l'anthropologue

Fuglosumption: perpetuating the ugly duckling in brand and product consumption.

The story Ugly Duckling is a tale of seclusion and reclusion, repudiation, omission from an order, and then, after a length of suffering, acceptance by a species post biological beauty makeover.

In toto, it parallels human growth via a sars-free bird, in Amsterdam.

First we’re born under the veneer of a wrinkly, puffy alien. Then, in adolescence, we’re awkwardly bamboozled by geysers of hormones. Eventually, after many rights of passage, our attractiveness is consummated in biological refinement and intellectual autonomy: our hormones stabilize and we make self-affirming decisions outside of our former, cozy cul-de-sac… (I.e., The collegiate phase. College was an incredibly emancipating period of time folding anarchy and naptime into a four-year golden-age of meritocracy.)

Brands & products and Fuglosumption: Once ugly, always ugly: there’s not a life stage to free an ugly product from the Hades of brand adolescence. And, unlike humans, it can't graduate to a new shelf on a new isle, embodying a better aesthetic or utilitarianism.

There are products whose ugliness can never be concealed by a brilliant, sexy advertising campaign. Crocs and Uggs, for example, are hideous. It’s not attractive to wear shoes resembling Australia’s indigenous critters: our physique’s nadir should never appear reptilian or marsupial.

Uggs resurfaced in the early ’00 decade, the brand’s longevity remains intact. They are a fusion of snow boot and slipper, allowing women to hop around the urban wild, attracting spots of mud and dirty snow to offset the lightly-hued brown suede. And the uncanny shape is a kangaroo’s foot.

The premiere Croc is a garden clog that is part aqueduct, part masseuse. Water filters through the holes and seeps out the heel of the shoe and back into the water table, to preclude foot fungus and pruney toes. Spikes at the foot’s base massage your feet as you move. Unfortunate popular demand has impelled the creation of other clog styles: i.e., you can now don fossilized jelly wedges or heels. And to not omit snowbirds, Crocs designed a line of garden clogs that are lined in fleece--perhaps for nitrous oxidizing your garden, in the winter.

Fit-Flops are another beast, utilizing an enormous, chunky heel to work-out leg muscles whilst ambulating. The prime audience for FitFlops is over 40. Paradoxically, the advertising campaigns feature nubile female legs--free of vices like wrinkles, cellulite or varicose veins that plague older women’s physiques. And despite the ad campaign’s attempt at sexual appeal, the shoe is still ugly, fashioned in the shape of a 1980 station wagon (at least they omitted the wood paneling).

Claiming comfort isn’t a viable excuse—Birkenstocks are very comfortable, but they neither resemble a beer pint nor a pretzel. Sketchers and Steve Madden produce the Titanic shoe—a large boat that should sink but is somehow viable and profitable by keeping median-income audiences afloat.

Lesson learned: Kitsch and shapeshifting aren’t synonymous characteristics that can converge in sustainable and attractive product design. Make something that at least exudes an aesthetical appeal, congruent to the brand’s integrity, if it’s supposed to have a long shelf life.

(Side note: It would seem eminently sensible if Sarah Palin produced an Alaskan wedge heel made from and shaped like an Elk’s hoof.)

Beyond shoes...

Cadillac finally redesigned the physical aesthetic of its cars, yet still looks like a geriatric mobile: the upgraded look now appealing to aging baby boomers. It’s a non-aerodynamic, square shoe-box of a car. If driving a Cadillac is a pre-requisite to: A, driving to Florida, and; B, toting golf clubs, then they should legalize golf carts on the Interstate—simply, it’s a fusion between a motorcycle and Smart Car (both of which are allowed on highways and interstates).

SUVs Speaking of shoe boxes, attractive SUVs don't exist. Even the luxury car industry hasn't produced an attractive SUV. Hummers are simply unnecessary: driving laws don’t allow ambush via vehicle, or driving up an embankment to exit an interstate. (More golf carts, less hummers.) More specifically, Hummers are legos on wheels. And if people get to ride in legos, then I want my own Taun Taun. Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, and others, all produced a line of SUVs that look like footwear for mountain climbing.

The logos and branding for these companies are lovely, and perhaps that’s what we sometimes pay for—the delusion that a trendy product embodies a brand's integrity, but whose utilitarianism is actually defunct.

Snuggies: We already have sleeping bags, so why do you need to wear your blanket? At best, you'll resemble a fleece-encrusted slug. The one benefit yielded by snuggie’dom is the snuggie sutra—the kama sutra illustrated with a snuggie.

