For the Microsoft Word version of this project, please email me at raphaeljohncomprone@gmail.com, and I will send it to you as an attachment. Below, you have a copy of the web version:

LET’S SHOP!

                                                      September 2006                 

                                                                        9 ways to heal the world…by shopping!

I grew up watching TV and that was sort of my reality and there were beautiful celebrities wearing beautiful clothes and they seemed happy.

                                                              A shopper from “Going Shopping,” a film by Henry Jaglom (2005)

Shopping is a central part of our culture, the true national pastime.

                -Evan Cornog, “The Ploughman & the Professor,” Columbia Journalism Review, Sept/Oct 2008

Vast number of us have been seduced into believing that having more wealth and material possessions is essential to the good life.              Richard Ryan, foreword to T. Kasser, The High Price of Materialism  (2002, p. ix)

READING CONSUMER CULTURE

[W]hether we like it or not, we are all deeply immersed in a commodity-driven, consumer culture that daily shapes who we are and how we define ourselves.

                                                                -Marilyn Halter, Shopping for Identity, NY: Schocken Books, 2000: 198.

Constant serial replacement is the backbone of commodity culture.           SHOP 24/7

                                                                                  -Guy Hawkins, TRASH

In the digital culture, we win by clicking the mouse on Buy it Now! and seeing an item pop up in our ‘shopping cart.’    - Sharon Zukin, Point of Purchase

The term “shopping” now covers a variety of matters. You hear people talk about “shopping for a university,” as if attending a college is one more aspect of consumption, and to some extent it is nowadays. Many colleges and universities are now reshaping themselves so that they will be better consumable items, with elaborate student unions and other facilities…

Interview with Arthur Asa Berger, Conversations with Scholars of American Popular Culture, Journal of Popular Culture      http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2005/berger.htm

We experience consumer society as something natural.  But it’s not.

                Juliet Schor, The Overspent American, p. 24

WORK HARD TO BUY. BUY. BUY. BUY. BUY WHAT YOU DON’T NEED. GIMME GIMME GIMME WHAT I WANT, I WANT, I NEED, I NEED, GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME WHAT I NEED…    

Getting Started

What is the difference between consumption and consumerism?  What is a consumer culture?

                                                   Farmers Market, Union Square, NYC       ww.theweblicist.com

All cultures are based on consumption.  That’s because people need to eat, need to clothe themselves, need to have some kind of housing, need to have ways of teaching the young, and need to have access to medical attention. 

Arthur Asa Berger, Shop ‘Til You Drop: Consumer Behavior and American Culture (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)

Advertising has trained us to solve problems with products; the deep structures of our personalities have been wired to medicate any uneasiness with our favorite drug, consumption.                                                                      Vicki Robin, foreward to Affluenza (2001, pp. xii)

_____________________________________________________________________

con·sump·tion

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English consumpcioun, from Latin consumption-, consumptio, from consumere

Date: 14th century

1. the act or process of consuming <consumption of food> <consumption of resources> ; 2:the utilization of economic goods in the satisfaction of wants or in the process of production resulting chiefly in their destruction, deterioration, or transformation            www.merriam-bster.com/dictionary

________________________________________________________________

Notice that the word “consumption” dates back to the 14th century.  “Consumerism,” on the other hand, did not come into use until 1944.

Consumerism is ubiquitous and ephemeral.  It permeates our everyday lives.

                                                                                -Steven Miles, Consumerism as a Way of Life

____________________________________________________________________________

con·sum·er·ism

Function: noun

Date: 1944

1: the promotion of the consumer's interests; 2: the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; also : a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying

of consumer goods                                                                                      www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

_____________________________________________________________________

In his book Consumerism as a Way of Life (London: Sage, 1998), sociologist Steven Miles points out that while the rise of a consumer society came into its own with the onset of industrialization, it was not until after World War II that “the accessibility of consumer goods began to transcend social classes” (8).  Levels of disposable income increased along with the diversity of goods available; the credit card was introduced, and a rise in advertising followed.  Wants soon became needs: “People were not only offered what they needed but also what they desired” (7).  While consumption has always been part of modern life, this experience, Miles notes, increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s to the point where on a day-to-day level, consumerism became “a way of life.” 

[Insert “Affluenza” cartoon by Joe Pett (2001)]

“Consumer cultures,” explains Arthur Asa Berger (2005), “are cultures in which the personal consumption of goods and services becomes an all-powerful force.  This force dominates other matters, such as the need for investment in the public sector to take care of the education, housing, health, and other needs of the general public.”           

            By the early twenty-first century, the United States was economically, socially, and culturally driven by consumerism.  Consumer spending reached unprecedented levels by the early 2000s, accounting for nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2003 (“Spending Our Way to Disaster,” Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.money.cnn.com/2003/10/02/markets/consumerbubble). While such aggressive spending helped fuel both American and global economies, not all effects were positive.

QuickWriting

What are some negative effects that were driven largely by consumerism in the U.S. during the first part of this century? Take a few minutes to QuickWrite your response.

Networking

Join a small group to share your responses and build understanding.  How are American consumers sometimes viewed in parts of the world that are less prosperous?  Is consumerism becoming more of “a way of life” in some other parts of the world?

Viewing Options: View and discuss “The Story of Stuff,” a provocative 20-minute animated film about our consumer-driven culture narrated by activist Annie Leonard.  (See also “Facts from The Story of Stuff.”)  You could also watch and discuss the PBS documentary Affluenza about the high social and environmental costs of overconsumption and materialism.

Identifying Yourself as a Shopper                    

Shopping Questionnaire

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Shopper’s Name:_________________­___             Gender: M  F       Age:_____

Date:__________________

Do you consider yourself a shopper? _Yes _No

Do you shop for brand names? _Mostly _ Sometimes _Never

Do you shop mostly in shopping malls? _Yes _No

Do you comparison shop and look for the “best buy”? _Yes _No

When you purchase, do you usually purchase online? _Yes _No

Do you shop at any Big Box stores (Wal Mart or Target, for example)? _Yes _No

Do you ever go shopping with others as a social activity? _Yes _No

Does shopping ever feel therapeutic to you? _Yes _Sometimes _Never

Are you an impulsive shopper? _Yes _No _Sometimes

Are you influenced by what is currently fashionable and trendy? _Yes _No

Have you ever gone shopping for a perfect item (pair of jeans, for example)? _Yes _No

Do you ever consider where or under what conditions an item is made? _Yes _No

After a shopping excursion, are you ever surprised by how much you spent or do you set a budget when you shop and keep to it?  _Sometimes surprised  _Never surprised

How often do you return items? _Sometimes _Often _Rarely

Do you usually use cash or credit cards when you shop? _cash/debit card) _ credit card

Networking

Join a small group of your peers to compare your responses.  Options: (1) Report back to the whole class some general findings.  Do most group members shop at Big Box stores, for example?  (2) Tally the results for the whole class.

Shopping Approach

What is your approach to shopping? QuickWrite for five minutes.

Shopper: Jessica Dalfen

I tend to shop in malls, so I just go floor by floor and pass the stores I do not like.  There is one strip mall I sometimes go to because it’s convenient and there’s a Dunkin Doughnuts across the street.  When I shop, I like to go to the stores I shop at more frequently first and at the end the stores that are too expensive.  That way I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time.  If I walk around a store just to look and then I don’t have time for one I really like after, I feel like a bad shopper.  When I shop as strip malls, or even a single store, there must be some sort of coffee place very near by.  I love having a break in my shopping day to get one of my favorite drinks.  If I am new in a new place where I’m not familiar with the shops, I look at the window displays and decide which ones to go in.  Sometimes it’s more amusing to shop without a game plan.

__________________________________________________

Shopping Artifact

We construct our identities, at least in part, through the consumer products that inhabit our lives.

                                                Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001: 198

QuickWriting: Show & Tell     

Bring a photocopy or photograph of the artifact to class (or scan one into your blog or another e-space).  Write quickly for 5 minutes about how the artifact identifies you as a shopper.

Sam’s Shopping Artifact

I knew the second I saw them, I had to have these sneakers. While the shoes have the classic Cortez shape and design, they are also lined with suede, which is a popular contemporary style. The lime green and tangerine colors provide a very bold, retro look. These shoes incorporate many appealing styles and eclectic features, much like my personality and shopping style.

Kelly’s Shopping Artifact

Posted by kna | 4 Mar, 2008, 15:30

As somewhat of an avid shopper, I had a hard time narrowing down my recent purchases and choosing one that would represent me. I decided that rather than using an example of something I enjoy shopping for (makeup) or own a great deal of (clothes), I would use a random item –a mousepad—that says a lot about what kind of shopper I am.

I came across a variety of choices. There were your standard run-of-the-mill rectangular foam pads, as well as high-end ones with memory foam wrist cushions. There were mouse pads with many different pictures and prints, as well as those that allowed you to put a picture in it. I found all of these pretty tacky and knew they wouldn't go with the color scheme of my room—creamy whites, pale seaglass blues, and rich chocolate-y browns, with dark espresso-colored woods. The average price of the mouse pads was around $3-$5, the cheapest being a square red one with a huge Staples logo on it. I'm sure it did its job well enough, but it was ugly. In the end, I chose a $10 mouse pad--a simple slim black one with a micro-fiber surface. The color and shape were very clean and minimal, and most importantly, its dark color would blend in with my desk.

