"
. With Pleasing manifestations of digital culture: Example
It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
<– This is an example. Via Book of Joe.
Flickr Interlude
Smut Eye Store, Smuteye, Alabama, originally uploaded by Deep Fried Kudzu.
See the full set of Smut Eye Store images here. Delightful.
[Join and contribute to the Murketing Flickr group]
AntiFriday: Twitter haters, home debranders, etc.
Murketing’s weekly roundup of backlashes, dissent, and critiques:
1. Noah Brier‘s Brand Tags project doesn’t really have anti or backlashy intentions, I don’t think, but it’s really made the rounds and is worth noting as a kind of critique-enabler. If you haven’t seen it, basically the idea is you pick a brand from a list and enter the first word that you associate with the brand, then you click for the results: A tag cloud where the size of the words shown indicates how often people have typed them in as their gut reaction to a brand.
Needless to say, those gut reactions can result in some pointedly anti sentiments.
The most interesting one to me is the cloud for Twitter, which rather prominently features reactions such as “annoying,” “pointless,” “stupid” and “useless.” Meanwhile, lots of people also seem to love Twitter, and see it as wildly important. (I’ll never forget this Johnnie Moore post in which he suggested that asking “what’s the point of Twitter?” is like asking “What’s the point of life?” So if you don’t like Twitter, kill yourself?)
I just can’t get worked up about Twitter either way. Why do people have such extreme reactions to it?
2. AdPulp points the way to Debranded Home, a site “committed to helping you reduce visual pollution by lessening brand presence in your home.” The idea is that once you’ve bought something and taken it home, “its label has served its purpose.” Debranded Home offers no-brand labels instead. (The set at right costs $9 plus shipping.) I assume the idea is you put the cleaning product or shampoo or whatever into another container of your choice, then put the new label on it. There are also how-to guides for making your own cleaners.
I suppose the noteworthy thing about this is that traditionally the argument over too-much-branding-and-advertising has been about public space. I suspect more people are bothered by branding that interrupts a walk in the park or whatever. But maybe this is the last resort, at least in your own home you can escape branding, even though it’s on stuff you actually bought?
Anyway … your thoughts?
List continues after the jump. Read more
To Do in NYC: “Buying In” event June 13
As I assume most of you know, since I can’t shut up about it, Buying In comes out June 3. On Friday the 13th of June, I’ll be in New York doing an event to promote that book.
It’s at the Art Directors Club, 106 W 29th St. I will speak and read briefly, be interviewed by Fast Company‘s Danielle Sacks, take questions, then mingle and sign books or whatever.
Barking Irons, who are in the book, will be on hand doing a live screen printing session and will sell you a T-shirt made on the spot. I’ll also be giving away some letterpress posters featuring the above design, created by F-2 Design. Also we’re working a special guest DJ set. Not only that: “Drinks and canapes will be served.” Everyone will have a wonderful time.
I hope you’ll come. Additional details (and RSVP) is here
This event would not be possible without PSFK, to who whom I say: Thank you.
Also thank you to sponsor Fast Company. That’s another thing: You can pick up the June issue of Fast Company — which just so happens to include an excerpt from Buying In — while you’re there .
Other news: Q&A with Eyecube here. Thoughtful writeups in Weatherpattern and Core77 and Lifefilter. Kind mention in Slate. Many pictures of people at Likemind events pretending to enjoy the book here. Other recent Buying In stuff here.
Flickr Interlude
Business Sign, originally uploaded by thenoodleator.
[Join and contribute to the Murketing Flickr group]
Guest Q&A: Buy-By Brian: Losing all, starting over, learning much
[Today Murketing.com brings you the latest guest Q&A, conducted by Ada Puiu, a senior at (or actually, I believe, a recent graduate of) the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. Her earlier Q&As are here and here. More about Murketing.com guest Q&As here.]
Imagine going to bed one night, waking up, and discovering everything you owned (from the sentimental to the practical to the luxury) is gone. This is exactly what happened to designer Brian Jones. After waking up on the day of his big life move from San Francisco to Chicago, Brian faced the harsh reality that the van sitting outside his home, filled with all all of his possessions, had been stolen while he slept. After trying in vain to recover some of his life, he decided to look at this tragedy as an opportunity — a way to reach a better understanding of what it means to be a consumer.
Since late-August 2007, the Buy-By Brian Blog (buybybrianblog.com) has been a virtual diary of every item Brian has had to purchase (and repurchase) in order to rebuild the material part of his life. Some things (like pictures or his work) cannot be bought back. But in the more than 100 entries he has written over the past 9 months, he has chronicled every non-disposable item he has bought, and has given his readers an insight into what factors influence his buying decisions (need/want, price, sentimentality, etc). In reading his entries, I’ve actually found myself becoming more aware of how much we consume as a culture, and how easy it is to fill our lives with “wants” rather than ‘needs’ – something I was always aware of as a business student, but rarely got the chance to see illustrated in a real-life way.
Brian was kind enough to answer some questions for this Q&A, giving a little more insight into what this project means to him.
– Ada Puiu
Q: If it’s true that “you are what you buy,” you’ve pretty much opened up your entire life to your readers. You even make a point of recounting things you’ve bought that may be out of the norm, or even embarrassing (the tweezers, for example). Have you noticed your buying habits change at all with everything being so out in the open?