The aesthetic of a product adds investible value to it. It offers the cushion of future transactions, such as collecting, refurbishing and reselling. Does anyone recall the beanie babies fad? It’s inane to think people, mostly adults, thought cheap, fleece dolls would transition to a high-end collectible commodity. I was given them as stocking stuffers and subsequently stuffed them at the bottom of my closet. The fad lasted for how long—a year or two—before it was silenced by the concomitant embarrassment of owning a collection of miniature stuffed animals.

My tone is sometimes snarky throughout this blog, but I’m generally amazed at the excessive waste flooding consumer products. I mostly bitch about superfluous holiday paraphernalia—the puffy-painted santa sweaters, tinsel banners, Rudolph slippers, valentines packaging, holiday candies, etc, that do nothing but hopefully boost sales over the expected seasonal profit margin. The marketplace is cluttered with goofishly deisgned products, as some of the aforementioned, that are mere fads—thus automatically having a defunct sustainability. Simply, it’s immediate waste—how many products do you purchase that you immediately realize are disposable?

ciao, melissa

Derivative: “… the instantaneous change of one quantity with respect to another, as velocity, which is the instantaneous change of distance with respect to time.”  –dictionary.com

I just finished reading Ad Age’s article, Book of Tens: Ideas of a Decade. The article is just that—ideas. It depicted CEOs’ attempts at a digital-age Ogilvy by engendering buzz terms that merely amount to all things obvious or mediocre, or both. Lacking examples of how advertising’s stepped toward the digital plate, we’re regaled of trends in creating emotional connections between consumer and brand (yawn); the marriages of entertainment and advertising in mini soap operas (hasn’t that already occurred with product placement in movies?); word of mouth trend setting via peer to peer influence (duh); crowd sourcing—the newest buzz term to influence advertising trends; and, the worst of the bunch, consumer control, where one way conversations with the consumer end and interactive virtual engagement begins—though the process of engaging and retaining the consumer is still a bit of a mystery.

Converse to any proof, without any substantive cited examples of how these trends moderated or influenced a digital decade and consumers’ decisions, all of this was stamped as ‘best of the decade.’

The article’s celebrated ideas eventually blend into an intellectual puree: brown, lumpy mush pointing to one thing only—that despite all the digital outlets, we still have to talk to the consumer in order to tell their stories. It’s not a novel idea, but for some reason it’s one that evades even the top minds in marketing and advertising. If you get them to buy your product, you’ve started a relationship—the courtship has begun. Now, in order to keep the person interested, much like dating, you have to let them tell their story. That’s where advertising needs to grow as a medium—as a storyteller, documenting why and how consumers needs products to not only sustain themselves but to feel connected to a community.

My initial complaint of the movie, Avatar, was that the plot was lost in showcasing animation technology. I think advertising faces the same debacle—that if we can’t properly tell a consumer’s story then we’ve literally shelved the brand or product as pointless objects.  Humans are still very much hunters and gatherers, though now that primate quality is relegated to seeking and accruing information more than physical objects.

The Derivative: ideological movement or change based on provocative, new ideas.

I love that most definitions for derivative immediately point to velocity as a common derivative—being that velocity is changed distance with respect to time. Observed from my ten year stint in advertising, I’d say the excelled rate of velocity belongs to the interactive boutique agencies—whose lifespan is ten years or less. For example, companies like Big Spaceship and Huge have quickly climbed to the top of the interactive ladder by seeming to prefer creative’s marriage to technology, and thus consummating this combination in uniquely interactive campaigns that, for the most part, serve to entertain and engage users.

Big Spaceship’s microsite “HBO Voyeur’ is an eminent example, as users clicked within different apartment windows in a NYC cityscape and then watch looped videos of, generally macabre or bizarre, scenarios in what looked like a bunch of animated dollhouses. There was no consumer-derived objective in the site: it subliminally branded HBO as an innovator online and in storytelling, and it provided users with a subtle entertainment site that could play in the background or as a screensaver. It leveraged proof that not all sites have to showcase a product or USP to either engage or entertain users.

But these are companies who, I’d surmise, first explored their creative options, preferring to become innovators rather than service-based only. The prominent service you’re selling to clients is the creative. What hasn’t really changed, that’s extremely annoying, is the amount of process, discussion of process, and attention to process dominating advertising agencies’ work flow. Granted, this is conjecture, but I surmise that the combined total of project managers, account people, and administrative staff out totals creative staff to an extreme ratio. (Perhaps for the amount of work a creative does, there’s a mountain of paper work for account people to handle: the excel flow charts, power point presentations, billing invoices, make goods for an unhappy client, etc. Who fucking knows.) I’ve only worked at a couple of agencies who sprinkle account execs and creatives together, so that they can work and communicate without the onus of constant meetings.