My mouse pad purchase reveals a lot about myself as a shopper. I'm not someone who buys the cheapest option available so long as it serves the purpose, nor do I choose the most high-end option and pay for unnecessary frills I have no need for. Appearance and quality are both priorities of mine; I make my purchasing decisions based on which items suit my tastes and needs the best. Although there were many cheaper options, it was important to me to buy one that matched my desk and room. In addition to this, the micro-fiber surface provides "ultra-precision tracking," giving me greater control and feel with the mouse. For both beauty and function, I'd say the extra $5 was well worth it.

Jessica’s Shopping Artifact

Posted by jwhitaker | 6 Mar, 2008, 12:50

I absolutely love to buy shoes.  When I buy shoes, I never have to worry about whether or not they are going to fit, or make a certain part of my body look bad.  Whenever I am having one of those days where nothing looks good and I get frustrated, I always just go to the shoe department.  I love looking at all the different designs and colors.  I am usually very conservative with the colors I buy for my clothes, but I feel like getting unique with shoes is easier.  I feel like buying shoes is a quick way to make a bad shopping trip better.  These shoes, by Seychelles, are my most recent purchase.  I think they are so adorable and can look good with anything—skirts, jeans, dress pants, whatever.  I feel like any great pair of shoes can make a simple outfit look really great.  Shoes are definitely my favorite accessory to any outfit. 

Andrew’s Shopping Artifact

ayuen | 04 March, 2008 11:14

The item I picked that I feel defines me as a shopper is this sweater from J. Crew. It is a black V-neck cashmere sweater that can be worn casually or something that can be dressed up if worn with a button down shirt. They are a versatile item that comes in different styles to give your outfit different looks. I feel the sweater identifies me as a shopper because it gives me options in terms of going well with other clothes. I do not feel it is wise to buy clothes that will only look nice as one outfit so I try to purchase things that go well with various looks. Also, I look for comfort when making purchases. Cashmere is a very comfortable material which I take into consideration when looking at prices. Overall, I see purchases as an investment and like to gain the most out of them.

Networking

Share your shopping artifact and writing with a small group or the whole class. Hold up the actual artifact or a photocopy so everyone can see while you talk or project the image on screen.  Rather than just presenting, allow a few minutes for your peers to ask questions if they like.

________________________________________________________________

Branding Ourselves  

                                                                                                                     Barbara Kruger (1987)

Consumer goods provide an opportunity for people to express themselves, display their identities, or create a public persona.  The chairman of one of the world’s largest consumer products multinationals well understands that ‘the brand defines the consumer.  We are what we wear, what we eat, what we drive.  Each of us…is a walking compendium of brands.  The collection of brands we choose to assemble around us have become amongst the most direct expressions of our individuality—or more precisely, our deep psychological need to identify ourselves with others.  As the popular culture would have it, ‘I shop, therefore I am.’

-Juliet Schor, “Consumption and the Construction of Identity,” The Overspent American (NY: HarpurCollins, 1998: 57).

Key Words & QuickWriting

Networking

Join a small group to share what you have written.  What did you learn about yourself and others in your group?  Choose one to share with the whole class.

Readers at Work: A Guided Reading Assignment

Labor economist Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College and author of two national best-sellers—The Overworked American and The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need.  This selection is from the introduction of an essay Schor published in Do Americans Shop Too Much? (Beacon Press, 2000) as part of the New Democracy Forum, “a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns.”  Read this introduction once through and then follow the guidelines for re-reading.

The New Politics of Consumption

Juliet Schor

In contemporary American culture, consuming is as authentic as it gets.  Advertisements, getting a bargain, garage sales, and credit cards are firmly entrenched pillars of our way of life.  We shop on our lunch hours, patronize outlet malls on vacation, and satisfy our latest desires with a late-night click of a mouse.

            Yet for all is popularity, the shopping mania provokes considerable dis-ease: many Americans worry about our preoccupation with getting and spending.  They fear we are losing touch with more worthwhile values and ways of living.  But the discomfort rarely goes much further than that; it never coheres into a persuasive, well-articulated critique of consumerism.  By contrast, in the 1960s and early 1970s, a far-reaching critique of consumer culture was part of our political discourse. Elements of the New Left, influenced by the Frankfurt school, as well as by John Kenneth Galbraith and others, put forward a scathing indictment.  They argued that Americans had been manipulated into participating in a dumbed-down, artificial consumer culture, which yielded few true human satisfactions.

            For reasons that are not hard to imagine, this particular approach was short-lived, even among critics of American society and culture.  It seemed too patronizing to talk about manipulation of the “true needs” of average Americans.  In its stead, critics adopted a more liberal point of view and deferred to individuals on consumer issues.  Social critics again emphasized the distribution of resources, with the more economistic goal of maximizing the incomes of working people.  The good life, they suggested, could be achieved by attaining a comfortable, middle-class standard of living.  This outlook was particularly prevalent in economics, where even radical economists have long believed that income is the key to well-being.  While radical political economy, as it came to be called, retained a powerful critique of alienation in production and the distribution of property, it abandoned the nascent intellectual project of analyzing the consumer sphere.  Few economists now think about how we consume and whether it reproduces class inequality, alienation, or power.  “Stuff” is the part of the equation that the system is thought to have gotten nearly right.

            Of course, many Americans retained a critical stance toward our consumer culture.  They embody that stance in their daily lives, in the ways they live and raise their kids.  The rejection of consumerism, if you will, has taken place principally at an individual level.  It is not associated with widely accepted intellectual analysis, and an associated critical politics of consumption.

            But such a politics has become an urgent need.  The average American now finds it harder to achieve a satisfying standard of living than did the average American twenty-five years ago.  Work requires longer hours, jobs are less secure, and pressures to spend more intense.  Consumption-induced environmental damage remains pervasive, and we are in the midst of widespread failures of public provision.  While the current economic boom has allayed consumers’ fears for the moment, many Americans have long-term worries about their ability to meet basic needs, ensure a decent standard of living for their children, and keep up with an ever-escalating consumption norm.

            In response to these developments, social critics continue to focus on income.  In his impressive analysis of the problems of contemporary American capitalism, Fat and Mean, economist David Gordon emphasizes income adequacy.  The “vast majority of U.S. households,” he argues, “can barely make ends meet….Meager livelihoods are a typical condition, an average circumstance.”  Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute focuses on the distribution of income and wealth, arguing that the gains of the top 20 percent have jeopardized the well-being of the bottom 80 percent.  Incomes have stagnated and the robust 3 percent growth rates of the 1950s and 1960s are long gone.  If we have a consumption problem, this view implicitly states, we can solve it by getting more income into more people’s hands.  The goals are redistribution and growth.

            It is difficult to take exception to this view.  It combines a deep respect for individual choice (the liberal part) with a commitment to justice and equality (the egalitarian part).  I held it myself for many years.  But I now believe that by failing to look deeper, to examine the very nature of consumption, it has become too limiting.  In short, I do not think that the “income solution” addresses some of the most profound failures of the current consumption regime.

            Why not?  First, consuming is part of the problem.  Income (the solution) leads to consumption practices that exacerbate and reproduce class and social inequalities, resulting in, and perhaps even worsening, an unequal distribution of income.  Second, the system is structured such that an adequate income is an elusive goal.   That is because adequacy is relative, defined by reference to the incomes of others.  Without an analysis of consumer desire and need, and a different framework for understanding what is adequate, we are likely to find ourselves, twenty years from now, arguing that a median income of $100,000—rather than half that—is adequate.  These arguments underscore the social context of consumption: the ways in which our sense of social standing and belonging comes from what we consume.  If true, they suggest that attempts to achieve equality or adequacy of individual incomes without changing consumption patterns will be self-defeating.

            Finally, it is difficult to make an ethical argument that people in one of the worlds’ richest countries need more when the global income gap is so wide, the disparity in world resource use so enormous, and the possibility that we are already consuming beyond Earth’s ecological carrying capacity so likely. (This third critique will get less attention in this essay—because it is more familiar, not because it is less important—but I will return to it in the conclusion.)

            I agree that justice requires a vastly more equal society, in terms of income and wealth.  The question is whether we should also aim for a society in which our relationship to consuming changes, a society in which we consume differently.  I argue here for such a perspective: for a critique of consumer culture and practices.  Somebody needs to be for quality of life, not just quantity of stuff.  And to be so requires an approach that does not trivialize consumption, but accords it the respect and centrality it deserves.

Some Guidelines for Re-Reading Schor

1. Schor writes that “credit cards are firmly entrenched pillars of our way of life.”  Her essay was published in 2000.  Do some research to support that this claim still holds true today.  Use statistical evidence.  How much credit card debt, for example, does the average American family have today?  Has the amount risen since 2000?  Option: Do research in small groups and share your findings.

2. Schor claims that “shopping mania provokes considerable dis-ease.”  How does she support this claim?  What worries her most?

3. How does Schor support her point that “the average American finds it harder to achieve a satisfying standard of living”?  Schor was writing in the late 1990s. Her essay was published in 2000.  Would you say the average American finds it just as hard or harder today to achieve a satisfying standard of living?  Can you find evidence or support?

4. What do some American socio-cultural critics believe to be the “key to well-being,” to living a “good life”?  What do they focus on?  What does Schor believe?  Copy her “I…believe” sentence and the sentence that follows.

5. Explain her three supporting points in your own words.  Re-read the last two paragraphs before the conclusion and make some notes.  Work toward understanding.  Can you explain her “Why not?” argument to someone else? 

