The world is papered over with advertising, that much we know. Most of it is banal, ugly, intrusive, dumb, or all of the above. Every now and then, though, someone designs clutter that can fairly surprise and delight, as in this example (scroll down to see three iterations.)
Monthly Archive for November, 2009
…ain’t good, according to emerging conventional wisdom. The money quote here: “It would appear the old model of pouring thousands of dollars into discovering a single insight and millions of dollars into one campaign just doesn’t make sense anymore. It takes too long. It costs too much. And besides, consumers want customization anyway, whether it’s the RSS feeds to which they subscribe, the apps they install on their iPhone, or the jewelry they can now design and price in real time by doing it online.”
Barbara Lippert, longtime columnist at Adweek, says she likes the overall look of the ubiquitous Gap holiday advertising — lots of red, lots of denim, lots of plaid shirts, sometimes in the form of a peace symbol (of all things) — but can’t abide the soundtrack of the television commercials. In a word, tortuous:
Just how are marketers making innovative use of Twitter? Forbes.com has posted an interesting slide show that offers a rundown of the broad variety of ways the Sell Side is giving the bird a whirl at trying to drive sales and brands awareness.
…Thanksgiving’s bountiful harvest, it’s time to gather up the family for dessert : a PETA commercial produced the occasion:
Anthropologist Grant McCracken offers a clear affirmative, per his blog post the other day. For further details, click through to the piece he cites in the online edition of the Harvard Business Review.
A couple of years ago, when I interviewed retail consultant Paco Underhill, he emphatically stated that the “brand war was over and private labels have won.” Evidence that he was right is more and more plain, including but not limited to our growing acceptance of no-name pizza.
In the book I describe how I narrowly escape an angry Canal Street vendor who suspects that I am not what I am — a defenseless guy on a research mission — but some kind of undercover gumshoe investigating the clandestine (yet openly flourishing) world of counterfeit goods. The harrowing experience came rushing back yesterday, triggered by this piece in the Times about how even fake was selling at deep discount.
A mother’s quote (concerning her daughter), plucked from the immense over-coverage of Black Friday: She’s got to have the Twilight lip gloss. Every girl at her school has it, so she’s got to have it, too. To some, a classic expression of all that sucks about American consumer culture: media-obsessed, superficial, conformist, narcotized by marketing. On the other hand, withhold that Twilight lip gloss and a kid might pay a price. In the words of the University of Michigan’s David Wooten, adolescents “use ridicule to ostracize, haze, or admonish peers who violate consumption norms.” So the question comes down to whether one caves in and buys the Twilight lip gloss, or holds out and sends the kid off to school with lips that fail the cool test. Where is the line between principle and hardheadedness?
