MURKETING

48-Hour T-Shirt No. 1: “I Show How You Feel”

The first 48-Hour T-Shirt is now no longer available. That’s the design, above: Three colors (metalic silver ink, black, flourescent green) on a gray American Apparel 4.3-ounce fine cotton athletic fit T. A summary of the research inspiring the design, below, is also available in PDF form, here.

This phrase was quoted in a recent paper by scholars researching the subject of mimicry and its role in the day-to-day marketplace.

One study, for instance, found that a waitress received larger tips when she “mimicked” customers by repeating orders verbatim, than when she paraphrased their orders. According to the researchers, being subtly mimicked “creates feelings of rapport, affiliation, and closeness toward the mimicker.”

The research was summarized in the April 2008 issue of The Journal of Consumer Research, in an article titled “Of Chameleons and Consumption,” which noted that prior studies suggested “that mimicry serves as an important communication tool, communicating to the person being mimicked that ‘I show how you feel.’” This newer research specifically explored “the effect of mimicry on consumption,” and how it might be used in, for instance, sales techniques.

Design by Derek Black, MFA candidate in the graphic design department of Savannah College of Art and Design (www.redneckillustrator.com).

The T-shirt “I Show How You Feel” is was available until 10 a.m. (Eastern) Wednesday, for $18 plus shipping. Order below.

The aim of The 48-Hour T-shirt Project is to prod consumers to think more about our own behavior, about how we can be manipulated, and about how we manipulate ourselves. Yes, doing this by way of products may be seen as either ironic, clever, or hypocritical. That’s (part of) the point.

(Please note that The Murketing Organization (that is, me, Rob Walker) does not make one thin dime from The 48 Hour T Shirt Project. All (100%) of the profits go to the student designers involved. In fact, your order goes directly to the designer, not to me.)

This T is no longer available. But feel free to direct fan mail or inquiries about your order to: derek@firehousedesigns.net.

Sign up to be notified via email when the next design debuts on Monday, December 8, here.

* * *

The 48-Hour T-Shirt Project is proudly sponsored by The Murketing Organization, and Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are.

In The New York Times Magazine: The Layaway

DELAYED GRATIFICATION
A new installment, for an old form of payment.

This week in Consumed, the layaway plan at KMart and Sears:

Kmart has struggled for years to change its image as the has-been retailer competing with more up-to-date rivals like Wal-Mart and Target, so hyping such a musty, old-school service seems risky, to say the least. But times have changed, Aiello says. “When we talked to customers, they gave us a lot of credit,” he says. “They didn’t see it as tired or a throwback. They saw it as a really great solution.” And not just fixed-budget consumers, he asserts, but also “more affluent people who see it as a risk-free way to get something while it’s in stock, at the price they want to pay.” At Sears, he adds, layaway’s comeback was a direct result of consumers simply asking for it.

Red the column in the November 30, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

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

“Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”

You’ll buy anything? Good for you! You’re stoking American innovation!

One last thing before we* head out for the long weekend, a weekend potentially including holiday shopping:

I read this article in The Economist, about whether or not the U.S. is falling behind in innovation. The guy who makes that case the U.S. still has innovation advantages makes several interesting arguments, but the one that most intrigues me is this:

The extraordinary willingness of its consumers to try new things. Mr Bhidé insists that such “venturesome consumption” is a vital counterpart to the country’s entrepreneurial business culture.

That’s definitely something I’m going to look into. It’s a pretty fascinating argument, given that everybody’s talking about The New Frugality and everything. Could it be that America’s much-questioned (including by me) relationship to consumption is actually our secret weapon??

A more serious follow-up on this to come. (Among other things, seems to Americans are perfectly willing to buy innovations — or novelties — regardless of what country they come from.) Your thoughts appreciated.

[* When I say “we,” mean “possibly you.” The Murketing Organization does not observe holidays. Nor does it go shopping for holiday gifts, as its non-gift-receiving friends will attest.]

