MURKETING

In The New York Times Magazine: Involuntary branding

CROSSOVER POP
One of the longest-running — and weirdest — unsolicited celebrity endorsements

Insane Clown Posse mention Faygo a lot and spray concertgoers with it during shows. This has resulted in one of the longest-running instances of an unsolicited celebrity endorsement.

Read the column in the August 29, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Fruit branding

BANANA DEMOCRACY
A design campaign that has made the most of minimal packaging.

Humans have always noticed novelty, but it’s harder to get our attention in the multicolored and abundant context of a megamart, where one heap of bananas looks much like another. This makes it all the more impressive that Chiquita has received so much notice by being creative with the little blue stickers that adorn its flagship fruit

Read the column in the August 22, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Books, the idea

SHELF EXPRESSION
Physical books’ bright future — as decorative objects and props.

Set aside any emotional attachment you may feel toward the reading of physical books; the truth is that creative uses for books that do not involve engaging with words on a page already abound.

Read the column in the August 8, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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Yes, this column is the culmination of my long-running musings on this subject, here and here.

In The New York Times Magazine: Designer diapers

THE BORN IDENTITY
Designer diapers join the repertory of child-as-prop tools.

Even in penny-pinching times, parents still want to demonstrate how well (or at least tastefully) they are bringing up baby. Designer diapers are a useful tool for sending that message. And perhaps more to the point, they are also an extension of the well-established tendency among contemporary parents to treat their children as identity props.

Read the column in the August 1, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Digital Antiquing

BRILLIANT MISTAKES
Band handwriting, warped vinyl, flawed images: Digital tools ape them all

Progress toward perfection has genuine skeptics, who insist on sticking with marginalized tools. The newer thing may seem less flawed or simply easier, such traditionalists insist, but it sacrifices warmth, soul, depth, personality, chance and the human touch. They must have a point, because practically every antiquated creative process ends up inspiring some kind of digital filter, effect or add-on designed explicitly to mimic its singular properties. The upshot is a form of progress toward perfecting flaws.

Read the column in the July 25, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Semiotics of Abandonment

ART WITH ABANDON
Adding color to the visual language of unused property

This isn’t utopian-future optimism but a kind of joyful celebration right in the midst of challenging reality. More to the point: In the lingering hangover of the real estate bust, unoccupied housing has become a much more familiar feature of neighborhoods, urban and suburban, that is hardly limited to Detroit.

Read the column in the July 11, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Fate of a new global tchotchke

HAVING A BLAST:
Why a plastic commodity became a cultural signifier.

The meaning(s) of the souvenir that tourists carry home will ultimately be shaped by the nature of the surprisingly heated disagreement.

Read the column in the July 4, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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– > By the way: MKTG Tumblr vuvuzela-stuff tracked here.

In The New York Times Magazine: True gadget transparency

OPEN SECRETS:
Technology has made the consumer marketplace transparent – sometimes.

We’re accustomed to finding what we want with a simple click, but a lot remains murky until bad news pushes it into the open. … What if finding out where and how our stuff was made was as easy as finding the lowest price or peer opinions? What impact would it have on consumer choices? Wouldn’t that be a more meaningful form of transparency in a global economy?

Read the column in the June 27, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Merit badges

LIFELONG EARNING
The appeal of the (sort of) grown-up, geeky merit badge

Much about the function of the merit badge actually fits pretty neatly with the spirit of the time. The nagging sense of needing to acquire new skills, all the time, is palpable. That anxiety dovetails with a self-improvement ethos that fills whole sections of bookstores, cross-matched with the various ways technology prods us to tabulate parodic amounts of personal-behavior data. If we rack up badges for our online “achievements,” we may as well do the same for our offline victories, too. And if we use a form associated with preadulthood, it makes sense, since all of the above comes with a chaser of nostalgia and widespread reluctance to completely put away childish things.

Churlish? To the contrary, I can’t think of a more sweetly upbeat response to a turbulent culture than an actual grown-up sporting a merit badge.

Read the column in the June 13, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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In The New York Times Magazine: Bumper-sticker meanings

STUCK ON YOU:
Analyzing what bumper stickers say about drivers — and to whom.

Who cares what strangers in other cars think about you? One answer is that a lot of people must care or there would be no such thing as bumper stickers.

Read the column in the June 6, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.

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