Write 

Writing Your Reading – What do you understand Schor to mean when she writes: “The question is whether we should also aim for a society in which our relationship to consuming changes, a society in which we consume differently”?  What is she arguing for?  Offer your understanding and reflections in a semi-formal 250-300 word “Reader Response” (which could take the form of a blog). Join the conversation!

Shopping

America has changed from a country that makes things to a country that buys things.

Danny Schechter, journalist, media critic, and director of the documentary “In Debt We Trust,” which shows how “the mall replaced the factory as America’s dominant economic engine.”

Shopping is My Cardio

Mary Ciaramello, Editor

BUZZ entertainment guide

Volume 3, Issue 20, p. 2   

Hi, my name is Mary, and I’m a shopaholic.  I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I never realized the full extent of my obsession until recently when I was looking at a scrapbook of my wedding and I came across the speech that my sister-in-law/maid of honor gave at the rehearsal dinner.  It was a modern fairy tale about a princess (presumably me) with magical shopping powers and who was felled by a knight from the realm of Xbox…not too far from the truth, really.

What really struck me about the story was that my loved ones see shopping as a big part of my identity, and it is.

I guess I learned it from my mother, who can shop for days without getting tired of it.  For me, shopping was always more fun than going to the park.  It was how my mother and I bonded, and it’s how I bond with most of my friends.  If you haven’t hung out with me at the mall, then you haven’t met the real me.

And it’s not like I’m a spender, really.  I’m totally fine about leaving a store without buying anything.  I just like to walk around and look at all the stuff.

Chances are, if you’re going to bump into me somewhere out and about with my friends, it won’t be at a bar or coffee shop or any place like that.  It would be at a place where I can shop.

                                    See you at the mall,

                                                 Mary

Where do you like to shop? E-mail me!                    

http://www.barneys.com/History/HISTORY,default,pg.html

______________________________________________________________________

The brain chemical dopamine plays a crucial role in our mental and physical health….Dopamine can cause someone to get caught up in the shopping moment and make bad decisions.

Why Shopping Makes You Feel So Good

Tara Parker-Pope

Wall Street Journal

December 6, 2005

When Wazhma Samizay and her friends have a bad day, they go shopping, a ritual dubbed "retail therapy."

"When you are shopping to buy a gift or get something for yourself, either way it's kind of a treat," says Ms. Samizay, who three years ago opened a Seattle boutique named Retail Therapy. "The concept of the store was about finding things that made people feel good."

Science is now discovering what Ms. Samizay and many consumers have known all along: Shopping makes you feel good. A growing body of brain research shows how shopping activates key areas of the brain, boosting our mood and making us feel better — at least for a little while. Peering into a decorated holiday window or finding a hard-to-find toy appears to tap into the brain's reward center, triggering the release of brain chemicals that give you a "shopping high." Understanding the way your brain responds to shopping can help you make sense of the highs and lows of holiday shopping, avoid buyer's remorse and lower your risk for overspending.

Much of the joy of holiday shopping can be traced to the brain chemical dopamine. Dopamine plays a crucial role in our mental and physical health. The brains of people with Parkinson's disease, for instance, contain almost no dopamine. Dopamine also plays a role in drug use and other addictive behaviors. Dopamine is associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, and it's released when we experience something new, exciting or challenging. And for many people, shopping is all those things.

"You're seeing things you haven't seen; you're trying on clothes you haven't tried on before," says Gregory Berns, an Emory University neuroscientist and author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment."

University of Kentucky researchers in 1995 studied rats exploring unfamiliar compartments in their cages — the laboratory equivalent of discovering a new store at the mall. When a rat explored a new place, dopamine surged in its brain's reward center. The study offers a warning about shopping in new stores or while out of town. People tend to make more extraneous purchases when they shop outside their own communities, says Indiana University professor Ruth Engs, who studies shopping addiction.

But MRI studies of brain activity suggest that surges in dopamine levels are linked much more with anticipation of an experience rather than the actual experience — which may explain why people get so much pleasure out of window-shopping or hunting for bargains.

Dopamine can cause someone to get caught up in the shopping moment and make bad decisions. Dr. Berns of Emory says dopamine may help explain why someone buys shoes they never wear. "You see the shoes and get this burst of dopamine," says Dr. Berns. Dopamine, he says, "motivates you to seal the deal and buy them. It's like a fuel injector for action, but once they're bought it's almost a let down."

Dr. Berns and his colleagues have devised studies to simulate novel experiences to better understand when and why the brain releases dopamine. In one set of studies volunteers reclined in an MRI scanner while a tube trickled drops of water or sweet Kool-Aid into their mouths. Sometimes the Kool-Aid drops were a predictable pattern, while other studies used random drops. Notably, when the Kool-Aid was predictable the brain showed little increased activity. But the scans showed a high level of activity when the Kool-Aid was given at random. This indicates that the anticipation of the reward — whether it's Kool-Aid or a new dress — is what gets our dopamine pumping.

Because the shopping experience can't be replicated inside an MRI scanner, other researchers are using electroencephalogram, or EEG, monitors that measure electrical activity in the brain to better understand consumer-shopping habits. Britain's Neuroco, a London consulting firm, uses portable monitors, strapped on to shoppers, to produce "brain maps" as a way to understand consumer buying habits. The brain maps show a marked difference in the brain patterns of someone just browsing compared with a consumer about to make a purchase.

"Shopping is enormously rewarding to us," says David Lewis, a neuroscientist and director of research and development. But Dr. Lewis also notes that stressful holiday crowds, poor service or the realization that you've spent too much can quickly eliminate the feel-good effects of shopping.

Knowing that shopping triggers real changes in our brain can help you make better shopping decisions and not overspend while in a dopamine-induced high. For instance, walking away from a purchase you want and returning the next day will eliminate the novelty of the situation and help you make a more clear-headed decision.

Dr. Engs of Indiana has compiled a list of dos and don'ts to help people make better shopping decisions. Although the steps are aimed at people with compulsive shopping problems, they are useful for anyone caught up in the holiday shopping frenzy.

Buy only the items on your shopping list to avoid impulse purchases.

Use cash or debit cards. Financial limits keep you from buying things you can't afford in the midst of shopping excitement.

Window-shop after stores have closed or when you've left your wallet at home. You'll get the pleasure of shopping without the risk of overspending.

Don't shop when you're visiting friends or relatives. The added novelty of shopping in a new place puts you at higher risk of buying something you don't need.

______________________________

Self-Help for Shopaholics:

How to Cut Your Cash Consumption in Half in Just One Week!

Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella, a former financial journalist, is the author of the bestselling ‘Shopaholic’ series published by Black Swan (London). In this selection from The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (2000: 64-67), Rebecca Bloomwood, a journalist who spends her working life telling others how to manage their money and her leisure time shopping tries cutting back.

Recreational shopping enthusiasts are found to engage more extensively in a range of retail shopping behaviors, to spend more money shopping (i.e., they are not just browsers), and are more ‘multi-channel’ than other shoppers, reporting higher levels of Internet, catalog, and TV home shopping as well as traditional ‘brick-and-mortar’ shopping.

“Defining and Measuring Recreational Shopper Identity,” Michael Guiry; Anne W. Magi, & Richard J. Lutz. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 34, No. 1, 74-83 (2006).

Learning Diderot’s Lesson: Stopping the Upward Creep of Desire

Juliet B. Schor                                                                 

For the Guided Reading Assignment for this project, you read Schor’s introduction to “The New Politics of Consumption.”  The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer, from which the following selection is taken, received the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of Teachers of English.  In this chapter, Schor outlines nine principles to help people get off the “consumer escalator.’  The following includes the introduction (Diderot’s Lesson) and Principle 6.

Don't buy it!

Stephanie Zacharek

Salon.com (p. 1)

April 26, 2005

Mega-buzzed magazines like Lucky, Cargo and the brand-new Domino reduce readers to consumers without brains or a sense of style.

"What business have we with art at all, unless we all can share it?" -- 19th century craftsman, designer, writer and Socialist William Morris

"Design for all." -- advertising slogan for Target

"Don't just show me a nice console table; suggest unexpected mirrors that might look great hanging above it. Don't just offer me a selection of gorgeous wallpapers; give me ideas about where to hang them." -- Deborah Needleman, editor in chief of new Condé Nast magazine Domino

Not so long ago, when Americans wanted to shop at home, they picked up a catalog or hit the Internet. But shopping magazines -- or magalogs, a concept first introduced by Condé Nast several years ago with the women's shopping magazine-turned-juggernaut Lucky -- have changed all that. Like catalogs, magalogs allow us to shop vicariously, to spend our money a hundred times over in our minds without forking over a penny. But unlike catalogs, which are simply good old-fashioned pleas on the part of a given company to get us to buy its goods, shopping magazines are allegedly on our side: Seeing how puzzled and bewildered we are by the ever-increasing array of stuff to buy, these magazines, staffed by a host of hip, with-it editors, take us by the hand to offer guidance, insight and wisdom -- they're a kind of Consumer Reports for the shopping-mall set.

On the market for a pair of jeweled flip-flops? Lucky will scour the market to assemble the jeweled-flip-flop hall of fame, offering a selection of every type available for the given season, in a range of prices for all pocketbooks. The editors of Lucky appear on the magazine's pages like mini-celebrities, conspiratorially sharing their favorite finds of the month: "Just a touch of macram trim is a smart spin on the easiest trend of the season." Before you've expressed even the vaguest interest in jeweled flip-flops, the shopping magazine knows just what you want (macram -- but of course!) and clamors to be the first to tell you where you can get it.

