I got a Tassimo Machine today, a lovely gift from the nice people at Tassimo Canada, and from my dear friend Erin who recommended me.
Expect a detailed post on attention industry about the promotion, and my thoughts / impressions.
Who’s the bigger hipster: jeans/leggings guy, or fedora/shemaugh/unlocking his fixie guy?
(The second guy is Guy)
[I’m reading Adland by James P Othmer on my staycation this week, before starting my new gig. A comment on the impending death of brands and branding by Rick Webb that is quoted in the book got me thinking.]
I’m a very strong believer in badge theory, the idea that people make purchases, intentionally or subconsciously, to help establish cues to their identity. Where I step away from some interpretations is in my assumption that you are seeing indications of, and purchases for, the persona a consumer wants to project, rather than some deeper, truer internal self.
I suppose I didn’t consider, until I read this quote, that looking at building a brand as a set of signifiers that people will want to incorporate into a projected identity might be doing it backwards.
[I’ll be spending the rest of this piece trying to make that last sentence clearer.]
I’m considering that it may be time to stop worrying about building brands, and to start worrying about building people.
Conversations about target markets and what appeals to them are standard. What worries me is the next step is to focus on the people-on-paper in terms of what they will react to, and not who they want to be perceived as being. Focusing on what brand people will react to is to be forever tying your brand to the actual consumer identity, the persona of research and proof, rather than the projected self, the person each of us is building to face the world.
[Despite an ongoing love-affair with authenticity, I’d argue most people just react well to ‘being true to yourself’, which is code for internal consistency and a predictable range of what you will, and will not do. Stepping outside of that range, even if it is ‘authentic’, will be met with hostility.]
Imagine designing your messaging with a different process - your product positioning based on the person your research says is currently making up your customer base, and the person you think they would be willing to pay good money to be perceived as. This isn’t cynical, any more than it was when a friend made a comment to me today about ‘Dressing for the job you want, not the one you have’. People are obsessed with presenting themselves as they want to be, not as they are.
The complex part is, for many brands, this is seemingly interchangeable from what they currently do. A BMW says you are a BMW person, and is most likely purchased because it makes a clear statement about your success, interest in quality, and restrained-but-still-obvious flashiness.
But in the endless world of niches that seems to be making up the future of business, targeting yourself carefully at the type of person a segment of your customers want to become, makes sense.
The problem is, it’s easy to put the cart before the horse, and try to build a brand that people will react to; this is what the vast majority of ‘ethical’ brands to - focus on what they mean, rather than what people will use them to indicate.
You mean precisely what people want you to say about them. You’re building people, not brands. Plan like it.
Reblogging myself - staycation edition.
Being unproductive isn’t a curse, or a failure - if the situation allows for unproductivity.
I don’t know about you, but I have good ideas when I let my brain idle, and only good solutions when I am constantly pointing it at a task. Being able to generate good solutions is hugely important to me, but just as satisfying is the generation of a good idea.
I take some time to be unproductive, because it often results in ideas that drive me into another productivity cycle.
Don Draper, Mad Men (via jessicachu)
This was the moment Don Draper became my hero. Because I’ve said soulless shit like this. I’ve meant it. I’ve reveled in the ability of words like this to just fucking wreck someone.
And then, in other moments, I’ve realized exactly how wrong I was. And found joy in how that in no way impacts the truth or power of the statement made at the time.
Words are beautiful. And they are used by guys like me to sell everything, whether it be a product, an ideology, a decision or a fear.
(via joncrowley)
And how is this not a pursekersack? (Woman’s Purse and Knapsack?) Because some dude I dress like is modeling it?
I hate you.
I’m sorry, I find this headline hysterical. It doesn’t even matter what it’s about. It just is.
If you guys are talking about Canada in an effort to get my attention, it’s working.
I wrote an epic, pointless, poorly thought out pro-Canadian, US-bashing response to this, but Tumblr ate it.
I can only recall the last line: Go ahead and mock us. I can break my leg without declaring bankruptcy.
Lisa Loeb- Stay ( I missed you)
I remember how much 12 year old me REALLY got this song.
And don’t pretend you don’t fucking love this song, jerks!
In college, my friend George from my sketch group and I used to break out in to this song in the cafeteria like chorus girls in high school. Just SINGING LIKE NO 1 WAS LISTENING.
“dying since the day they were born. well, well” - that’s the best line to belt, if you’re askin’ me.
You haven’t lived until you’ve been in a car full of dudes, belting this one out at the top of your collective lungs. Or ‘I Do’. Actually, I Do wins.
Whenever I feel uninspired, or creatively blocked, I read Paul Arden’s books. Usually three or four times.
I like to think I’m so badass I’ll never lose my edge. (Nobody has edge anymore. Not even you, sugartits.)
I like to think I’m so progressive I’ve got the right view on everything. (My right views on everything are marred only by my total lack of understanding of anything.)
I like to think I’m so sexually evolved I can do whateva I want and feel just fine about it. (But I’m still halfway losing my shit over our friday fun fest. Was she better? Nicer tits? Will it change us?)
I like to think I’m part of your club and you know who I am. (I can show up at the party and you might have heard my name but the best I can hope for is a smile and a nod.)
It seriously sucks to be an insecure little girl, and arrogance can mask it but it damn well can’t displace it.
