…

“Branded” character

In an earlier post, I expressed skepticism that the various changes in the way people consume media, and what those changes mean to advertisers, will add up to “a world in which consumer engagement occurs without consumer interruption,” as some argue. Specifically, I suggested that we’re heading to a world where consumer interruption simply cannot be avoided, because it’s embedded in whatever it is we’re trying to do — the shows we’re trying to watch, the streets we’re trying to walk along, etc. As a for-instance, I mentioned an unavoidable product placement in Lonelygirl15, the much-hyped Web narrative that’s often cited as a glimpse of our supposedly empowering media future.

Having said all of that, I have to pass along this, from Variety:

In an unusual promotional partnership, Neutrogena has inked a deal with the producers of the popular Web series to help market “Lonelygirl15” — with one of the company’s young scientists to join the cast….

[The] show’s new character, who will make his first appearance Monday and appear in episodes over the next two months, had already been conceived by the show’s creators, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, as a 22-year-old scientist who helps the series’ lead characters create a serum in order to thwart an evil org known as the Order.

He became branded as a Neutrogena staffer after CAA, which reps the Web series and its producers, approached the maker of skin, hair and cosmetics products with the opportunity to tie in with the show.

Neutrogena immediately sparked to “Lonelygirl15,” considering that the show specifically attracts teen and twentysomething consumers — the demo that the company is trying to target with its products.

Variety says that having a “branded” character is an example of how marketers are becoming more “creative.” And I suppose it is.

Fact or George Saunders story?

For Scott and Katie Keppler of Rye, N.Y., the decision to seek help stemmed from a fundamental disagreement. With their second child on the way, Mrs. Keppler, 40, an accountant, wanted [to name the child] something traditional to match their first son’s name, Liam. Her husband, a software salesman, preferred unique names like Jolt for a boy or Jilly for a girl. “He was harassing me with some really strange names,” Mrs. Keppler says.

To break the deadlock, Mr. Keppler, 40, decided to spend $25 for a service on BabyNames.com that provides six options based on everything from a couple’s mothers’ maiden names to their general taste preferences (traditional, biblical, trendy, unique, ethnic and wild, among others). When their son was born in March, they tapped their favorite name from the list: Max Phillip. The Web site was a truly impartial third-party, Mr. Keppler says.

Fact of course. This is one of several highly entertaining bits from a WSJ today (here’s the link, but I believe it’s subsribers-only) on “unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children.” I think this couple should have just cut to the chase and named the kid Proprietary Algorithm.

Another surprising detail from the piece: “Sweden and Denmark forbid names that officials think might subject a child to ridicule. Swedish authorities have rejected such names as Veranda, Ikea and Metallica.”

Mildly interesting product of the day

A ceramic vase that looks like a paper bag. To go with your ceramic cup that looks like a paper cup. Via Popgadget.

Hats off

Prior to reading a reference in Paul Lukas’s Uni Watch column on ESPN.com just now, I had never heard of the minor-league baseball team, the Lake Elsinore storm. But a glance at their cap should make it obvious why I had to check it out. According to the team site, it’s top-selling logo in all of minor-league baseball. I can see why. Amazing.

Crocs: Please explain

Of course you already know about Crocs. We all do. I’ve avoided the subject for a long time, assuming that any second now the trend would reverse course and go away. Instead, it just grows. The sorts of people I see in Crocs continue to expand: Chilren, old women, young men, in all kinds of situations.

I’m not sure when this happened, but now Crocs even seem to have found a place in some store windows right alongside sneakers and things decorated with skull imagery:

Why? What is the explanation for the continued popularity of these shoes? Can you tell me? Do you have a pair? Why do you like them? When do you wear them? What caused you to try/buy them?