MURKETING

Pleasing Snickers wrapper

From The Dieline:

My son recently alerted me to a stark new wrapper for Snickers that he found at a Wal-Mart in Tulsa. Not a full-fledged Snicker redesign, I don’t think. Apparently this version of Snickers is a Wal-Mart exclusive. Strikes a lot of people as sort of Soviet-looking.

A comment to the Dieline post suggests its part of a nostalgia promotion. Whatever the explanation, I like it. I also like the concept of a “Wal-Mart exclusive.”

Flickr Interlude

Balls in the air, originally uploaded by EssG.

I — or really anybody — could curate a gallery show of mannequin images from Flickr. And I think it would be pretty good.

“Spadina streetcar; new shirt, new shoes.”

Today I learned about a project called Seen Reading. Julie Wilson explains the premise:

1. I see you reading.
2. I guesstimate where you are in the book.
3. I trip on over to the bookstore and make a note of the text.
4. I let my imagination rip.
5. Readers become celebrities.
6. People get giddy and buy more books

Interesting, no?

I know about it of course because what she saw someone reading most recently was Buying In. Read/listen to results here.

The most interesting bit is what she’s referring to above as “I let my imagination rip.” You have to check it out to understand. Great project.

Saving the world from dystopian corporation — while touting cool brand?

I haven’t seen Wall-E, but yesterday someone* was telling me about it. I wasn’t taking notes but Wikipedia says much what she was saying about the movie’s plot. (Spoiler alert!) Here’s the context:

In the 22nd century, the megacorporation Buy n Large assumed every economic service on Earth, including the government. Overrun by un-recycled waste, the planet eventually became so polluted that it could no longer support life. In an attempt to keep humanity alive, Buy n Large sponsored a five-year exodus to outer space aboard massive executive starliners…

Etc. Etc. So Wall-E, who I guess is technically a Buy n Large product, eventually saves the day, or whatever.

Anyway, details aside, the point seems to be that a rampant corporation took over the world and didn’t give a rat’s ass about the ecology, and so on: Profit motive runs amok.

So it’s interesting to read that according to Ad Age, this article deconstructing the product-placement style used in the film. Read more

Obama merch of the day

“Barack In the Day,” the most amusing of many selections at DemocraticStuff.com. I’m not sure what it has to do with his actual candidacy, but as long as he’s a pop culture figure, why not recontextualize Obama as a sort of campy 70s TV figure? Via On The Ground Looking Up.

Fresh links in the roll

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the lengthy roll of links to be on the right-hand side of this page (assuming you’re looking at the Murketing site itself and not the RSS feed).

Here’s what I’ve added today:

I’ve had a couple of things brought to my attention just recently that I’m adding. One will be filed under Critiques, and is called the Consume®econnection Project: “A year-long effort to meet the laborers and craftsmen who build what I buy – and put a human face on consumption.”

Also added to the Critiques section: Buy-By Brian (see Murketing Q&A here) and the Obsessive Branding Disorder blog.

The other blog just brought to my attention is Wasted Food, which belongs to Jonathan Bloom, who
is writing a book on wasted food in America. I’m adding it to the Unconsumption section.

I thought that Sivacracy.net, featuring fellow UT grad Siva Vaidhyanathan among others, was already in the list, but it wasn’t, so now it is, under Various Other Friends. Also added to that section: Curious Capitalist, co-written by Justin Fox of Time Magazine.

To the Artists section, I’ve added Harriete Estel Berman and Valerie Green.

To the Sustenance section, I’ve added The Restricted Foodie, by friend of Murketing Lori Greenberg, “a woman of food, in spite of an insidious array of food allergies.”

I’ve added Mudd Up! to the Music section.

I’m also adding Animal New York. I tend to disagree with their constant slamming of Shepard Fairey and KAWS, among others — but they do have good stuff that I link to all the time. Probably they’ll be annoyed to be in the Brand Underground section … so that’s where it goes. Heh. On a related note I just realized Susannah Breslin/Reverse Cowgirl is contributing to Animal, and although I’d lost touch with her blog, I’m looking at it again and so I added it too, to the Hard To Categorize section. (It’s “Pornographic Coolhunting,” so decide for yourself whether that suggests it will be “safe for work” or whatever.)

Finally, to the Solipsism section, I’ve added my GoodReads profile.

Dept. Of Totally Lame: Starring Fedex

Okay so I’ll just tell you up front this is basically a brief rant about my annoyance with FedEx — a self-indulgent post, but that would seem to be the point of having a site like this, to indulge, no?

So early last week my main computer died, or rather was killed by me, and I badly needed a new one, very quickly. I ordered one up online, and went ahead and sprung for the fastest and of course most expensive shipment option — Fedex Priority. This meant I’d get my machine by 10:30 the next morning. Read more

More shameful listening

Quasi-follow-up to this post: Looks like there’s one of those tag things going around, asking people to name the five “guiltiest pleasures” on their iPods. (No word on whether Zune loyalists can participate.) Here’s what Marginal Revolution says. Here’s what Asymmetrical Information says.

An interesting music-and-identity moment — essentially you can brag about what you’re not guilty about admitting you like!

Give me a $4 latte or give me death

The civic crisis sparked by the closer of 600 Starbucks locations rolls on.

The L.A. Times mulls the potential loss of access to lattes in inner-city neighborhoods, a column headlined “A closing Starbucks is a symbol of lost hope and luxury.”

Starbucks is about more than a cup of coffee in many neighborhoods. That block-letter logo on a strip mall marquee can be considered a public stamp of approval, a symbol of hope, a suggestion of brewing economic vitality.