I haven’t seen many changes in the ad industry in 10 years other than more boutique and digital agencies materializing. The monolithic dinosaur agency is still alive but barely kicking, it seems. Also, the transition from consumer to pharmaceutical advertising seems to have plagued the 2000 decade; it was realized that pharm advertising made more money… Americans need drugs, and apparently they see sunflowers and blue skies when taking them.

Drink:30.

In college, an advertising professor joked that if you work in advertising, you’ll likely become an alcoholic. I initially found it humorous, but then I initially entered advertising thinking it perpetuated creative thinking as much as it perpetuated consumerism.

In my ten year stint in the advertising and interactive industries, I’ve cognized the seeming necessity to consume copious libations: either you’re pissed off by a client’s bastardization of the creative; or, an account person tells you they’re not comfortable showing creative to a client because it doesn’t exist in the client’s head; or, a creative dictator—err, director—steals or stomps all over your idea; or, your creativity is simply best derived from inebriation or a drug-induced high. (I used to joke that ad agencies should give drug tests to make sure people consumed some mind-altering substance.)

Obviously, trying to receive a frontal lobotomy via alcohol didn’t mean you would not encounter the same dysfunctional process, hung over, the following day. (My liver would like to thank all of the tattle-taling, goody-goody tissued* account people who ignored creatives’ genius and instead plastered their lips to the client’s ass. My poor substance filtering organ, it should have dissipated by now.)

Lately, I’ve been entangled in the same culture of complaining as a lot of my colleagues, but I’ve realized that my complaints haven't changed since my induction into the ad industry, 10 years ago. I'm still braving the over saturated egos; contrived effort to find the next big idea, and; bitchy displays of hegemony in office politics, etc.

Is there an info graphic, somewhere, on how many junior advertisers and creatives initially jump into advertising with passion, enthusiasm and energy, but then get sucked into the black hole of cynicism—the gravitational pull extending from an executive’s bitter vacuum of hegemony.  Advertising has become a business model where marketing executives are hired into creative director positions and account people are allowed to choose and approve (or reject) creative. And, to my previous point, the more you guess what’s in the client’s head and what they’ll like then you’ve relinquished the consumer’s story.

When I first started working in advertising, at XXXXX, my recalcitrant demeanor couldn’t comply with the directive to sit at my desk and behave myself, and to subsequently perform production work handed to me by art and creative directors. I was fresh out of college brimming with excitement. The internet was still burgeoning then, and companies would block websites, especially personal email clients, so that you could only access company email, the intranet, and, possibly, client related sites. Now, it’s impossible to work a day without seeing someone using instant messaging, facebook, youtube and twitter. Actually, it seems tacitly included in your job description to social network for ‘research.’

I digress. Basically, until you become an executive in advertising, it seems like you’re constantly paying your dues in initiation costs. Yet, the advertising industry employs brilliant, creative people yet has no idea how to channel talent through a stodgy business model.

Also, it’s an industry filled with cut-throat competition and gossip. There’s a lot of gossip. People are happy to share information on who they know at different agencies and who has won accolades, but you rarely hear people talk about the work. I’ve also noticed that the recession has installed a new culture of competition, causing people to whine about less talented individuals receiving jobs—their ire is aimed at their insecurity of being underrated or undervalued.

Who’s to gage talent except the people hiring?

Oh, yes. The people hiring are, drum roll please, HR. Because the economy sucks, human resources is the new darth vader usurping power and deigning they who are worthy to work in the advertising industry. Since when did someone who fills out insurance forms and design harassment policy get to pick creative talent? Perhaps that’s how Jennifer Aniston became an actress—the acting union’s version of HR thought she was pretty and safe, and her resume had the right keywords pertinent to their search. I recently freelanced at a company, where the designated HR rep takes careful measure to study your info on linkin and then look up your referencs on linkding, but she doesn’t necessarily interview or speak with the talent.

These days an HR person will turn you down if you don’t have long term experience with one or two agencies. If you have a plethora of freelance experience, they will assume you blow through the agency like a whirlwind and perpetuate the revolving door. Yet, what HR fails to see is that the recombination of information dwells within the freelancer lifestyle. Now is the time for agencies to hire freelancers—people who have accrued data on different business models in ad agencies and client side businesses.

I’m not a person who generally complains without reason, though the previous dithyramb is a bit of a shit storm. I concur, but then when I hang out with advertising colleagues, I’m rarely treated to someone who thinks the industry is going anywhere. It’s an endemic attitude.

Fuck HR reps and fuck account people who are more interested in kissing the client’s ass then getting inside the consumer’s head. If a creative director can’t find time to scout talent, but rather relying on an HR rep who likely wipes their ass with creatives’ resumes, then why are we in this business?

