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Monthly Archives: March 2012

It’s A Mall World After All

21 Mar

American chain stores are learning to ship internationally, and the world breathes a collective sigh of relief.  No longer will Parisians suffer the indignities of a couture wardrobe devoid of an Ann Taylor blazer.  The days of British men muddling through with authentic country apparel are almost over, J.Crew will be just a click away.  And the Italians?  Their long suffering over hand-blown Venetian glass is screeching to a halt; Crate & Barrel is coming to the rescue.

Hey, I’m all for an accessible and enjoyable shopping experience.  I love a good basic (in the form of ceramics or T-shirt) as much as the next gal.  But it strikes me as just a bit odd that we are exporting our chain stores to the most artistic and (at times) stylish parts of the world.  (By “most artistic” I don’t mean to suggest that other nations have a lock on talent, but they do have a culture of supporting the growth and success of artists.)

It took me a couple of years to understand the British love affair with the Gap.  They see it as a mid-scale product, where as we see it as a place to periodically peruse the racks jammed with markdowns ending in $.98.  But what the Gap lacks in ingenuity it makes up for in their branding of themselves as “American.”  Foreignness can be fun; in food and fashion.  Coveting a look for its “otherness” is certainly understandable.  But coveting goods which are unrecognizable as “American” is a bit confusing.  Many of the chain stores reformulating their software to accommodate international shipping are known for their blandness.  The ubiquity of white ceramics and housewares in Crate & Barrel can make the store seem like the set of Wonkavision.  The whole point of the design at Ann Taylor is for women to blend into the workplace.  It’s hard to imagine a French woman walking (on very un-American heels) along the cobblestone streets to her place of work; passersby stop and smile, one older shopkeeper puts down his broom, leans against his doorway and with a gauloises dangling from his lips, utters; “ooh la la, zee mademoiselle looks tres magnifique c’est matin, Ann Taylor, non?”  I just can’t picture it.

My romanticized naïveté is also to blame for my insisting that somebody made a mistake in research or a typo is at fault; but Lane Bryant simply could not be shipping to France.

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Style

 

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Always Be Selling

20 Mar

Are you tired, run down, listless? Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular?  Don’t reach for that bottle of vitametavegamin just yet.  It might not be vitamins, minerals and 23% alcohol that is lacking from your diet.  You may in fact be suffering from pitch overload.

Much is made of the unrelenting pressure and demands of sales.  Just look at those men in Glengarry Glen Ross or poor Willy Loman.  Selling can be exhausting and soul crushing.  But guess what? so is being sold to night and day, day and night.  From the moment we wake until we crumble into fitful sleep, we are bombarded.  The morning news is brought to you by…(even public broadcasting will read you corporate underwriter ads.)  The news (whether read, watched or heard) has to be weeded from the press releases and publicist’s coups.  Once out the door, wearing what was sold to you, you head for your commute.  At the bus shelter, or subway entrance, you will view at least 3 different rotating ads.  The subway car is plastered with ads (usually of a very depressing nature; lawsuits, questionable training institutes, and booze, lots of booze.)  One’s actual workday may be filled with more spin and sales, depending on one’s place and nature of work.  By the time we arrive back home, we have been pitched countless times.  It’s nothing we can’t handle.  We’re used to it.

It’s when the pitch tries to disguise itself, that things get a bit trying.  Back in olden times, when one had to get up from the recliner to turn the channel, to one of five stations; not everyone on television was selling something.  There was a format known as the talk show, where interesting people came to talk.  Some of these people were famous, sometimes not.  The reason that there were so many of these show is that they were interesting, and they were interesting because people weren’t being booked to sell a product.  Conversations were not being designed by publicists but by producers and hosts.  And I’m not just talking about Dick Cavett and Tom Snyder here; lots of hosts were creating great entertainment. Print media has become very similar to television in its mass marketed hermetically sealed value meals of stories.  Whether it’s an “expert” whose expertise is that they are selling their book, doling out a sound bite, or the hard hitting exposes about high end knock-offs periodically placed in fashion magazines, the audience struggles to discern; “is this real?”  When we add embedded advertising to the mix (shout out to General Mills for the television series Homeland!  Your Lucky Charms has never looked better in its FOUR close-ups!) it’s no wonder we’re feeling listless and pooped out at parties.