That’s why a new Starbucks in the inner city tends to produce the kind of excitement that suburban neighborhoods reserve for the debut of a Bloomingdale’s….

The writer visits a couple of locations in south L.A. that are on the closure list; neither is doing much business. An inquiry to the company gets her a response about “shareholder value.”

The losers are those loyal customers who considered it a privilege to join the cultural mainstream, sipping overpriced Frappuccinos. For them, losing the neighborhood Starbucks is a rebuke that stings.

The Dallas Morning News (via Starbucks Gossip) says:

Starbucks is an iconic brand that means something more than just a company. It’s become a sign of middle-class American modishness. To get a Starbucks in your neighborhood meant that you were validated, in some sense…

For Starbucks to leave means that your part of town, in terms of social psychology, is downwardly mobile. That, I think, is what most rattles folks about losing their Starbucks, even if they rarely went there. It’s a status thing.

Well I just hope this continues to gather momentum. I want the presidential candidates to be grilled about this crucial issue at town-hall forums: What do you plan to do, Senator, about the loss of Starbucks locations and resulting status diminution of the affected communities?

Foreclosures and bank failures — that’s one thing. But we’re talking about a loss of access to the “cultural mainstream” here! Maybe a government bailout is in order. …

Also: From the comments to yesterday’s related post, Braulio contributes this link to an interactive “Save Your Starbucks” feature on Slate.

[7/23 Update: Via uncivilsociety.org, more Starbucks lamentation in Newark: “The cafe in downtown Newark is in some ways unique, a high-profile sign to all the people who fear the city that life is normal.”]

‘Buying In’: Event in D.C., and on GoodReads

On Wednesday, August 6, at 7 pm, I’ll be reading (or at least talking) and answering questions and signing at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. According to me, it will be “casual and fun,” and there might even be another limited-edition poster…. More on that  soon (I hope).

And in the non-physical world, I’ll be answering questions online at GoodReads.com, from August 11 through August 22 — though you can post questions anytime before that as well, right here. If you’re a GoodReads user who has marked the book “to read,” well, I hope you’ll read it and join in. Or if you’ve read it already. Or if you just want to stop by and haze me. Your call.

Collective action to “save” Starbucks?

Some say Americans won’t get together to support a cause, to fight for what matters to them. It isn’t so! People are banding together to make a difference — by trying to convince a multinational corporation not to close up shop in their city or town. They’re fighting to Save Our Starbucks.

In towns as small as Bloomfield, N.M., and metropolises as large as New York, customers and city officials are starting to write letters, place phone calls, circulate petitions and otherwise plead with the coffee company to change its mind.

Perhaps the Starbucks brand isn’t as troubled and reviled as some recent analyses would suggest? It’s hard to imagine a Save Our Walmart campaign. Then again, you never know.

Via Starbucks Gossip, which also points out this article, in which an analyst concludes that “about 54 percent of the locations [slated for closure] are within about two miles of another Starbucks.”

Dept. of What, Exactly, Did You Expect?

Subhead in the WSJ today about a Virgin Mobile promotion: “Strip-Video Requests To Help Teen Charities Ended After Complaints.”

It’s like this:

A few weeks ago, Virgin Mobile launched “Strip2Clothe,” inviting people to send videos of themselves undressing. For each video posted, it agreed to donate a new piece of clothing to nonprofit groups that help homeless youth.

Turns out, some people complained! Can you believe it?

Flickr Interlude

funland, originally uploaded by crookhaven.

“Home of happiness and laughter.” One of many very nice images recently contributed by crookhaven.

In The New York Times Magazine: Girl Talk

MASH-UP MODEL:
Music you could never buy on iTunes tests the pay-what-want business model

In Consumed this week, a subject that’s come up before on Murketing (most recently last week): Girl Talk, the Pittsburgh-based musical-collage-maker.

It’s one thing for various name-brand artists to dabble with giveaways. It’s something else for a creator who has operated artistically, financially and even legally outside the structures of the traditional recording business for his entire career to do so. Will “Feed the Animals” make Girl Talk a rock star? And what would that even mean?

Read the column in the July 20, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

Illegal Art site is here; direct link to access Feed The Animals is here.

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

Music, identity, shame, irony, and Styx

Interesting Pop Matters rave for Girl Talk here. I’m particularly interested in this:

I used to keep bands like Styx and Electric Light Orchestra out of my iTunes library—despite liking many of their songs—for fear someone cooler than me would see it and scoff. Although that never happened, I do recall doing it to people on more than one occasion. No longer will I laugh when the first artist in someone’s iTunes is 2Pac. Girl Talk has made it more than just ironic to like bands like Heart, Cat Stevens, and Puff Daddy – he’s made it cool again. He’s shown me (and probably others) that there can be just as much musical value in a mainstream, MTV rap song as there is in an Icelandic minimalist techno song, or sometimes even more.

I’ve had several parallel discussions with various people about music and identity lately, and this hits on one of the themes: The music we shun.

Related note: If I’m reading it right, the guy who wrote this is 22 years old, and I’ve wondered lately (specifically in relation to Girl Talk’s sample selections) if people that age even recognize Heart and Styx, let alone “Jessie’s Girl.” And what about a 22-year-old in ten years? Will s/he still somehow be unable to avoid having heard “Barracuda” and “Grand Illusion” ten million times — or will that phenomenon eventually fade.

Related note to the related note: I love Puff Daddy being thrown in with Heart and Cat Stevens as equal examples of music that he liked only ironically before. (And is 2Pac really as scoff-worthy as ELO? These kids today…. )

Related note to all of the above: If I’m right that he’s 22 … pretty decent writing!