Do not skip this post: The 48 Hour T-Shirt Is Coming…!

NOTE: [Especially if you’re coming to this link from Coolhunting: The first T is available NOW (until 10 a.m. eastern 12/3), go here. Or if you’re too late for that be notified of the next one by signing up here, or just checking back at Murketing.com.]

Ladies and gentlemen … friends and enemies … readers and passers-by:

The Murketing Organization is extremely excited to announce The 48-Hour T-shirt project. (Download colorful and informative flier here.)

This project involves the creation of three T-shirts, each by a talented up-and-coming student designer. Each T will be for sale for precisely 48 hours, exclusively via Murketing.com.

T-shirts will be revealed and announced and made available for purchase on Monday December 1; Monday December 8; and Monday December 15.

Each design is inspired by actual academic research related to consumer behavior. That’s right! It’s a lesson in consumer behavior — and you can consume it! Ironic? Hypocritical? Or … fiendishly clever?

You decide. –> All T’s priced at this incredibly reasonable and affordable figure: $18.

I’ve seen the designs, and they’re all awesome. Stop by Murketing.com on the dates mentioned above, or sign up here to be notified when each design is revealed:

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[Be sure to check your junk/spam folder — this is a double opt-in list setup, so there’s a confirmation step.]

Read all the details after the jump. But know this: All (100%) of the profits go to the student designers listed above.

The 48-Hour T-Shirt Project is proudly sponsored by The Murketing Organization, and Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are.

Additional details as follows:

Please continue…

Flickr Interlude

Tabula Rasa Consumerata, originally uploaded by tnachtrab.

Query to those who read Murketing via RSS: pr0n-spam problems?

A friend of the site who reads via NetNewsWire dropped me a line yesterday to say that a whole bunch of unsavory terms (and, he pointed out, at least one line from Shakespeare) were appearing at the end of the Murketing feed — some sort of porn-spam thing.

I keep an eye on my own feed via a different reader, so I hadn’t been aware of this, and nobody else has mentioned it.

Are those of you reading via RSS seeing anything similar?

Apparently this might be one explanation. My tech team (which is me) is looking into the matter, but if you have anything to report, please let me know, it will help my troubleshooting greatly. Thanks!

And obviously, apologies and so on if anything in the feed was jarringly offensive lately. (I mean anything outside of my actual posts, which I realize can be offensively lame, but that’s different.)

More on bands and brands

I don’t know much about The Fray. But when they cut a deal with ABC, they are not kidding around. Not only did they debut their newest single on [edit: a promo for Lost during — see comments] Grey’s Anatomy (“Viewers will be directed to abc.com, where they can find a three-minute version of the clip as well as a link to iTunes; there they can buy the single, which goes to radio the next day”), Billboard reports:

The partnership between ABC and the Fray … also includes an agreement for the band to appear on the American Music Awards, “Good Morning America” and the outdoor concert series on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” ABC will use “You Found Me” as the promo song for this season of “Lost,” and discussions are underway to use the band’s music on sister channel ESPN during the height of football season.

Wow. I guess somebody still believes network TV can move product!

[Via Songs For Soap.]

Does your brand have what it takes to be an instantly recognized insult?

I was amused by one bit of an AIM exchange that Jeff Staple reproduced on his Arkitip blog, between himself and somebody at Apple. The subject was the new Blackberry, which Staple was thinking of buying. Apple guy, who was appalled, replied in part:

uv tried typing on it? there’s fundamentals w/ just design philosophies….the haptic feedback screen and push down click/screen isn’t anything new…it’s cool that they’re trying to push it on their end tho…but…it’s like reebok dude….some shit is yeah…ok, i can live with…looks ok. but, at the end of the day its just………reebok.

Pretty much a bummer for the folks at Reebok to read that, I would think.

In The New York Times Magazine: Seinfeld reruns

REPEAT BUSINESS:
The selling — and reselling, and reselling — of a show that ended a decade ago.