Embedding is not all that new.  Remember when Don Draper won the Clio for the Glo-Coat ad?  It wasn’t that the child as a prisoner (behind a kitchen chair) was so innovative, it’s that the commercial was filmed like a movie.  The viewer was lulled into the commercial because it felt like actual programming.  That is the point of embedded advertising.  We’re practically inured to traditional ads (unless it’s during the Super Bowl) and don’t even see the many pop-ups on our computer.  But when the ad seems like part of the narrative our brain needs a moment to register that we are being sold something.

The exhaustion comes from the fact that we have so many advertising delivery systems now.  What was the first logo apparel you owned?  Was it a T-shirt, a cap, or a cotton jacket festooned with a pattern of “Pepsi-Cola” emblazoned in red, white and blue (ahem, that was me.)  Please, that is so 1977.  There are companies who don’t even bother with design any longer, they just slap their brand/logo on the shoe, bag, shirt and call it a day.  You can’t even look at another person without seeing an ad (and I’m not just talking about people who copyright their baby’s name.)

At the end of the day, if we are surrounded by things (i.e., books, music, art) that we chose because they speak to some fiber of our being, we will rejuvenate (at least until the next day.)  But what if the book we fall asleep to is always a “bestseller” and doesn’t resonate at all?  What if at the end of the day we find ourselves surrounded by nothing more than what we’ve been sold?

 

 

 
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Posted by on March 20, 2012 in Media/Marketing

 

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Grand Old Ivy

18 Mar

Families around the country are (hopefully) beginning to wade through college acceptance letters.  The conversations are getting a bit strained, and perhaps a few bedroom doors have been slammed.  For the teen, deciding on a college feels excruciatingly personal, and one that her/his parents should really not influence.  For the parent (who may be footing the bill) the decision feels as important (if not more) than any 17/18 year old is equipped to tackle.  If we open our windows and listen very carefully we can probably hear strains of; “Fine! Then I won’t go to college at all.”  “Don’t think you’re going to live here (we’ve promised your room to your 30 year old brother.)”  Okay, you probably didn’t hear that last part, but it was implied.

A million years ago, the school selection ritual was a bit easier.  High school students applied to less than a handful of schools.  What they could afford dictated where they applied.  Schools differed in their disciplines and robustness of research, but not on their housing and dining and extra-curricular activities.  Support services (of any kind) were few and far between.  Parents often never even saw the school of choice until graduation.  It was a different time.  Today there are so many choices and so many people involved in the decision.

Complicated aid packages, unlimited special interest programs (i.e., public service, study abroad, merit scholars, etc.) luxurious living accommodations, and multiple support services are just some of the changes that parents may not recognize.  These same parents are expected to visit the school (before enrollment) and sit through Q&A designed just for them.  They are expected to deliver their child to school and stay for days for an orientation designed just for them.  No sooner do they get home and gas up the minivan, than they are expected back on campus for “Family Weekend” (previously known as “Parents Day.”)  And that’s just the first two months of freshman year.  For better or worse (and who are we kidding?) parents are also attending the college their child chooses.  Just walk through any campus bookstore (or online store.)  There is as much apparel and paraphernalia for parents as there is for students.

Adding to this dramatic change in the landscape is that many students are attending college who might not have fifty years ago.  As a group, freshman are not as self sufficient or mature as they once were, but there are also many freshman with specific qualities that need to be addressed and supported.  Students with; learning disabilities, physical disabilities, emotional disabilities, chronic diseases, and eating and substance abuse issues, may have stayed closer to home in the past.  Many colleges have invested in a multitude of support services, but there will always still be reason for concern.  Sending a child away to an institution with new academic and social demands and little behavioral oversight, can be a treacherous formula.  Parents of these students have every reason to be very involved in every step of the college process.

