MURKETING

Ask Murketing (which in turn will ask you): What’s the deal with Fage yogurt?

Q: Why is “Fage” [link] suddenly everywhere? Who decided that yogurt is now supposed to be gunky? Why are people suddenly fanatical about it?

Would love your thoughts on this,

[Name redacted]

A: Uhmmmm. I don’t know. Thoughts, anybody?

Flickr Interlude

3am, Dubai Airport, originally uploaded by joiseyshowaa.

Dozens of flights land and depart between 11pm and 4am at this shiny new Dubai airport terminal.

Things and stories: What matters?

Okay, I owe you several posts, including saying something else nice about Nike, and also a follow-up on power possibly shifting to writers in the publishing game. I’ll get to it, I promise.

But first, one last line of thought on the meaning and value of objects, following the posts on the endowment effect and adaptation, and on “the tyranny of the heirloom.”

Clearly, some of the things we own mean more to us than others. An article I encountered a while ago (via Advertising Lab) summarizes some recent theorizing (and some past research) on the question of “product attachment,” which is defined as “the strength of the emotional bond a consumer experiences to a specific product.” The article focused in particular on “personalization” as a way to “stimulate the degree of product attachment.”

Example: Nike ID, where you can design your Nike, within certain parameters (swooshes are mandatory).

So here’s the argument:

By personalizing a product, an individual invests effort in the product. The outcome of the personalization process is that the consumer adds a personal touch to the product and, consequently, the product becomes more self-expressive of a person’s unique identity. Self-expression in turn has a positive effect on the degree of attachment to a product. For designers who wish to extend a product’s lifespan, it is thus a good strategy to incorporate the possibility of product personalization.

The core assertion is about narrative. Your product has a story: You designed it. You are part of your product’s story, and your product is part of your story. Hence, a “bond.”

I do not agree. Please continue…

Flickr Interlude

Toledo White Tower building needs new home!, originally uploaded by Vintage Roadside.

Want to buy (and move) a cool building in Toledo, OH? The caption explains: “This fantastic White Tower building in Toledo, Ohio needs a new home. The building must be moved to a new location to make room for a YWCA expansion. Asking price is $1.00 plus moving costs.” No joke. Details.

I wouldn’t have bought it, but I’d never sell it

Vis a vis the recent discussion here of the endowment effect, useless stuff, and storage space: I just belatedly read (via Treehugger) this NYT piece by Joyce Wadler (a Times favorite of mine, actually), on “The Tyranny of the Heirloom.”

As hard as it may be to dispose of a piece of furniture you bought with the fellow who turned out to be your ex-husband, it is far more difficult to get rid of a piece bequeathed to you by a member of a previous generation, which carries with it not only your memories, but his or hers as well.

[T]urning your back on a grandmother’s tea set or ornate settee can feel like betrayal. Admit to your family you’re thinking of getting rid of such a piece and you’re likely to kick off a family opera, with crescendoing wails of “How could you?” Quite likely, you’ll be torturing yourself with the same question.

Ambivalence and guilt, it seems, are central elements of furniture inheritance, the anchoring pieces around which everything is organized, like the sofa in a living room. Barry Lubetkin, a psychologist and the director of the Institute for Behavior Therapy in Manhattan, has observed this in a number of patients living with inherited furniture they hate. It’s an unhealthy setup, in which people become “slaves to inanimate objects,” he says. “Once you’re defining it as something you can’t get rid of, you’re not in control of your life or your home.”

Of course, as Wadler observers later in the piece, it’s never totally that easy. Even an inherited object you don’t particularly like can be meaningful — and thus hard to part with — anyway. I certainly own a few things that I would never have bought in a million years, for any price, but because they fit into the story of my life in some way (family connection, etc.) I wouldn’t sell them for any price either.

Another great example of how tricky it is to nail down the “value” of an object.

Local kids do good — thanks to brand!

Recently our local paper had an article about kids selling lemonade in the park, for a good cause (local literacy program). Typical small-town “feature” kind of thing.

I really only read it, rather belatedly as I was gathering up the recycling, because of the picture of one adorable youngster’s lemonade stand — which was sporting a prominent logo.

Turns out this four-year-old “was one of about 1,000 young entrepreneurs from around the nation selling the Crayons fruit-juice drink to collect money to support a charity of their choice.”

The article was a little vague on this, but after light clicking around I’m surmising that the kid was part of the Pink Lemonade Brigade, a “kid-empowering charity event” that involved giving a branded lemonade stands and a 100 cans of Crayons fruit drinks for up to 1,000 youngsters to set up in their communities (“anywhere there is a lot of foot traffic”), and raise money for whatever cause they want. Under the banner of Crayons fruit drinks.

What to say?

Obviously a good cause is a good cause.

On the other hand, murketing is murketing. And might I politely suggest that perhaps it would be better to be teaching our nation’s four-year-olds that they can do good deeds without being “empowered” by some brand?

Previous Murketing mention of Crayons drinks here.

