MURKETING

Flickr Interlude

Rob Walker — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:09:05 +0000

The mighty fiberglass rooster, originally uploaded by Vintage Roadside.

Seen in his natural environment – on a mini-mart rooftop in Longview, Washington.

Linkpile

Rob Walker — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:06:06 +0000

Design and supply chains: “The answer ‘focus on the user experience’ is not enough for a company, it is just the starting point.”
Design is not about solving problems: “Obviously designers do solve problems, but then so do dentists. Design is about cultural invention.”
Crocs Shoe Company On Last Legs?: “The company’s toast. They’re zombie-ish. They’re dead and they don’t know it.”
Piggy Bank | Significant Objects: “My Daddy shouts at me when I go near the piggy bank, and he screams when I turn it upside down.” Story by Matthew De Abaitua.

These links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious. Not enough stuff? Not the stuff you wanted? Try visiting unconsumption.tumblr.com, murketing.tumblr.com, and/or the Consumed Facebook page.

Starbucks, looking for “personality”

Rob Walker — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:00:28 +0000

As you may have read, Starbucks is testing out the idea of removing the Starbucks name from some of its locations, remodeling and renaming them, so that they look more like neighborhood coffee places. A Starbucks brand honcho says the idea is to give these locations “a community personality.”

Insofar as these coffee shops remain, in reality, disguised outposts of a ubiquitous multinational, this is obviously a completely synthetic version of “community personality.” It’s reminiscent of the big breweries putting out new brands that look like craft beers, or mass-market clothing brands tweaking product lines to get the “handmade” look, among other examples. In this case it seems that Starbucks sent out some of their experts on this matters to sit around actual local coffee shops to take notes and crib ideas. One Seattle coffee shop owner, such visitors returned many times over the period of a year, toting “obnoxious folders that said ‘Observation.’”

Presumably such detailed ethnographic study is necessary, for the chain’s new indie-simulacrum locations to be sufficiently, you know, authentic.

Linkpile

Rob Walker — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:35:18 +0000

From ‘Thriller’ to Matt Harding: Why we love watching people dance online: “Is the appeal instinctual? Sociological? Psychological?”
Near Future Laboratory » Blog Archive » Objectified: Interesting writeup.
Off-the-Wall Tallies of Jackson’s Sales: Interesting breakdown of unreliable music sales figures.
Fred Flintstone Pez Dispenser | Significant Objects: “His teal shirts. His oddly-shaped ears.” Story by Claire Zulkey.

Linkpile

Rob Walker — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:02:03 +0000

Interesting MJ sales spike detail:: “Fans are choosing CDs over digital albums,” says LA Times. Makes sense.
Dude Craft: Here’s Value: About a shoe-maker’s process video. Interesting. (Thx: Amy!)
The Last “Superman” Phone Booths In NYC » INFRASTRUCTURIS: Gallery, in Infrastructurist.
Chris Giorgio’s custom-painted caps: Uniwatch interview about the “one-of-a-kind designs that he makes to order.”

Significant Objects: Assessing the early results

Rob Walker — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:45:02 +0000

[The below cross-posted at Significant Objects]

Significant Objects launched one week ago — which means the auctions for our five opening-day items have ended.

Let’s take stock, shall we?

For all the items we’re listing, the opening price is the amount we paid for the object at a thrift store, yard sale, or whatever. The Sanka ashtray with story by Luc Sante was priced at $1, ultimately sold for $17.79. Matthew Battles wrote about a Candyland labyrinth game that cost a mere 29 cents. It sold for $11.50. The cow-shaped creamer with story by Lucinda Rosenfeld was $1, and sold for $26; The JFK bust that Annie Nocenti wrote a story about cost $2.99, and also went for $26. The 50-cent “Chili cat” for which Lydia Millet invented significance was purchased for $22.72.

Now, I would certainly agree with the comments to the Freakonomics blog’s item about this project that this not a new way for writers to make a living. But of course we never had any idea that someone would suggest such an interpretation: This is a creative project, not a business plan!

That said, let’s face it: People are finding new value in these Significant Objects. There are a lot of other things you can buy for $26, but bidders found enough significance in some of these things-with-stories to spend it here. Just for fun, consider the results in percentage terms. The Sanka ashtray was worth 1,679% more with Luc Sante-added significance. And Matthew Battles’ invented backstory to the Candlyand game boosted its value by more than 3,800%!

Of course that’s just one way to measure such things. And it’s even harder to pick apart the exact nature of this new value. The story is a factor, and so, perhaps, is the devotion of a given storyteller’s fan base. The object itself comes into play: Some must be more pleasing on their own merits than others. And of course there’s secondary attention: Last week this project was written up in The New Yorker’s books blog, BoingBoing, and so on. How much impact does that have? Eyecube raised some interesting related questions about all this. (Others have, too, check the sidebar on significantobjects.com for more links to what others have said.)

What do you think? Please share your comments and theories at SignficantObjects.com. (Or post on your own blog/etc. and let us know.)