This week The New York Times Magazine has a special issue about “Screens,” and Consumed approaches this theme with a column about … Seinfeld reruns.

Fluttering along in this blizzard of the new, there is the not-new, the still-with-us, the vintage, the classic . . . the old. Sitcom reruns, for instance, angle to keep entertaining us, over and over, and profitably. It is in that context that the “Seinfeld” promotional bus tour concluded in Las Vegas this weekend — a 30-city marketing gimmick for a show that went off the air a decade ago.

Read the column in the November 23, 2008 issue of the Times Magazine, or here.

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

“Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”

Flickr Interlude

fran, originally uploaded by John Gusky.

Caption says: “austin texas. she used to sit on the roof of a hamburger stand, but sadly, a storm blew her over.”

Dept. of Random

Josh Rubin of Coolhunting fame has crossed over from chronicler to creator with his first product: Freehands, gloves with a fold-back thumb to let you text in the cold…

Abe Burmeister of Abstract Dynamics fame has launched Outlier: clothing for cycling in the city; check it out, you urban cyclers …

Deep Glamour interview Debbie Milman; I thought I’d added Deep Glamour to the linkroll, but hadn’t, so I’m adding it now under Design/Style/Aesthetics, and adding Milman’s site too, while I’m at it. (I wish DG would add its “Quick Links” to its RSS feed.) … More fresh links on the roll coming soon…

Krink gets fresh attention from Core77 and The Dieline. Feb 24, 2008 Consumed on Krink here. …

The Buddha Machine’s new version gets attention from Boing Boing, and Disquiet has a quite good Q&A with the device’s co-creator; July 29, 2007 Consumed on earlier version of Buddha Machine here …

Ad Age‘s always-interesting Marketing 50 came out this week, and here are some of the entries that caught my eye: Flip Video (May 25, 2008 Consumed on Flip here); P&G’s Pur Flavor Options, which I’ll have to look into, let me know if you have thoughts; Honest Tea (July 3, 2005 Consumed on Honest Tea here; related Murketing post here); Vitaminwater (August 22, 2004 Consumed here); Rihanna umbrellas, which I mentioned on Murketing and probably should have written about in Consumed, but another part of the Times had already sort of covered it; and Carol’s Daughter, a brand I’ve eyed for a long time and considered writing about, but I’ve never quite been convinced; have to give it a fresh look….

Just Looking

Creepy Crawly Dinner Plate, by Foldedpigs, via The Storque.

Flickr Interlude

major credit cards accepted, originally uploaded by a nameless yeast.

To Do in NYC: Contrabrand lecture

Friend of Murketing Sonia Katyal will be speaking at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts next week:

In her talk, based on her forthcoming book from Yale Press, Contrabrand, Katyal will focus on the intersection of art, advertising, and intellectual property within the First Amendment, and to show how the law has shifted in response to accord with the constitutional challenges the branding movement has created….

Katyal will explore how brands occupy our everyday existence, as well as explain the massive cultural shift that is being played out in countless courtrooms across America, where ordinary consumers and artists have been sued by corporations for their anti-branding activities….

More here.

Monday, November 24, 2008: 6-8pm ( reception at 5:30)
VLA, 1 East 53rd Street, NY, NY 10022 (auditorium)
Artist/Student: $10 for VLA members, $15 non-members
Legal Professional: $100 for VLA members, $125 non-members

48-Hour T-Shirt

So, uh, this news about a forthcoming Murketing Organization project got out a little before I was (https://www.maulanakarenga.org/xanax-alprazolam-online/) prepared.

But … on the off chance you’ve made your way here from that Core77 blog post, and you want to be alerted when the first offering is made, please enter your email address below to join the hastily-assembled mailing list. (And check valium your junk folder and all that — it’s a double opt-in thing.)

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All you need to know for now is that the project is structured in such a way that I don’t make a dime off it. Okay? More about it here on Murketing.com at a later date.