To Do in Portland, OR: Soldier Portraits opening

This coming Thursday night, July 3, is the opening of (extra-special adviser to Murketing) Ellen Susan‘s Soldier Portraits show, at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland. Plus: Lecture Saturday July 5. Time and location details below.

More about the project at American Photo‘s State of the Art blog; in the June 2008 issue of Photo District News; and in the June/July 2008 issue of The South. And of course at SoldierPortraits.com. Here’s a brief extract from the latter:

The project consists of portrait photographs of soldiers of the United States Army, primarily of the 3rd Infantry Division. The goal of the project is to look at a person in military uniform and to see that person as a unique individual…

The photographs are made using the 150 year old collodion wet plate process — the same process that was used to document much of the period (and many of the soldiers) of the Civil War.

SOLDIER PORTRAITS
July 3 – August 2, 2008
Blue Sky Gallery
122 NW 8th Avenue
Portland, Oregon
Open Tuesday through Sunday, 12 – 5 pm

Opening Reception July 3, 6pm

Lecture July 5, 3pm

(Also showing: Some guy named Rauschenberg. From Texas, I think.)

–> More Soldier Portraits images are also included in group shows at Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, July 18 – August 24 and at The Photographic Resource Center, Boston, through July 2, 2008, as well as at the Jepson Center for the Arts at the Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA, through July 8, 2008.

Kindled

A while ago I brought up the question of whether anybody was interested in a Kindle version of Buying In. The response was, uh, muted. But as it turns out, through no action on my part whatsoever, such a version is now available.

It so happens that Seth Godin had an interesting post about the Kindle the other day (via Undependent). If you’re interested in the device, who is buying it, how it might evolve, and so on, I recommend checking out the whole post. (The most interesting thing to me about the Kindle is that it’s one of these weirdly divisive devices — even people who have never handled one seem to have strong opinions.)

Like Undependent, I was drawn to Godin’s passing assertion that “power is going to continue to accrue to authors with direction connections to readers.” I’m still thinking that through, particularly what “direct connections” means, exactly — or will mean.

This relates, somewhat, to the Murakami one-in-ten rule post the other day, or rather to the comment thread attached to it. Also to the Harvard Business Review article comparing Long Tail theory to sales data in certain cultural-product sales categories. And also to this recent, pessimistic Guardian piece, “Why Authors Can’t Go It Alone.”

More later.

Vuitton bag

On Arkitip.

In The New York Times Magazine: Pirate’s Booty

SNACK MENTALITY
Puffed treats that make your noshing feel a little more virtuous.

This week in Consumed, a look at a snack that seems to have drawn a crowd by way of its virtues, its quirkiness, its honest — and kept it despite some pretty serious road bumps.

Pirate’s Booty hasn’t simply leveraged unusual consumer loyalty into a business with a reported $50 million in annual revenue. It has held onto that loyalty despite incidents that would seem to cut against its image. A few years ago, the Good Housekeeping Research Institute slammed the brand after its own tests found that a one-ounce serving of Booty contained 8.5 grams of fat, not 2.5 as the label indicated. And in 2007, the company issued a recall of its Veggie Booty and Super Veggie Tings varieties after they were linked to cases of salmonella.

Included: Founder explains that “Good For You” is not so much a claim as a congratulation: “You bought this bag — well, good for you!” The product contains no MSG and no preservatives, and therefore the buyer deserves a pat on the back for choosing a snack that’s not so bad: “Wow, you chose something that is going to change your life,” he says.

Read the whole column in the June 29, 2008 issue of The New York Times Magazine, or right here.

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

AntiFriday: Special Saturday edition!: Big murketing backlash? Maybe

[Note: After spending a good deal more time than anticipated stuck in airports and so on last week, I am running late both on AntiFriday, and on responding to recent comments to various posts. Will do that soonest.]

1. WSJ says “Federal regulators are beginning an effort to crack down on stealth advertising in television shows, a move aimed at letting consumers know when companies have paid to use their products as props.” (Via Commercial Alert.) And Ad Age says: “Hollywood’s screenwriters are the latest group to write poison-pen letters to the Federal Communications Commission about Madison Avenue’s use of product integration, which jumped 39% on broadcast TV in the first quarter of 2008, according to Nielsen Product Placement Service.” (Also via Commercial Alert.)

Something people ask me about a lot lately, vis a vis the broad topic of murketing and Buying In, is this very subject: Will there be a backlash/crackdown on the specific practice of commercial persuasion leaking out of the 30-second ads you can zap through if you happen to have a DVR, and into actual shows?

It’s clear that this practice really bugs a lot of people, but up to now my answer has been: I don’t see anything indicating it will slow down. Maybe that’s changing?

Here’s a related Washington Post story. Here’s the official (and generally unimpressed) response from Commercial Alert.

2. Meanwhile, one of the better-known murketing campaigns of the moment is the one pushing Colt 45. The malt liquor brand is owned by Pabst (whose PBR is of course the subject of a chapter in Buying In). The PBR story is largely about a brand picked up by consumers, with the corporate owner amping things after the fact. The Colt 45 thing seems more synthetic, but maybe there was an awakened interest in the malt liquor that I’m not aware of.