On the surface, at least, the shopping magazine doesn't seem to be a particularly heinous invention: What harm can there be in a magazine filled with bunches of little pictures accented with helpful little text blips (to call them captions would be an overstatement)? Consumers have certainly taken the bait: Last year Condé Nast rolled out Cargo, a sort of Lucky for boys, offering guy-guidance on clothing, grooming products and gadgets. Other magazine-publishing empires have scrambled to produce their own portable mini-malls, among them Hearst's Lucky-alike Shop. And now Condé Nast reveals the third jewel in its tiara of shopaholism: Domino, billed as "the shopping magazine for your home," officially goes on sale Tuesday.

At first, one or two shopping magazines didn't seem to be too many: The universe of magazine publishing could certainly support them. But with the arrival of Domino, what used to be a refreshing novelty is now that ineffably dull thing known as a trend. And maybe now it's time to ask ourselves what we're shopping for when we pick up a shopping magazine: Are we really slaking a thirst to find out just how many kinds of garden benches there are out there? Do we really need a "smart chart" to learn how to layer the linens on our bed? When we spend 80 seconds scrutinizing a page full of door knockers, are we really shopping for door knockers -- or are we shopping for taste?

Now that Domino has dropped, the insidiousness of the shopping magazine takes a clear form: Why spend years building a personal aesthetic when you can just buy one?

Copyright © 2007 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.  http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2005/04/26/magalogs/index.html 

BUY NOTHING DAY      Spend a day without spending!

In the United States Buy Nothing Day is always the day after Thanksgiving. This demonstration took place in San Francisco (November 2000).    Photo by Lars Aronsson. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/La2-buynothing.jpg

Analyze

Create an analytical framework to differentiate kinds of shoppers (from recreational to compulsive).  See “Creating an Analytical Framework,” Resources, p. 0.

Reflect

What kind of a shopper are you?  Go back and review your responses to the shopping questionnaire (“Getting Started”) and consider the following questions as well: Do you sometimes buy something (appearance or identity-related items like clothes or shoes) to lift your spirits?  Do you feel pressured to upgrade your “stack of stuff”?  Do you tend to “shop ‘til you drop”?  Make a few notes and QuickWrite for five minutes.

Discuss

Join a small discussion group.  Review your QuickWriting and share an observation about yourself as a shopper.  Go back and review “Diderot’s Lesson” (Schor, p. 0-00).  Have you ever found yourself delighted with a new acquisition but feeling you needed something else to go with it—feeling, as Schor put it, “the upward creep of desire,” which she calls the “Diderot effect”?  Discuss what you understand Schor to mean when she writes: “To avoid the pitfalls of Diderot, and the new consumerism more generally, requires a new consumer consciousness and behavior.”

Learn More

Learn more about what distinguishes a truly compulsive shopper (a shopaholic) from a shopper who sometimes shops to “feel good.”  Learn more about branding and logos and brand name shopping.  Browse through some articles, in the Journal of Consumer Culture, for example, and even some shopping guide magazines.  Do some research to learn how much Internet shopping has increased.   Learn about how malls have adapted to changing consumer lifestyles.  Look at some more recent books about “commodity culture.”  Learn about how consumerism is becoming more of a way of life in other parts of the world, India, for example.  Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion of your findings.

Write

A consumer culture is a commodity culture—that is, a culture in which commodities are central to cultural meaning.  Commodities are things that are bought and sold in a social system of exchange.  The concept of commodity culture is intricately allied with the idea that we construct our identities, at least in part, though the consumer products that inhabit our lives. This is what media scholar Stuart Ewen has termed the ‘commodity self,’ the idea that our selves, indeed our subjectivities, are mediated and constructed in part through our consumption and use of commodities.  Clothing, music, cosmetic products, and cars, among other things, are commodities which people use to present their identities to those around them. 

                                   Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practice of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001: 198

Option 1

CLAIM: We construct our identities, at least in part, through the consumer products that inhabit our lives.

Support this claim with examples from your own life.  Select three different kinds of commodities that help identify you in some way (clothing, music, electronics, cosmetic products, cars, for example). If you like, one of these can be the shopping artifact you selected for an earlier assignment (“Getting Started,” p. 0).    For each consumer product, explain in a paragraph how the product reveals something about you or adds to your sense of self.

Option 2

Tell a personal shopping story that is part of a larger cultural story and raises some issues or concerns.  The following example may be helpful.

Writer at Work: Karen

Karen posted the following piece in her blog. The underlining indicates links to references.  After narrating a personal shopping story, she offers her critical reflections as a prompt for discussion.

Question

Consumption.

A Conscientious Consumer’s Dilemma

We construct our identities, at least in part, though the consumer products that inhabit our lives.

                                                     Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practice of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001: 198

            I had a two-hour wait at an airport between flights.  I was headed for Virginia, which had slightly colder weather than I had anticipated.  I thought I’d look for a light sweater and wandered into Gap, though I had hesitated.  I’d heard in the news that Gap clothes were stitched in sweatshops in distant countries like India.  Still I browsed and found a perfect light cardigan, nice and also cheap.  But who stitched it?  And wasn’t it inexpensive because of cheap labor?  But wasn’t that controversy settled months ago?  I purchased the sweater and boarded the plane. 

            On board I opened a newspaper I had bought and noticed a news article about how some British reporter had discovered young children working for Gap in India.  In response, Gap removed removed from their shelves neatly folded sweaters finished by these workers, but the reporter pointed out that the problem is larger.  Many underage sweatshop workers hide when inspectors show up because families need the money. 

            I can’t remember the last time I saw a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. Some companies claim that their tee-shirts are ”Made in the USA,“ but they may import cotton from another country where workers are exposed to pesticides and suffer ill health.  (Cotton is a dirty crop and requires “killer” pesticides.) If I eventually throw away a cotton T-shirt, however, it will eventually disintegrate, which can’t be said of polyester or lycra.  But if I buy a cotton T-shirt, I think of the women and children whose health has been sacrificed. 

            I live a good, middle-class life.  I can buy a more expensive certified organic cotton T-shirt.  I could even sport a slogan that carries a message   Buy Organic Cotton! Save Planet Earth!  and be a conspicuous, status-seeking consumer.  Or I could sport a grin, boasting my comfortable middle-class life, wearing my  Life is good!  cotton? tee. 

Or I could say to myself, I can’t do anything about it.  At least I thought about the sweater I bought at the Gap.  That’s more than most people do, I exclaim, patting myself on the “Life is good!” slogan printed by someone aspiring to live the good life. 

I wonder: If consumers were more educated about what they were buying and buying into, would they be more likely to make different choices?  So much has to do with our lifestyles. If we are working more to buy more and live in bigger houses, then who has time to become educated about consumption?  I agree with Juliet Schor---it’s not just about income equality.  We need to examine (question?) consumer culture. Quality of life should matter over quantity of stuff.  We’re filling the earth with all this “stuff”—artifacts of a throw-away culture.  If we could see what happens to the stuff we put out on the curb on trash collection day, would that matter?  Or are we so desensitized…?   How expensive is “the good life” so many people strive for?  I think “the good life” is going to be equated with “stuff” for a long time, maybe until the good earth can’t hold any more.  What do you think?

·        LEAVE A COMMENT

Networking   What do you learn about this person through this shopping story? What is the larger cultural story?  What do you think about the issues this writer raises?

Marketing

Cause-Related Marketing (CRM)

Cause-Related Marketing: Why Social Change and Corporate Profits Don’t Mix

Inger Stole

Center for Media & Democracy

July 14, 2006

Inger Stole is a board member of the Center for Media and Democracy, an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the author of Advertising on Trial: Consumer Activism and Corporate Public Relations in the 1930s.  An educational blog she posted about her reading of corporate cause-related marketing follows along with two examples.

In the 1980s, a new form of marketing was born: Cause-Related Marketing (CRM), a hybrid of product advertising and corporate public relations. CRM aims to link corporate identities with nonprofit organizations and good causes. As a tax-deductible expense for business, this form of brand leveraging seeks to connect with the consuming public beyond the traditional point of purchase and to form long-lasting and emotional ties with consumers. However, what might seem like a fair exchange between corporations in search of goodwill and non-profits in search of funds also raises a range of troubling social, political and ethical questions.

CRM is, first and foremost, a market-driven system. Therefore, a non-profit organization’s chance of obtaining CRM funding hinges on its ability to complement sales messages. However, it is often the case that vital social issues are only -- or are best -- addressed by “edgy” groups or by using controversial tactics. For example, in 1983 American Express might have saved lives by highlighting HIV/AIDS, then considered a taboo subject because of its association with homosexual lifestyles. Instead, the credit card raised funds to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Today, companies “fight” breast cancer by selling pink ribbon pins, teddy bears or yoghurt, and donating some of the proceeds to research efforts. Imagine the impact if the companies instead, or in addition, advocated for a more equitable healthcare system. After all, inadequate health insurance keeps many women from detecting breast cancer in its early, and most curable, stage.

Markets Without a Cause

There are six main types of CRM arrangements. The first four relate to standard corporate practices. These are: advertising, where a business aligns itself with a particular cause and uses ads to communicate the cause’s message; public relations, where a business calls press and public attention to a strategic partnership between itself and a non-profit group; sponsorship, where a business helps fund a particular program or event; licensing, where a business pays to use a charity logo on its products or services; and direct marketing, where both a business and a non-profit raise funds and promote brand awareness.

