Brand Noise

The Contrast of Gen Y to Boomer

(from Reveries.com) According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow in a new book tittled After the Baby Boomers the key differences between Gen Y and Baby Boomers include that the younger generation is "spending more time in school, remaining financially independent on their parents longer, marrying later in life, having kids later (and fewer of them) and changing jobs more often."

One noted upside of these differences is that, because of an "extended adolescence ... divorce is less common." He says they see marriage more as a "capstone" than a "starting" event. He also says that this slower path to adulthood gives them "more of a chance to finish their education and ... if they're middle class, a chance to decide from experience what kind of career they want." One downside, he says, is that they are sometimes "paralyzed" by "all these choices -- whom to marry, what kind of education to get, what kind of career to pursue." Another is a "dependency" on parents for such a long period of time.

Recommenders Weaken Content's Long Tail

In an article from Knowledge@Wharton referencing a new paper titled "Blockbuster Culture's Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Diversity"  by Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and Dan Fleder, a Wharton doctoral candidate....Recommenders -- (perhaps the best known is Amazon's)  -- tend to drive consumers to concentrate their purchases among popular items rather than allow them to explore and buy whatever piques their curiosity 

The authors argue that online recommenders "reinforce the blockbuster nature of media." And they warn that, by deploying standard designs, online retailers may be recreating the very phenomenon -- circumscribed media purchasing choices -- that some of them have bragged about helping consumers escape. read more

Let Them Live Their Manga Dreams

Last Sunday, we had a last-minute dinner with friends. As would be expected, the conversation went from kids to family to work. That’s when the conversation shifted to panic.

Our good friend is a book editor. Our good friend was invited to her first book reading on Second Life. Our good friend does not do Second Life. We debriefed her not to hover above the event. We didn’t want anyone flaming out at her. Practice the night before was definitely in order. We think we helped. Maybe not.

Then we got to thinking: here’s an editor from a major publishing house entering Second Life for the first time—Why are publishing houses not more involved with Second Life? For serial-type genres like Manga and graphic novels, Second Life is a natural outlet. The experience begins as immersive.

The audience maps culturally to that kind of media. If a Manga series extended into a Second Life world, readers could develop their own characters and build the title’s mise en scene. If they develop interesting enough characters, those characters could be brought into the print editions of the running series.

Please Look After This Bear

We here at scenarioDNA carry a big torch for Paddington Bear who will celebrate his 50th in 2008. Sadly, we read this on Brand Strategy's blog. We hear you, Brand Strategy! Paddington is not the kind of bear who sells out...a fierce hard stare from "Darkest Peru" to those behind this:

"Paddington Bear (for tis he) is renown for his love of marmalade sandwiches...So why is he being used to promote Marmite? Aside from sharing an opening syllable, the two condiments could not be more different...To mix an iconic lover of marmalade with a divisive, savoury brand such as Marmite is both inauthentic and just as plain wrong as putting both in the same sandwich."

Read more.

Meantime, Warner Bros. Pictures on Friday said it was bringing Paddington Bear to the screen in a live-action family comedy. David Heyman, producer of the "Harry Potter" movies, will produce the film while writer Hamish McColl, who penned "Mr. Bean's Holiday," will adapt the 11 "Paddington Bear" books published between 1958 and 1979 for the big screen.

Read more.

Pictures say 1000, at Fall Fashion Weeks

At this year's New York Fashion Week, Elle Macpherson Intimates has a digital installation at 1035 6th Avenue. The installation is activated by human movement, allowing a peep of intimate female portraits. Dressed in Elle Macpherson Intimates, each woman shows off a special quirky skill to a private audience.

Check out the demo video.

"Self Portraits" is the reinvention of the "Intimate Stories" 2005 campaign which captured photographically the idea that everyone has a precious and personal story. The concept, refreshed for 2007 and directed by Gary Freedman of Sydney based creative collective Glue Society, was shot in New York by Australian photographer Max Doyle.

Meanwhile, in London, M-A-C has partnered with BoomBox founder Richard Mortimer to produce a photographic montage due to launch in limited quantity at London Fashion Week.