So once the tempers subside, and everyone comes out of their respective rooms, it’s time for rational decision making (caution: charts might be involved.) Might I suggest a framework for the discussion:

  • What are the student’s interests/goals
    • Rate the school as to its ability to successfully deliver the student to the next step (i.e., medical school, engineering job, stage and screen)
  • What are the financial needs (include traveling to and from home and any and all fees for supplemental programs)
    • Rate the school separately as to their contribution and the student/parent contribution (e.g., “A” for grants “A” for loans, but “F” for no work-study program)
  • What are the support/living needs the student has
    • Rate the schools accordingly

An attractive, and perhaps color-coded chart should result.  Of course this analysis is only relevant if plenty of homework is done.  Hhmmm, who amongst those sitting around the dining room table, is well versed in homework?  The student should have done as much (if not hopefully much more) legwork before this discussion can occur.  Yes, it is all quite confusing and complicated, and even the most well executed chart is no guarantee.  And yes, this is all very expensive and important, but there is no race.  Leaves of absence, transfers, community colleges and the like exist for a reason.  We learn from experience and from our mistakes, but making informed decisions, makes the learning much more profitable.

 
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Posted by on March 18, 2012 in Education

 

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Where The Boys Are

16 Mar

St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, Spring Break.  What do these springtime festivities have in common?  Alcohol and ensuing wantonness.  There are other events that involve excessive drinking as well (New Year’s Eve, sporting championships, four years of college, etc.) but without as much (ahem) carousing. Perhaps it is due to the time of year, but the trinity of St./Mardi/Break also seems to entail disrobing.  Of course the wearing (or not wearing as the case may be) of the green can occur in rather chilly clime.  But a green beer/whiskey induced snogging marathon knows no geographical boundaries (and can be accomplished while wearing a jaunty plastic green derby.)

There is nothing new about springtime debauchery, or drinking and impromptu romantic entanglements.  MTV didn’t create the bacchanalian beaches, they just filmed it.  (Cameras may alter people’s behavior, but when people are that far gone, it’s probably just incremental changes.)  Phone cameras, social media, and youtube didn’t create opportunities for regret.  Ruining a reputation has always been as easy as pie.  People love to talk about other people; it’s simply what we do.  We don’t need technology or tabloids to do so, we just need a willing listener.  It’s neither bad nor good, it just is what it is.

What is bad and not good, is that it is only women whose reputations we are discussing.  Since the dawn of time (or at least since the first caveman slurred; “take off those pelts baby” and flung a string of purple stones at her – which probably really hurt) it has been women whose bodies have been the entertainment and who have been punished for their cooperation.  Even when a woman has kept her bikini top on and engaged in the same overindulgence of spirits as her male companions, it is her reputation that is at stake.  Almost any (absurd) behavior a drunken male engages in is followed (in the clear light of day) with slaps on the backs or guffaws of; “Dude, you were off the hook” (or some other vernacular which also makes no sense.)  The male’s behavior is seen as “normal” and a way of blowing off steam.  His random romantic interludes (if there were any) are heralded. While in the girl’s hotel room next door…The kinder mascara smudged friends are unconvincingly cooing; “everyone does it. don’t worry about it. in a couple of weeks no one will even remember.”

One could argue that branding a woman was an effective deterrent to behavior that in fact could have had dire consequences.  Effective birth control is a relatively new invention.  Women died in childbirth on a somewhat regular basis.  A girl/woman could fall pregnant and have absolutely no means of supporting herself or her child.  She would no longer have access to the only acceptable profession; matrimony.  Her matrimonial chances might be diminished if there was even a hint of behavior that could render her unsuitable.  Whether she did anything or not, she could be ruined just the same.