A fifth type of CRM is facilitated giving, where a business facilitates customer donations to the charity ... or to themselves! The ongoing effort by Ameren, an Illinois energy supplier, is a good example. In their monthly bills, Ameren customers receive a plea for donations to the corporation’s “Warm Neighbor” program, a fund established to help Ameren customers who are unable to pay their utility bills and/or weatherize their homes. While the energy supplier contributes an unspecified amount, the program relies on the generosity of Ameren customers. Lost -- or deliberately obscured -- is the fact that customers are helping other customers settle their debts to Ameren. Other utility companies use the same strategy. A few years ago, the telecom company then known as SBC Ameritech launched its “Bridge the Digital Divide” program, to provide people with basic computer knowledge using the same collection strategies.

The sixth and most widely used CRM practice is purchase-triggered donations. This is where a company pledges to contribute a percentage or set amount of a product’s price to a charitable cause or organizations. The American Express campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty, mentioned above, is credited as the blueprint. The company promised to contribute one cent for every card transaction and $1 for every new card issued during the last quarter of 1983. American Express not only collected $1.7 million for the restoration effort – there was a 28 percent increase in use of their credit cards, not to mention massive press coverage and free publicity. These results were not lost on other businesses. Between 1990 and 1999, American companies spent increasing amounts on CRM; the total annual sum has now passed the one billion dollar mark.

Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat!

Frequent benefactors of CRM campaigns, due to their largely non-controversial nature, are educational programs. Among the early and well-known national CRM efforts was Visa’s 1997 “Read a Story” campaign, where Visa pledged a donation to a group called “Reading Is Fundamental” for each cardholder transaction. Today, CRM efforts involving the educational arena have become more elaborate. Take, for example, Upromise, a program involving major companies like Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and New York Life Insurance. Each time a parent, grandparent or other caring adult patronizes one of the over 20,000 grocery or drug stores, more than 40,000 retail stores and services, more than 8,000 restaurants and over 350 online retailers affiliated with the program, rents a car from Avis, or buys or sells a home with an affiliated real estate company, he or she can request that a portion of the amount be deposited in a college savings account established in a child or grandchild’s name. The size of the contributions varies. While a few participants pledge as much as 10 percent of the purchasing price, most donate one percent. Thus, in order to earn $1,000 for college, relatives and friends must purchase $100,000 of goods and services, while providing the participating companies with a great deal of valuable demographic information.

Founded in 1982 to “eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease.” the Susan G. Komen Foundation has become one of the most visible fund raising organizations for cancer research, as well as a favorite CRM charity. Its annual “Race for the Cure” is the largest ongoing sports/fund-raising event in the country. More than most non-profits, the Komen Foundation is actively involved in marketing its event to companies in search of CRM ventures. In 2006, some twenty large companies, including Kellogg’s, Yoplait yoghurt, Pier 1 Imports, Re/Max Real Estate, and American Airlines were members of Komen’s Million Dollar Council. In addition to paying a million dollars for the right to serve as official sponsors of the annual race, each company has separate CRM efforts that showcase their connections to the cause. Yoplait, for example, has pledged to donate 10 cents for each of the first 30 million yoghurt lids it receives from customers to the Komen Foundation. Not to be outdone, Kellogg’s promises to send a pink ribbon heart pin to every customer who donates five dollars to the Komen Foundation and mails proof of the contribution along with two purchase labels from specially-marked cereal boxes.

Also partnering with Komen is BMW. The automaker has developed an elaborate scheme to benefit the Susan B. Komen Foundation -- and possibly itself. As part of a campaign called “Ultimate Drive,” BMW promises to donate one dollar for each mile of test driving during a particular period, and to donate a percentage from the sale of its “Pink Ribbon Collection” of watches, T-shirts and notebooks to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For anyone doubting the marketing power of breast cancer awareness, I recommend a trip to any department store during October, “the official Breast Cancer Awareness month.” The sheer number of manufactures who adorn their products with pink ribbons and offer to donate a share of their sales to the cause is overwhelming.

The Changing Face of CRM

Sometimes a company deliberately ties its identity so closely with its CRM efforts that it, by design or pure coincidence, appears to be a non-profit outfit itself. Working Assets, a for-profit company headquartered in San Francisco, is one example. As a self-described “socially responsible long distance telephone and credit card company,” Working Assets donates one percent of customers’ telephone charges and 10 cents for each credit card transaction it processes to nonprofit organizations working for peace, human rights, economic justice, or the environment. An annual ballot listing participating organizations is sent to Working Assets customers, to determine how the unrestricted general-support grants are allocated. During its first year in 1986, Working Assets donated $32,000 to non-profit organizations. In 1997, donations totaled nearly $3 million; by 2005 some $4 million was donated. Today, the company claims to have donated a total of $50 million to various causes through its CRM efforts.

As new technologies emerge, CRM efforts follow. One example is the “giving malls” that have sprung up on the Internet. Since 1997, iGive.com has offered customers the opportunity to shop from over 400 affiliated merchants and to direct up to 39 percent of every purchase (although the typical donation is three percent) to more than 18,000 nonprofits, often local chapters of large national non-profit organizations. The chance to be associated with a good cause is not lost on retail giants like Amanzon.com, L.L Bean, Barnes & Noble, Office Max, eBay and Dell. During its nine years in existence, iGive.com has helped distribute nearly two million dollars to a total of 30,000 charitable causes.

Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

At first glance, CRM appears to be a win-win situation. Charities get needed funds, while businesses get to bask in the glory of others’ good deeds. Judging by its popularity, business has clearly embraced the CRM concept and few non-profit organizations are turning the private sector away.

However, this does not mean that merging marketing and social causes is without problems. Although CRM may do a wonderful job in collecting funds for affiliated charities, it should not be forgotten that social causes, in desperate need of funding, may venture into partnerships that are far from equal. Sometimes, CRM partnerships hold the potential of harming more than helping non-profits.

The botched pact between the American Medical Association (AMA) and Sunbeam Corporation serves as a cautionary example. In the summer of 1997, the AMA agreed to endorse nine products in Sunbeam’s “Health at Home” line, including blood-pressure monitors and thermometers. In return, Sunbeam would pay a percentage of sales to the AMA in the form of "royalties,” to be used for the AMA’s research and education programs. For Sunbeam, the AMA seal of approval would provide a competitive advantage that could significantly boost sales.

But there was an immediate outcry both from consumer groups and medical professionals. The former questioned whether the AMA would evaluate honestly the efficacy of products. They were also uncomfortable with the organization encouraging consumers to buy products that might be more costly, but not necessarily better, than competitive products. Moreover, the ordinary consumer might see the AMA name on a product and think that Sunbeam was a philanthropic donor to the AMA, instead of a participant in a marketing deal. Others suggested that the AMA would be violating its own code of ethics by, in effect, recommending a product in which it had a financial interest.

Days after the deal was announced, the chair of AMA’s board of trustees revoked it, on grounds that it lacked board approval. Sunbeam’s chair responded by suing the AMA for breach of contract and the AMA ended paying Sunbeam $9.9 million for breach-of-contract suit.

“Good” Business As Usual

Because CRM is driven by the need to increase a businesses’ return on its investment, causes are selected not on the basis of the potential good that can be achieved but, rather, on the free publicity and increased sales a particular affiliation might bring to the business. Non-profits that do not fit a corporate profile or appeal to the customer group that businesses want to reach are ignored, even if they do vital work, while groups that provide good marketing vehicles receive a disproportional amount of interest. Working Assets is the exception that proves the rule.

In addition, CRM alliances with larger non-profits may bring so much free publicity and so many public relations opportunities that the business involved saves on advertising and promotional expenses. The business may also gain access to the non-profit’s clientele, staff, trustees, and donors, all of whom are potential customers. Such access makes non-profits with large memberships especially attractive to many companies.

Indeed, the commercial imperative behind CRM is well known in marketing circles. In February 2006, the Luxury Institute, a research group claiming to represent “the sole independent voice of the wealthy consumer,” surveyed households with over $5 million in personal wealth and $200,000 in annual income to determine which non-profit organizations affluent people liked. Habitat for Humanity, America’s Second Harvest and St Jude’s Hospital topped the list followed by many health- and research-related charities.

Generally, there is a tendency for business to focus on symptoms, as opposed to core problems. For example, while illiteracy is a frequent CRM cause, the more fundamental issues of poorly-funded schools or growing economic inequality are not. Likewise, while many businesses eagerly solicit funds for breast cancer research, they ignore links between certain industry practices and cancer and rarely, if ever, focus on the lack of affordable and adequate healthcare for women. In many instances, CRM may fairly be seen as a clever ploy to mask problems that the very same corporate forces are directly or indirectly responsible for. “As companies appear to fill the gaps they have helped create,” wrote columnist George Monbiot, “they can present themselves as indispensable vehicles for social provision, enabling them to argue for a further reduction in state services.”

By transforming generosity, compassions and charitable inclinations into a well-functioning branding strategy, companies have arrived at a very successful formula. Viewed from the public perspective, however, the future is far from silver lined. What will be the ultimate outcome turning the non-profit sector into a marketing tool for business? Non-profits have traditionally served the needs of people unable to obtain goods, services, and political redress. In a worst-case scenario, money-starved non-profits might change their approaches and services rendered to become more attractive CRM partners. Instead of risking such compromise, business should pay their fair share of taxes. Then, education, health care, research and other social priorities could receive greater funding, with no strings attached. But don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Right now, business is having its cake and eating it too.