In any case, the Colt 45 campaign has been more of a “buzz building” effort, with aggressive stunts meant to have publicity value and talk value. One effort involved indie art on brown paper bags. More recently:

Philly’s “Mural Arts Program” has painted 2,700 murals. But while most of the murals are about life, energy and color, some murals in Fishtown are all about malt liquor, Colt 45. Pabst Beer paid local businesses for some of their wall space. But the city said the quasi-murals are illegal because a permit is needed. NBC 10 called Pabst and they are not commenting on the issue. The city is still trying to see if any local advertising agencies helped them out.

That’s from Phawker. Related posts in AdFreak, and Anti-Advertising Agency. Please continue…

To Do: Boston (area) Buying In event tonight

So … If you’re in the Boston area, and you took advantage of my earlier open call to join me at an invitation-only party for Buying In, then I’ll see you tonight. And maybe you’ll even pick up an outstanding limited edition (of 50) poster by none other than Amy Jo, pictured above. (More on Amy Jo later.)

And if you’re in Boston and you simply ignored my open invitation … well … what can I tell you?

UPDATE: Huge thanks to the folks at Continuum, and to all the friends, old and new, who made it out. A very fun evening for me, and I hope for you all, too.

Endowment v. adaptation

The June 21-27 Economist has an item that mentions in passing that “the fastest-growing part of America’s commercial-property business in the last 30 years” is the self-storage business. “There are now almost seven square feet of self-storage for every American.”

That’s sort of astonishing. What in the world are people storing?

The Economist brings this up in relation to the latest research on “the endowment effect,” and suggests (not entirely seriously) that our tendency to overvalue something simply because we own it (that’s the endowment effect) explains our reluctance to pare back on useless junk — and thus we rent out storage space for it when there’s too much clutter in the home.

The endowment (or “mere ownership”) effect comes up in Buying In, but so does another basic psychological concept relevant to our consumer behavior: adaptation. The latter encompasses, basically, our tendency to overestimate how long the pleasure we associate with a new thing will last (and to overestimate how long the misery associated with some negative event will last). In the context of stuff we buy, adaptation is what clutters your closet (or storage unit): All the things that seemed awesome at the moment of purchase, and then got ho-hum, and forgotten, pretty fast.

I’ve never seen research that reconciled these two concepts, and I wonder if such a study exists. Do we actually overvalue (per endowment effect) the junk in the closet (or the storage unit)? If we do, then why is forgotten and as a practical matter unenjoyed (per adaptation)?

Is there a point where the endowment effect fades, and adaptation kicks in?

Or do the two exist simultaneously in, say, that trendy raincoat (or whatever) that you had to have when it was on-trend and there was a waiting list — but that you haven’t worn since?

That is: Is it the case that said raincoat-owner no longer gets pleasure from the thing, yet still overvalues it?

Or: Is the way the endowment effect tends to be measured (direct questions about “what would you sell this for,” etc.) so outside the realm of the way we think about stuff we own in the months/years after acquisition, that it’s just not a relevant thing to try to measure at after x amount of time?

I feel confident that most everyone reading this owns a bunch of junk that doesn’t really mean much (or have much value). Maybe some of you even have rented storage space to keep it in.

I’m also confident that it meant something (and did have value) at the moment of purchase.

I’m less confident about the moment when that meaning (and value) evaporates.

Flickr Interlude

scary clown, originally uploaded by joiseyshowaa.

Caption: “Balloon being inflated for the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. The tiny orange squares on the left (for scale) are apartment windows.”

Murakami on writing, business, and the one-in-ten rule

There was a great Haruki Murakami essay in The New Yorker a few weeks ago, but it’s not online, so it’s taken me until now to find the time to type up the passage I liked the best.

Basically Murakami writes about how for a while he owned a jazz club, then at about age 29 decided out of the blue to write a novel. When he transitioned to the writing life full-time, it meant he had to lose some friends because of the way his lifestyle changed.

But at that point, I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person but with an unspecified number of readers. My readers would welcome whatever life style I chose, as long as I made sure that each new work was an improvement over the last. And shouldn’t that be my duty — and my top priority — as a novelist?

I liked that a lot. And I have a feeling you could just substitute the word “customers” or “clients” for “readers” and this passage work for all kinds of people.

But I thought this, which followed soon after, was even better:

Even when I ran the club, I understood [that you can’t please everybody]. A lot of customers came to the club. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and decided to come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it another way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten people didn’t like the club.

Realizing this lifted a weight of my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to do that, I had make my philosophy absolutely clear, and patiently maintain that philosophy no matter what. This is what I learned from running a business.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The tricky party is the “really liked it” part.

Writing, of course, is a business. (At least for someone like me; maybe it’s differnt for a novelist.) It’s more of a business than it was when I started, actually. And it will get more that way in the future.

Like everybody else, I’m thinking about how I’ll ultimately survive in my business, which happens to be writing.

Am I doing what Murakami suggests needs to be done? I’m not always sure I am.

It’s a question that probably applies in every business.

It’s something to think about.