A: Ha, yes. I debated with myself about the tweezers for a while. Surprisingly that’s probably the most personal thing I’ve purchased. That and all my readers know that I prefer briefs to boxers. A lot of the personal items people buy usually fall under the “disposables” category, which I decided in the beginning not to include in this project.
As terrible as it was to lose all that I did, it was extremely liberating. I actually don’t like buying things now. After seeing how simple and clutter-free my life can be, every purchase makes me feel that much more weighed down. However, this conflicts quite a bit with me writing a blog about the things I buy. Sometimes I actually feel like I should go shopping just because it’s been two weeks since I posted something.
How much of what you’ve bought has actually replaced what you used to have, and how much has been things you’ve always wanted but never got around to purchasing? Read more
Annals of totally inappropriate brand loyalty
Who would do this? Do you understand what a tattoo is?
Anyway: A particularly sad image from a Radar Online photo gallery called “Bad Tattoos,” which is very funny, and connected to a book called No Regrets. Via BB.
You bought it you break it: In action
The previously noted Fragile Salt And Pepper set demonstrated in this short video on Core77.
I do like the idea of breaking something. I mean of breaking something that’s supposed to be broken.
I could see this product being a smash. Ahahahahahahahahaha!
Dead brands Q&A
If you happen to have clicked through the link in the entry below about the “what’s a dead brand worth?” story where I mentioned I’d be responding to reader questions, you may have perused those 178 queries and wonder why I haven’t answered any. In fact I have. But you have to follow a different link to see the things I chose to answer and the answers I gave. That, if you’re curious, is here.
Flickr Interlude
John Deere #6, originally uploaded by Dshalock the Libertarian Emperor.
[Join and contribute to the Murketing Flickr group]
In The New York Times Magzine: The Taser C2
SHOCK VALUE:
The Kleenex of stun guns brands balances sleek gadgetry with “take-down power.”
This week in Consumed, a look at the newest and most consumer-friendly version of … the Taser.
That would be “the Taser C2 Personal Protector, a model that is, if not exactly kinder and gentler, then at least more innocent-looking. Also: it’s available in pink and in a leopard print.”
Why the new form factor for the device?
“We finally listened to the customer,” Taser’s Steve Tuttle says. The customer was not comfortable carrying something that would cause people to dive under tables yelling, “Gun!” if you took it out in a restaurant. The customer liked sleek gizmos, and vibrant, fashionable colors. The customer wanted something light and small enough to put in a handbag. Of course, the customer still wanted to propel tiny electrodes up to 15 feet, affecting “the sensory and motor functions” (as the company Web site puts it) of whomever they strike, with “incredible takedown power.”
Read the column in the May 18, 2008 issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.
In The New York Times Magazine: What Is A Dead Brand Worth?
In addition to Consumed, I have a feature story in the May 18, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine. It’s about brands and memory — and a company that’s trying to build (or rebuild) businesses out of nothing more than what’s in our heads.
I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope you give it a look. You can read it online now, right here.
As always, I would love to know what you think. Usually I entertain questions and criticisms and comments here. But for this story, the Times Mag will have me answering questions on its site. I’m telling you about this a little early, before most mag readers will be aware of it, so I hope you’ll go over there and post. My answers will begin appearing there on Monday.
Here’s one bit from the story:
By and large, examinations of successful branding tend to focus on names like Harley-Davidson, Apple, or Converse, which have developed “cult” followings. Such cases are misleading, though, because they are not typical of most of what we buy. A great deal of what happens in the consumer marketplace does not involve brands with zealous loyalists. What determines whether a brand lives or dies (or can even come back to life) is usually a quieter process that has more to do with mental shortcuts and assumptions and memories — and all the imperfections that come along with each of those things.
There’s also some interesting stuff about memory research, the licensing business, commercial Americana, brands and the brain, and so on. Check it out.
Thingdown: You Buy It, You Break It … and more….
Time for another fortnightly Weekend Thingdown. This isn’t a list of stuff to buy. It’s just a list of stuff that’s interesting. Continues after the jump.
AntiFriday
I’ll be honest: Slim pickings this week in dissent, critiques, and backlashing. Here’s all I can offer you.
1. A Christian group (“The Resistance”) is calling for a boycott of Starbucks on the theory that its logo is offensive. Significant? Uh, well, no. But I like the reverse-anti tone of the Starbucks Gossip item on the subject: “Christian group doesn’t have anything better to do than protest Starbucks’ logo.”
2. Wal-Mart opening thwarted in Chicago: Wal-Mart got the word from city officials last month that Mayor Richard Daley doesn’t want to risk a messy showdown with unions over Wal-Mart—like the big-box store battle of 2006—while Chicago is still in the running as a host city for the 2016 Olympics, according to people familiar with the matter,” says The Chicago Tribune. Via Wake Up Wal-Mart.
3. The Orlando Sentinal comes out against “Bus Radio, the prerecorded music-and-advertising programming being broadcast to students,” in Seminole County, Florida. I guess it plays on the bus. Isn’t weird that we live in a time when someone has to editorialize against an advertising medium tied directly to the school system? No? Okay, I’ll take your word for it.
4. Too Much Packaging Material. Via Treehugger.
That’s all folks. Hopefully next week will be more pessimistic. I’m optimistic!
.
.
Kim Fellner's book 
.
A