References

Adkins, Sue. Cause-related Marketing: Who cares Win (Oxford, Auckland, Boston, Johannesburg, Melbourne, New Delhi: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000).

CRM

Submitted by dickson on Sat, 08/26/2006 - 18:04.

Loved your blog about cause related marketing. I came acrossed it while doing research for a paper on crm

strategies. CRM sounded great until I came across the site for a company called endangered species chocolate (www.chocolatebar.com) It took me about 10 minutes to realize it is a for profit company. Kind of creepy.

____________________________________________________________________________________

As Inger Stole points out, “Sometimes a company ties its identity so closely with its CRM efforts that it, by design or pure coincidence, appears to be a non-profit outfit itself.” Working Assets, a for-profit company that describes itself as a “socially responsible long distance telephone and credit card company” is one example.

Want a better world? It’s your call.  Help save rainforests, defend reproductive freedom and house the homeless while you save money on long distance calls.”  Working Assets Promotion Brochure

WORKING ASSETS

MISSION, DONATIONS AND ACTIVISM

MISSION

Working Assets was established in 1985 to help busy people make a difference in the world through everyday activities like talking on the phone. Every time a customer uses one of Working Assets' donation-linked services (Long Distance, Wireless and Credit Card), the company donates a portion of the charges to nonprofit groups working to build a world that is more just, humane, and environmentally sustainable. To date, over $50 million has been raised for progressive causes.

The company also serves as a strong political force, dedicated to giving its customers the opportunity to speak out on critical public issues through its Web site and monthly phone bill.

DONATIONS

Since 1985, Working Assets has generated over $50 million for progressive nonprofits, including Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders, Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International and Project Vote, among many others.

Every year, a percentage of Working Assets' revenue is placed in a donations pool for annual distribution. Donations come from the top line (sales), not bottom-line (profits), therefore donations are made whether or not Working Assets makes a profit.

Customers can nominate nonprofit groups to receive funding each year. After a Working Assets project team evaluates the effectiveness of the hundreds of nominees, Working Assets employees and board of directors select 40 to 50 groups for the annual donations ballot. At the end of the year, customers vote on how to distribute the donations among the groups.

Customers can voluntarily "round up" their monthly long distance bills, donating the tax-deductible extra amount to Working Assets' general funding program. Working Assets also makes special appeals for round-ups, addressing immediate needs like emergency relief efforts.

ACTIVISM

In 1991 Working Assets created the Citizen Action program to provide customers with timely information and easy ways to speak out on important issues. Each month the company highlights two crucial national issues and five state issues (California, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington) under debate, explaining what's at stake and whom to contact. The company includes action alerts in its monthly phone bill. Working Assets customers can call the targeted decision-maker free of charge every day of the week, or have a low-cost, well-argued advocacy letter sent on their behalf. ActForChange.com users can take action online free of charge, about urgent issues of the day ranging from U.S. politics to environmental issues.

In 2006 alone, Working Assets customers generated nearly four million calls, letters and e-mails to Congress, the White House and corporate leaders on issues of critical public concern.

Created in 1995, Working Assets' Flash Activist Network (FAN) is a rapid response program designed to give customers a chance to speak out on fast-moving issues before all is said and done. Throughout the year FAN monitors critical events as they unfold and notifies members by phone, fax or e-mail when it's time for action. Members can call a toll-free number for details on the issues at hand, then be transferred directly to the targeted decision-maker, or send a personalized fax. For a low monthly fee, FAN members can influence public policy before it's too late.

VICTORIES

Working Assets is one of the most powerful progressive citizen-action groups in the nation. Each month, Working Assets customers generate approximately 80,000 calls and letters on important issues of public concern. Some recent political victories include: protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling; fighting political corruption, staving off plans to dump the Endangered Species Act and saving Social Security.

http://workingassets.com                       

Gap’s Red Campaign

M2M: Marketing to Men

August 26, 2007

Trey Laird, President and Executive Director, Laird Partners

When Trey Laird met with Bobby Shriver and Bono to discuss the creation of the (RED) campaign, they quickly made it known to Laird’s team that they were trying to start not a charity but a business. Bono was approaching cause marketing from a non-traditional point of view, and was calling for a new business paradigm: Sign up some of the world’s most iconic brands, have them manufacture products, make a profit, and then commit these companies to sustainable, long-term involvement with the goal of doing something good.

He recalls Bono’s lack of interest in conventional cause marketing, and quotes Bono as saying, “I don’t want to be Sally Struthers,” using a povertystricken baby as a tool to raise money. Bono’s point of view is that people respond to brands with great products and great campaigns that communicate in an effective way to get consumers, attention. Bono asked: Why can’t leading brands take their marketing power—all the resources, talent, energy, and money—and apply it to those people who need those resources? It was a concept that generated immediate traction in the market, as five of the world’s most venerated brands signed on for a five-year commitment to Product (RED)—Nike, GAP, Motorola, Emporio Armani, and American Express. These are all leading brands in different sectors, each with a huge global footprint, each with a passionate belief in issues ranging from the Global Fund to fighting AIDS, to tuberculosis and malaria in Africa.

Additionally, the campaign gave new meaning and inspiration to the work that employees of these partner companies did; they felt more involved in the bigger picture, and felt better about coming to work each day. Financially, the campaign has already made a huge impact—from its launch in October 2006 through March 2007, Product (RED) has raised $25 million. According to Laird, the total raised by Product (RED) is “12 times the amount China has given to the entire African continent on initiatives in the last 12 months.” Product (RED) has dramatically changed attitudes about giving on a grand scale, inspiring designers, engineers, architects, and all the partners involved to put their best ideas and efforts forward. “It’s been a good start and there’s more to come,” says Laird.

How do you engage men to participate in cause marketing efforts? The majority of the major philanthropic causes have been emotionally driven, and women are historically more likely than men to gravitate to this type of messaging.

However, that dissonance with men is changing; younger men (Millennials) have grown up with cause marketing initiatives and they view volunteering as a “cool thing to do.” Younger men, in particular, want to give back, and get engaged, because they feel it’s on their shoulders.

If you want to get men engaged, and want them to give money to your cause, you need to make it “real and honest.” Men respond to messages that are easy to understand and simple in structure. Men need to know, “What is it that you want me to do?” It is all about the right fit for the company—does the company have a pure purpose and is it done in an honest way? These are the issues that have to be addressed in order to get men involved. Guys will quickly recognize efforts that lack honesty and purity of spirit, and will turn their back on your brand. Laird believes that “we’re on a course that is not going to be reversed. Cause marketing feels so much more relevant than it has ever felt before—especially during the last 12 months—and the momentum will keep building.” Cause marketing is not a fad—when people get involved with efforts like Product (RED), their lives are changed irrevocably—and it is absolutely having a positive effect on companies’ morale

internally and improving their brand’s image outwardly.

Published by GQ Magazine  Copyright © 2008 GQ Magazine. All rights reserved.

http://www.imakenews.com/gq/e_article000891512.cfm?x=b11,0,w 

added to my bag

view bag

This one can. Gap (PRODUCT) RED™ started with the iconic Gap T-shirt. Made in Africa from 100 percent African cotton, the T-shirt debuted in the UK in spring 2006. An expanded Gap (PRODUCT) RED collection is now available in select Gap stores around the world and online at gap.com/red. With every Gap (PRODUCT) RED purchase, you can help make a difference for Africa.    Seventy percent of all people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Gap (PRODUCT) REDTM is about great products that can help make a difference for Africa. As a global partner of (PRODUCT) RED, we’re contributing half the profits from Gap (PRODUCT) RED sales to the Global Fund to help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Learn more about our involvement.

The Gap (PRODUCT) RED collection is here. Learn more.

(RED)TM was founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise awareness and money for the Global Fund by teaming with iconic brands to create (PRODUCT) RED branded products.

http://www.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=20857&mlink=16591,862368,1&clink=862368

Engagement Marketing

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/

Peer-to-Peer Marketing: Building a Buzz on Campus

Companies Enlist Students to Pitch Products to Their Peers

Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff

The Boston Globe

October 24, 2005

During lunch at Boston University, five girls ogled a 6-foot-7 blond senior with a winning smile and high cool-quotient as he approached their table. He was cute, they agreed. But equally intriguing was his pitch.

''I heard this is amazing!" Pam Spuehler, a sophomore in general studies, said as she read a postcard touting the OneNote software program that Cody Gossett had handed her.

''It is," Gossett said. ''You should check it out!"

''I will!" Spuehler said, adding as she eyed the phrase ''Save Trees. Use OneNote" on his chest, ''How do I get one of those T-shirts?"

The exchange was a corporate marketer's dream -- and one, in this case, come true for Microsoft, which hired Gossett to peddle its notes-organizing software on campus. Microsoft is among a growing number of companies seeking to reach the elusive but critical college market by hiring students to be ambassadors -- or, in more traditional terms, door-to-door salesmen.

In an age when the college demographic is no longer easily reached via television, radio, or newspapers -- as TiVo, satellite radio, iPods, and the Internet crowd out the traditional advertising venues -- a microindustry of campus marketing has emerged. Niche firms have sprung to act as recruiters of students, who then market products on campus for companies such as Microsoft, JetBlue Airways, The Cartoon Network, and Victoria's Secret.