Personally, I want to start telling stories and folding a more sociological and anthropological thread into all that I’m doing. Otherwise, we’re just pointlessly continuing the bland repetition that Andy Warhol delineated in his montages.

ciao, melissa

salut, mes copins, ca va?

voila... here it is--substantive communication in lieu of fragmented, nonsensical blurbs on facebook. happy holidays--i hope everyone's enjoying a bit of fermented, egg-snot cheer, amid dousing your pheromones with mistletoe's scent.

I've been rather busy, hence the brief, monosyllabic updates via texting and fb. sorry. i'm inhumane.

nyc's lovely and full of energy--getting away for a bit was reenergizing, for sure. thus, i'm the new energizer bunny hopping around the advertising and editorial and dating scenes, finding mediocre trouble in all the right places, and rebuilding my wardrobe from the lackluster, moldy cotton crop, that feels like my old 'drobe. in toto, that's really been the extent of my life for the past two months, or so. I'm exploring new projects / opportunities, in hopes of fleeing the corporate, feudal regime. Standby....

As part of my transition to a more anthropological and writing-centric career, I created a blog (that currently features only 1 writing-intense blog entry). I encourage you to take especial interest in the dating schemata--it's a tragic comedy.

no, i'm not a burgeoning lesbian... nyc's a difficult city for dating--invariably, you must introspect on spending time in someone else's tiny apartment, imbibing their idea of formidable pop culture and preservative-encrusted goodies, and pervading your cerebral space. it's rather exhausting. Spending a week with the person will send you running for the hills (aka, your own tiny apartment, off the JMZ line). I'm not the only person suffering from this affliction, je promets.

Insert sardonic tone:  The highlight of dating pertains to visiting the ER nurse's apartment--he lives in a 110-yr old raildroad style apartment with five other people. Adjacent to the kitchen preparation area was a bathtub and a queen-size mattress (all an open area)... where the five people all bathed (separately, I surmise) and where he slept. so, while someone showers, and another person makes food--in the same room--he catches z's, plays video games.... or commits, per catholic priests, self abuse of primordial ooze. I didn't see him again after that night; obviously he didn't realize the eminent stupidity of inviting a woman to your hybrid brothel + hostel...

I don't know if the toilet was communal--or perhaps they use a cement outhouse... who knows.

I started a podcast with the guys at St. Dymphna's--hopefully it'll soon be featured on www.saintds.com. and, i'm getting involved  more with NightJar Creative--for whom i've been blogging at nightjar.tumblr.com. NJC's purpose is a collective of creative disciplines that engenders a culture and project-base feeding into pop culture, sustainability, and crowd sourcing. it's pretty interesting, especially feeding my anthropology interest.

Economically... everyone's poor and grumpy. Whilst attending the girlie action holiday party, we were first asked to donate an instrument to their music education foundation. After proving that we didn't have an instrument in hand (not even a cowbell to spare), we were asked to donate money... even just a dollar was sufficient--anything. Mike and I looked quizzically at each other like... is donating a dollar going to be extracted from the ramen fund or the subway pass fund? (I slightly jest.)

in terms of fashion... oy, i don't know what to tell you guys. it's also bleak up here. the recession has required that most fashion purchases are relegated to Uniqlo and H&M. The problem, though, is mass produced fashion is like wearing the communist manifesto: egalitarian threads that are completely unnoticeable; you might as well be a floating head.

everyone's wearing flannel, plaid button ups--more paul bunyan than eddie vedder, being that most look bathed.

skinny jeans are still too too pervasive, though so skinny you see skin and bones and testes. It's disturbing--there's no room for thermals under that shit. They all go commando.

otherwise... go see the new Coen brothers' movie--it's sardonic and fabulous; it makes me want to become jewish because they can make fun of themselves. Avatar is a shit movie and anyone who thinks it's brilliant, beyond the the cell shading and other technical measures, is a blatant doh-doh. (sorry--it's potentially worse than titanic.)

Possible money-making enterprises include a line of yogurt made from Angelina Jolie's breast milk and a line of condoms called the Barry White or the Ghengis Khan.

current venue for frivolous libations: death & co. Otherwise, Casimir and El Faro remain my favorite restaus. No Malice Palace is new on the charts for hip hopalicious tunes, and 151 Rivington is the best happy hour a la charlie brown's shag palace.  lastly, my shoe fetish is an institution alive and kicking.

anyhow, that's a synopsis of life up here--it's not too-too informative, but I didn't want to write a book. my brain is sufficiently appeased as i'm invariably engaged in worldly and educative conversations, and i'm surrounded by a flurry of activity. it's lovely, really. :)

XMas Eve broadcast: Runyon and I ponder sloths, dopplegangers and insipid celebrity news.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3637313/stds_12-22.mp3