Women now support themselves and (hopefully) have access to reliable birth control.  What possible reason, anthropologically speaking, do we still have for branding women who drink in excess and physically exploit themselves and/or others?  While our culture has ratcheted up the sexualization of girls and women (to extremes never before experienced) we have remained stalled in our judgments.  Fashion, celebrities, video, film, television, and music have not just progressively disrobed women but have objectified them to cartoon proportions.  Through modern science (and photoshop) women now look more like Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit.  When women are depicted engaging in acts of romance, they are almost always done so from the perspective of what pleases a man.  Girls and women in videos (and real life) dance to simulate an act that can only pleasure their gentleman dance partner.  The objectification of women is, shall we say, off the hook.  Yet, we cling to our scarlet A ways.  Could it be that at our core, we are not comfortable with our cultural objectification of women?  Are our judgments a way of saying; “No, go back, we’ve led you astray?”  The alternate explanation; that we are in a backlash to the second wave of feminism that simply knows no bounds, is more likely, but far more disturbing.

 

 

 
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Posted by on March 16, 2012 in Cultural Critique

 

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And The Beat Goes On*

14 Mar

Have you heard the news?  The Encyclopedia Britannica is stopping the presses (see: changing marketplace.)  No doubt this is quite the blow to Britannica employees and door-to-door salesmen (see: Fuller Brush, Willy Loman.)  But perhaps this is actually not all bad news.

The encyclopedia had a hallowed place in many homes and hearts.  The (wonderful) film Ball of Fire (1941) updated the 7 dwarfs and their mighty leader, Gregory Peck, into encyclopedia wizards.  The quirky little brainiacs toiled for years, documenting every subject known to humankind.  It was a noble undertaking, and one made all the more enjoyable with the arrival of Barbara Stanwyck.  For decades, real-life families across the country paid for one volume of encyclopedic knowledge at a time.  The books; with their hard covers and lush pages, were displayed with pride in living rooms and dens.  For better or worse, schoolchildren used these volumes to complete homework assignments.  Those without (and there were/are plenty of those) made the trip to the library or relied on source material (a.k.a. parents) or turned in homework destined for less than an “A.”

Encyclopedias are a great source for cursory understanding of a subject, but there are now so many more of those.  With a few keystrokes endless source materials are at our fingertips.  Students (and others) can go directly to the U.S. government sites or the American Medical Association.  The very act of searching (a.k.a. researching) broadens the understanding of a subject.

Will some people confuse wikipedia with an authoritative (and fully vetted) source?  They already do.  Does the cessation of printing encyclopedias put disadvantaged students at a disadvantage?  Not in this day and age.  It’s a pretty safe bet that if a library has an up-to-date version of the encyclopedia on the shelves, they have computers and access to the internet as well.  I would posit that the elimination of the printed encyclopedia evens the playing the field a bit for students, if it weren’t for the fact that having them in the home is no longer a sign of special access to information.

Why is it even worth note you ask (assuming you don’t work in the printing or door-to-door sales professions?)  For the simplest of reasons: progress is sometimes quite progressive.  The shuttering of a theatre, restaurant or nightclub to make way for a food court or Sephora, is not progress, it’s just sad.  The erosion of demarcation between public space and private space is not progress, it just means I have to throw my body over my entree as the woman at the next table styles her hair.  The memory of salesmen, diaper service, milk delivery, Sheriff Taylor and his son Opie, fill us with a warmth and sense of safety.  Change (and growing pains) are always just a bit frightening and our instincts are to cling to vestiges of the past.  For proof, one need only witness an adolescent girl’s bedroom festooned with equal parts stuffed animals and mascara.

There once was a dizzying amount of New York (daily) newspapers, some of them having more than one edition a day.  It took awhile, but with technology we have that once again.  The insatiable human desire for information is part of our charm.  As long as our innovations keep pace with that need, we can say farewell to the past without too much angst.  For those who will miss those smooth, hefty burgundy books, just consider how much fun you’ll have convincing children that you used to have to walk to the library (in the snow, uphill, both ways) to learn who invented the printing press.

*Sonny Bono (1967)

 
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Posted by on March 14, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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