''There is a paradigm shift in the way that corporations are marketing to college students," said Matt Britton, a managing partner of Mr. Youth, a New York-based firm that specializes in college student marketing. ''The student ambassador tactic embraces all the elements that corporations find most effective: It's peer-to-peer, it's word of mouth, it's flexible, and it breaks through the clutter of other media. For all that, it's growing very quickly."

By the estimate of leading youth marketing firms, tens of thousands of students work as campus ambassadors nationwide, with many in the college-rich Boston region.

The students selected tend to be campus leaders with large social networks that can be tapped for marketing. Good looks and charm tend to follow. Many are specially trained, sometimes at corporate headquarters, Gossett said, as in the case with Microsoft. They are expected to devote about 10 to 15 hours a week talking up the products to friends, securing corporate sponsorship of campus events, and lobbying student newspaper reporters to mention products in articles. They also must plaster bulletin boards with posters and chalk sidewalks -- tactics known as ''guerilla marketing," which, marketing firms acknowledge, intentionally skirt the boundaries of campus rules.

Students are compensated with the products they hawk, and some are paid a small stipend. The bigger attraction appears to be the resume-worthy experience and a possible inside track for a job with a company after graduation. The companies generally track the work through self-reporting: Mr. Youth maintains an online portal where students log their numbers of fliers posted, e-mail addresses collected, and the like. Microsoft, Gossett said, monitors the work by counting the number of student downloads by school.

Colleges and universities say they have little say over student marketers on campus and are often unaware they exist. While many schools bar companies from setting up shop or sending nonstudent representatives to approach students on campus property, administrators say many campus spaces are difficult to restrict to students.

''We are not in a position to tell people that they can't talk to people," said Bruce Reitman, dean of student affairs at Tufts University.

College students have long been prime targets of corporate marketing because as they shop for themselves for the first time, they are poised to form brand loyalties. But the push to reach them is even greater now as their monetary clout has grown along with their numbers.

The college market accounted for $231 billion in consumer spending last school year, according to a study by Harris Interactive for Alloy Media + Marketing, a New York firm that is the leading supplier of campus ambassadors. The same study noted that there were more college students than ever -- 16.5 million -- creating the largest college population in the nation's history.

College students are, however, a tough crowd for marketers. Wired as the generation may be, its members not only tend to ignore traditional media -- television, radio, and newspapers -- but, studies show, they are no more likely to click open an Internet ad than older adults are. They do, however, listen to one another.

Gary Colen, an executive vice president of marketing at Alloy, said telecommunication companies were early users of campus ambassadors, but, increasingly, retail and consumer goods firms are relying on them to counter the cacophony of corporate messages.

The method is a blend of other emerging tactics: buzz marketing, in which people talk up a product to friends and family without necessarily revealing corporate representation; and street teams, young people who hand out stickers, fliers, and products.

But the use of campus ambassadors differs, specialists say, in that it is not cold-call salesmanship, used by street groups, and it is more forthcoming than buzz marketing. Campus ambassadors generally are not required to state their corporate affiliation, but most companies instruct them not to try to obscure it.

At BU, Gossett, 22, and his co-worker, Trevor Guthrie, 21, also a senior majoring in advertising, did not announce their corporate ties -- allowing their logo-bearing T-shirts to do the work. Students they approached said, in interviews after listening to the pitch, they did not understand the students' relationship with Microsoft, but that it mattered little.

''I probably listened to Trevor more because he's a friend," said Kelsey Henager, a sophomore studying public relations. ''Students come from your level, and you don't feel like they are just pushing a product on you -- it's more like they're sharing their opinion."

Youth marketing firms say that sentiment is echoed in their research, which indicates that students have a growing mistrust of corporate messages -- both because of the number of them and the recent string of corporate scandals. Student ambassadors also have the power to connect companies with the zeitgeist of a student body, which can differ from campus to campus.

''MIT kids understand MIT kids, BU kids understand BU kids, and Tufts kids understand Tufts kids," said Josh Velasquez, an MIT senior who is working as a campus representative for JetBlue this semester.

So how do you pitch to an MIT student? ''Bullet points. Numerical lists," Velasquez said. ''If it's too arty, people will overlook. Color is good, but not too much."

Velasquez, who heard about the JetBlue job though the career services center at the Sloan School of Management, said his marketing methods have focused on filling campus bulletin boards with company posters, placing flight schedule booklets on computer consoles at the campus computing center, and securing corporate sponsorship of MIT's fall festival. The website for the festival now includes the JetBlue logo.

Velasquez said he is continually brainstorming new ways of getting his message out. His latest: preprinted Post-it notes, the better for sticking to computing center monitors.

''We're supposed to break the rules a little bit," he said. ''Traditional media doesn't work, so you have to go out and be creative."

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

1 2 Next 

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/10/24/building a buzz on ca...

Carmakers Market on a Personal Level

Car companies are looking for something different from a 30-second TV ad.

Los Angeles Times

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Los Angeles—Would you buy a Honda just because some guy with a Honda logo on his shirt helped unload your grocery cart?

Honda figures you might. For five months, area dealers have been dispatching blue-shirted crew members to pump gas at service stations, pass out popcorn at movie theaters and offer aid in supermarket parking lots. One Saturday in Pasadena, Calif., every parking meter on Colorado Boulevard was plugged and covered with a "Helpful Honda" hood that said, "It's On Us."

You might think it would be futile to squeegee a windshield for someone who isn't even thinking about buying a car, but research shows that the kinds of stunts Honda is pulling can work.

"Personal touch is a very powerful way of creating a brand message," said Kelly O'Keefe, executive education director at the Virginia Commonwealth University Ad Center.

A lot of car companies are resorting to what's known as engagement marketing: throwing parties and sponsoring concert series and wine tastings, often without an automotive vehicle in sight.

The Southern California Honda Dealers' campaign, created by Secret Weapon Marketing of Santa Monica, Calif., is paired with television spots that show the incredible lengths to which dealers will go to lend customers a hand, in one instance by donating a kidney.

"The strategy is to bring the campaign to life on a personal level with people," said Dick Sittig, Secret Weapon's creative director. "Maybe they'll think, 'What has my car company done for me lately?'"

Pioneering the strategy

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Scion brand pioneered auto engagement marketing in 2003 by sponsoring Scion Metro concerts, headlined by such hip-hop artists as the Wu-Tang Clan and Little Brother. The idea was to introduce Scion, a new brand, to young consumers. Jeri Yoshizu, Scion's sales promotion manager, said it succeeded: The Scion has proved popular with buyers younger than 35, and sales were up 11 percent last year from 2005.

Toyota has taken the lessons learned from the Scion campaign and applied it to other brands. To promote the Yaris, it kicked off the "Free Yr Radio" campaign in April, sponsoring indie bands that play in Urban Outfitters stores. The concerts are advertised via e-mails that only briefly mention the Yaris. Toyota's Lexus brand sponsors wine tastings and cocktail parties that are targeted at a more upscale audience.

"There's a dialogue that needs to happen beyond the limitations of the 30-second spot and the Web page," said Bruce McDermott, head of Saatchi & Saatchi's Brand Integration Group in Torrance, Calif., which works for Toyota.

The auto industry has embraced engagement marketing because many TV commercials for cars, and cars themselves, are so similar, said Eli Portnoy, the Los Angeles-based founder of Portnoy Group, a brand consultancy. "In automotive advertising, you can take the nameplates off, and a lot of it is the same."  Saturday, June 23, 2007

Car companies are looking for something different from a 30-second TV ad.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

LOS ANGELES — Would you buy a Honda just because some guy with a Honda logo on his shirt helped unload your grocery cart?

Honda figures you might. For five months, area dealers have been dispatching blue-shirted crew members to pump gas at service stations, pass out popcorn at movie theaters and offer aid in supermarket parking lots. One Saturday in Pasadena, Calif., every parking meter on Colorado Boulevard was plugged and covered with a "Helpful Honda" hood that said, "It's On Us."

You might think it would be futile to squeegee a windshield for someone who isn't even thinking about buying a car, but research shows that the kinds of stunts Honda is pulling can work.

"Personal touch is a very powerful way of creating a brand message," said Kelly O'Keefe, executive education director at the Virginia Commonwealth University Ad Center.

A lot of car companies are resorting to what's known as engagement marketing: throwing parties and sponsoring concert series and wine tastings, often without an automotive vehicle in sight.

The Southern California Honda Dealers' campaign, created by Secret Weapon Marketing of Santa Monica, Calif., is paired with television spots that show the incredible lengths to which dealers will go to lend customers a hand, in one instance by donating a kidney.

"The strategy is to bring the campaign to life on a personal level with people," said Dick Sittig, Secret Weapon's creative director. "Maybe they'll think, 'What has my car company done for me lately?'"

Pioneering the strategy

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Scion brand pioneered auto engagement marketing in 2003 by sponsoring Scion Metro concerts, headlined by such hip-hop artists as the Wu-Tang Clan and Little Brother. The idea was to introduce Scion, a new brand, to young consumers. Jeri Yoshizu, Scion's sales promotion manager, said it succeeded: The Scion has proved popular with buyers younger than 35, and sales were up 11 percent last year from 2005.

Toyota has taken the lessons learned from the Scion campaign and applied it to other brands. To promote the Yaris, it kicked off the "Free Yr Radio" campaign in April, sponsoring indie bands that play in Urban Outfitters stores. The concerts are advertised via e-mails that only briefly mention the Yaris. Toyota's Lexus brand sponsors wine tastings and cocktail parties that are targeted at a more upscale audience.