To celebrate the launch of this BoomBox book, a fleet of 20 M-A-C BoomBox livery black cabs will be circulating London Fashion Week ferrying the international style media to and from shows and hanging at all the best parties.

In case you’re not hip enough to know…BoomBox is a roving London-based dance party that started in June 2006 at the Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen.

Read more.

Sushi Economics

From the 90's power lunch to new the staple of the kid's lunch box - without a doubt sushi has made an impact on how we see food.  And how we see how we get food.  A new book by Sasha Issenberg, titled The Sushi Economy starts  with a concept—namely, that the growth and evolution of sushi mirrors that of global trade.  The new sushi reality is the reality of how decisions are made in a global economy.  As Issenberg puts it "Fishermen in Gloucester have to study the daily movement of the yen to determine if    they go out and fish that day. Chefs in Tokyo are looking to see if the weather in Gloucester is good that day."  Decisions are more connected than they have ever been. The story of sushi also shows us how tastes have been packaged and repackaged in this new connected world appealing to the high and low in consumption.  From finger food to the highest and rarest in edible fetish. 

Chasing Cool

This book is worth a read.  I was skeptic bout the title - but it opens the dialog on some the cool-hunting puffery that has been seeping into  brands.  Authors Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman, former co-CEO of Barneys New York, have uncovered surprising and universal patterns and trends.  The book includes interviews with more than seventy of today's most respected innovators from Tom Ford and Russell Simmons to Ian Schrager and Christina Aguilera.  The bottom line - stop chasing cool and start building brands. 

"Simply chasing cool is really a bad idea; inspired by cool is a great idea. Walk the street, see what's going on, and spit it out in your own way. Don't do it because you research it, do it because you breathe it."
-- Russell Simmons, chairman and CEO of Rush Communications

Freaky = Passion

Freaky implies passion. And passions of all sorts run rampant as fueled by empowered social networks as evidenced by this NY Times piece on CosPlayers.

Big in Japan and gaining popularity stateside, the cosplay phenomenon involves individuals who dress up like their favorite anime and manga characters. Elena Dorfman began photographing the players two years ago, and the results will be collected in a monograph, ‘‘Fandomania: Characters and Cosplay’’ (Aperture), due out in June.

“I like to find the individuals who put an enormous effort into their costume, who you can’t see under all the body paint,” she says. Then, through slight gestures (“I don’t want them to ham it up”), she extracts the human being from their superpower surrogate.

The fascination with anime and manga has shed some of its previous freaks-and-geeks association...

Interview: Marc Gobé Tells It Like It Is

If you ever need a reminder as to why we’re in this business of branding and planning, talk to Marc Gobé of Desgrippes Gobé. He’ll set you straight. A talk with him just before the holidays left me captivated and pondering the meaning of existentialism. I can’t pinpoint how we got on the topic, but it all made sense.

In his latest book, Brandjam, due out this month, Gobé presents an inspired view of the intersection of design, experience and brand.

I ask him how we will ever get past McKinsey-style and zip code marketing and into more emotionally driven marketing. His reply? “The more people talk about it the more people will open up,” says Gobé. “Examples are all over. There are brands realizing their point of difference and their ability to exceed or expand the emotional space. Look at Absolut, Red Bull, Victoria’s Secret. We need to promote the people who get it.”

Letter from Asia: Coming soon

VentureRepublic founder and Singapore-based Martin Roll wrote Asian Brand Strategy to address the challenge of branding in Asia, where boardrooms have not yet realized the full potential of moving up the value chain. The Asian boardroom mindset continues to focus on short-term sales and cost savings.

Currently, there are less than 10 global Asian brands outside of Japan. But Roll believes that toward 2020, a rapidly changing landscape will emerge where the opportunities for Asian companies to benefit from branding will be larger than ever before.

To that end, we’re welcoming Martin Roll as a regular Brand Noise blogger. His “Letter from Asia” highlighting brands and culture in Asia will bring his local insight to bridge the divide. Stay tuned...