Meanwhile, we’re very excited that people are in fact buying — the writers involved in this project contributed stories in a spirit of fun and adventure without knowing what would happen, and we of course want the amazing work they did to be appreciated. Two more auctions will end tomorrow, both pieces I like quite a bit: Mark Frauenfelder’s story about a miniature bottle, and Ben Greenman’s on a smiling mug. Also, if the prices I mentioned above sound intimidating, check out some of the other stories, because in my opinion there are still a number of surprising bargains.

And after all this talk about bidding and monetary value, it’s important to close with a different thought: This project is not about the profit motive. The contributors to Significant Objects are coming up with a startling array of great stories, and we’re publishing a new one every day. In fact James Parker’s story will be posted momentarily. So keep coming back to read and enjoy them, and even comment on them, whether you intend to bid or not.

Get stories daily by email by signing up here, or follow Significant Objects on Twitter at @SignificObs.

Linkpile

Rob Walker — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:42:37 +0000

Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State: The interesting part comes on the second page: “The fact that both of these important brain networks become active together suggests that mind wandering is not useless mental static. Instead, Schooler proposes, mind wandering allows us to work through some important thinking. Our brains process information to reach goals, but some of those goals are immediate while others are distant. Somehow we have evolved a way to switch between handling the here and now and contemplating long-term objectives. It may be no coincidence that most of the thoughts that people have during mind wandering have to do with the future.”
Skin Whitening A Global Practice: Fascinating NPR segment: “Commercials and advertisements for skin lightening products are often not shy about suggesting the lighter the skin, the more likely the chances of meeting a beautiful girl or landing a dream job. One ad for Active White shows a woman with glowing white skin after using the product and then asks, “What man could resist her?” And another controversial ad for Emami’s Fair and Handsome that ran in India in 2007 showed the most famous Bollywood actor trying to wipe away the skin of a dark brown man’s face.”
How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck: Graphic form.

In The New York Times Magazine: The Uniform Project

Rob Walker — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:50:55 +0000

THIS YEAR’S MODEL:
Wearing one dress for 365 days sounds austere — but not in this case.

Rules stifle creativity and enforce conformity. Rules can do something else too: inspire creativity that thwarts conformity. Anyone who has observed a pack of kids in school uniforms will note the individualistic tweaks: rolled cuffs here, an accessory there; whatever loopholes in the sartorial rule book can be found are promptly exploited. Sheena Matheiken certainly noticed such things when she was just such a child, attending schools in Kerala, India, where uniforms were the rule.

In May, Matheiken, who these days is the creative director for a Web-design company in New York, started the Uniform Project, which involves wearing the same dress every day for a year, and seeing just how aesthetically creative she could be despite that limitation….

Read the column in the July 12, 2009, New York Times Magazine, or here.

Discuss, make fun of, or praise this column to the skies at the Consumed Facebook page.

[PS: PSFK has an interesting follow-up here: "While not explicitly mentioned in the interview, Matheiken’s project is an interesting social commentary on the blight of “fast fashion” (garments with less than a one year shelf life), which is wreaking havoc on our environment, textile manufacturers, and perhaps even the fashion industry itself."]

Linkpile

Rob Walker — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:45:55 +0000

Christoph Morlinghaus’ photos of mega-churches: Very nice. Via Coudal.
Revenge is sweet but corrosive: Study finds “while we think revenge will make us feel better after an injustice, it seems to have the opposite effect and makes us feel more unhappy.”
Pinakothek: Hilobrow curates a selection from Luc Sante’s “series of imaginative, incisive readings of tintype photos, 45 RPM record labels, cigarette-paper packs, torn dustjackets, and other paper ephemera unearthed from his crazy, mixed-up files.”
Billy Mays pitches from beyond the grave: “Sales of Mighty products have increased about 25% since Mays’ death, McAlister said. It’s unclear whether Mays’ death inspired the jump.”
Rebranding Africa: By Bono. That’s right — an essay called REBRANDING AFRICA. Written by BONO. I think we can all go home now.
“Mancession:” A “recession that hurts men much more than women.” This coinage is a stretch, to put it mildly. It does not feel necessary, and it doesn’t feel linguistically natural. (Even hecession would be slightly — but not much — better.) Rather it is the awkward mushing together of two words in a way that is dischordant, instead of harmonious. It calls attention to itself in the wrong way. Thus I say that’s a portmanteau that has failed: a portmanqué.

Weekend reading? Significant Objects of course!

Rob Walker — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:54:39 +0000

From yesterday & today:

Santa Nutcracker + Story by Kurt Andersen: This one might surprise you. It surprised me.
Pen Stand + Story by Lizzie Skurnick. Nice.
Necking Team Button + Story by Susannah Breslin. This has sparked a bidding war — $36.88 at last check!
Toy Toaster + Story by Jonathan Goldstein. “Twenty years after the man’s death, I still can’t rightly say whether my uncle Dwayne was a benevolent old-timey Grandpa Walton type or a secret sadistic performance artist.” Keep reading here.

Stop thinking about marketing; stop thinking about Twitter. Read some great stories. And have a nice weekend.