"There's a dialogue that needs to happen beyond the limitations of the 30-second spot and the Web page," said Bruce McDermott, head of Saatchi & Saatchi's Brand Integration Group in Torrance, Calif., which works for Toyota.

The auto industry has embraced engagement marketing because many TV commercials for cars, and cars themselves, are so similar, said Eli Portnoy, the Los Angeles-based founder of Portnoy Group, a brand consultancy. "In automotive advertising, you can take the nameplates off, and a lot of it is the same."

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Would you buy a Honda just because some guy with a Honda logo on his shirt helped unload your grocery cart? Honda...

http://www.vindy.com/content/business_tech/325143191223312.php

The Many Lessons of Scion

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Brand: Scion (Toyota)

Execution: TV, In-Theater, Viral, Web

Target: Young, Hip & Driving

Rating: *****

Reviewer: David

Description

Scion is an automotive brand of Toyota which has used innovative marketing techniques including viral, experiential, event marketing and branded entertainment (Scion has a record label and ‘Scion Release’ - a clothing line’).

Posted in Toyota, Scion, Press

______________________________________________________________________

Post subject: Scion's Jeri Yoshizu on Use of Hip Hop

Posted: 12/13/05 12:28AM   

An Interview with Jeri Yosbizu, who runs lifestyle marketing for Toyota’s Scion

BallerStatus.net: What made you decide to use hip-hop so extensively in your approach?

Jeri Yoshizu: Before we launched Scion, we had to extensively study the market for a product launch. When you're putting a company together, you have a business plan, and part of that was product positioning. What we found through our research was the common thread amongst a certain mindset is music….

As we were doing more research -- this is before we had any product out -- we started to kind of get into more pinpointing what other corporations were doing, what we were doing, and how we were going to carve our face. One of our objectives as a brand is the diversity factor. Toyota does well with a certain age group, they do very well with females, and they do very well with a certain ethnicity. One of our objectives is that we have a very diverse crowd -- we have to hit the Hispanic market, we need to hit the Asian market, etc. We decided that if we were going to be addressing music, hip-hop was the thread that had the most diverse breakout. We learned that not because we got a report telling us that, but we were attending events that were hip-hop related. Like the DUB car show, we would go there and it was 70% Hispanic, they had a hip-hop lineup, etc. We started to formulate, if we're going to go after a diverse male market, then hip-hop is what's going to happen.

Original Story:

http://www.ballerstatus.net/print/89379960.html

Product Integration: Blurring Boundaries

On ‘American Idol,’ judges sip from Coca-Cola while contestants await results on a Coca-Cola couch in the glow of a Coca-Cola machine….We’ve gone from an age of interruption to an age of engagement. Madison & Vine (14, 19}.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paula Abdul fakes drinking her Coke on American Idol

Russell Page, Internet Marketer and Business Blogger

January 25th, 2007

Branding, Business, Business Writing, Ethics, Marketing, Media Relations, Media Training, Public Relations, Salt Lake PR, Strategic Marketing, Utah Marketing, Utah PR Firm, Utah Public Relations,

This American Idol product promotion stuff is a joke, and it’s fake as well. If you ever watch the show, you will see Coke cups on the table in front of Paula, Randy and Simon. While watching a clip of the show tonight, I actually noticed Paula pretend to drink her Coke. What a blunder.

1:30 or so, Paula picks up the Coke cup, takes a “sip” and puts it back down. You can hear the empty cup echo as she puts it back on the table.

2:45 or so, Paula Picks up the Coke cup again, takes a “sip” through the straw and puts the cup back down. Again, you can hear the empty cup echo as she puts it back on the table.                    http://www.russpage.net/paula-abdul-fakes-drinking-her-coke-on-american-idol/

____________________________________________________________________________________

If ‘Friends’ aired today, the gang probably would sip Starbucks Frappuccinos instead of the daily brew at the fictional Central Park.  “The Newest Characters on TV Shows: Product Plugs,” Gary Levin, USA Today, www.usatoday.com September 19, 2006

“The Future of Advertising”—A Brief Overview

Product integration is the tactic that advertisers have adopted to combat the ad-zapping possibilities of new technologies.  It essentially involves weaving the brand into the programming.  The logic of many advertisers is that they want to become ‘zap-proof,’ and one of the ways of accomplishing this is to get out of stand-alone ad insertions and into the program itself.

Product Placement

One of the well-known forms of integration is product placement, which involves having the brand visible in a scene, such as a Viking range in a kitchen or a character drinking Coca-Cola. 

Product Immersion

It is one thing for a brand to appear as a placement in the background of a scene, but quite another for it to be an integral part of the storyline.  Clearly, within certain constraints of realism, the impact of being an integral part of the story plot would be substantial.  Product immersion refers to this process of weaving a brand into the forefront of a story rather than into its background.

The common thread underlying different types of product integration is that the advertiser is as much partner as client in the production process.

This brief overview is from “The Future of Television Advertising,” a book chapter co-authored by Tina M. Lowrey, L.J. Shrum, and John A. McCarty in Marketing Communication (Ed. Allan J. Kimmel) NY: Oxford UP, 2005: 113-132.

 What advertising is doing is trying to addict us to products, trying to get us to see consumption as the only way to live and ourselves as consumers as the only way to be.

This FRONTLINE interview with media critic Mark Crispin Miller was conducted May 26, 2004 and posted on November 9, 2004. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH educational foundation. In this portion, Miller speaks about changes in marketing and advertising. 

Should Advertisers Stop Advertising?

Well, some advertisers actually have, in a sense, begun to stop advertising per se….As advertising per se has come to encounter more and more sales resistance---which is understandable, as people become more and more distrustful of these messages and harder and harder to stimulate, more and more blasé—the advertisers have tried stealthier means to implant in your mind, in your soul, the urge to drink this or eat that or whatever it is. So you’ve got all kinds of methods that border on what people [in] spycraft call “black propaganda”; for example, folks who are paid to go to bars and chat up a new cigarette brand or brand of beer as if they were real people spontaneously celebrating this thing.  You’ve got TV shows that are ostensibly ad-free, but they have logos and buildings and so on worked in to the story so that the whole thing is really a commercial.

So we’re moving away from advertising per se towards a more fundamental kind of pitch, which is what propaganda, generally speaking, always wants to do anyway.  Advertising is just a commercial form of propaganda.  What propaganda has always wanted to do is not simply to suffuse the atmosphere, but to become the atmosphere.  It wants to become the air we breathe.  It wants us not to be able to find a way outside of the world that it creates for us.

There is this company in [Scott Donaton’s book] Madison & Vine that talks about how [the movie] Cast Away is this great advertisement for FedEx because it’s not an advertisement for FedEx, but it advertises it perfectly, and that basically there are people spending a lot of money and research figuring out how to blur the line between what was content and what was advertising.  Not that we should worry too much, but is our culture at risk of becoming pure advertising now?

The worry is not so much that the actual ads themselves will become ubiquitous.  Rather, it’s that advertising—all propaganda desires for itself a background that will not contradict it.  It desires for itself a neighborhood that it feels safe in.  In fact, people in advertising use the expression “good environment.”  Certain shows are a “good environment” for their messages….

Now it seems we’re moving into a programming universe where the advertisement is part of the show.

That’s exactly right.  If you don’t look very carefully, if you kind of half-close your eyes, you might think that advertising is disappearing, because the fact is that traditional forms of advertising—the minute-long spot; the 30-second spot; the split 30s [which are] two 15-second ads, and so on; the magazine ad; the newspaper ad; the billboard—it might seem that many of them are being phased out.

But they’re not being phased out in favor of plain old civic space.  They’re being phased out in favor of a kind of advertising, a kind of propaganda, that’s far more profound.  It’s far more deeply rooted.  The aim here is not so much to find a show that people like and then get your ads on it.  The aim here is for the advertisers to create a show that is itself an extended ad.  In a curious way, we’re moving back in time to the days when advertisers actually presented radio shows and TV shows.  But this is far more sophisticated than that.

Formerly, when an advertiser would produce, say, a musical show, the music had to be paramount.  The music had to be good; it had to be popular. That would then, presumably, make a difference to the advertisers.  Commercials would benefit from the association with that nice music.  Nowadays, when an advertiser envisions a show that’s just right for his product, you don’t really have content that’s very easy to tell apart from a commercial for the product itself….

….we move even from advertising-friendly shows like Friends to shows as advertisements, like, say, The Restaurant, which is basically an American Express Small Business Card advertisement masquerading as a program; or Sex and the City, with an entire plot line sponsored by Absolut Vodka.  So isn’t that an intrusion on a somewhat sacred space?

Well, what’s most worrisome about this is that advertising, being a form of propaganda, wants no contradiction.  So that means we have to ask ourselves, what is the kind of content that makes advertisers feel better?  What is the kind of content that makes an ad not seem jarring?

A certain kind of intense experience, an intense dramatic or aesthetic experience, tends to make advertising look like what it is, which is trivial; which is just a pitch, just trying to sell you something.  What advertising is doing is trying to addict us to products, trying to get us to see consumption as the only way to live and ourselves as consumers as the only way to be.  So the problem with an advertising-friendly cultural environment is that anything that’s intense in any way is at risk of being erased, so that the usual smiley face of advertising, with all of its special effects, can dominate your consciousness.

For a full transcript, see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/miller.html

COMING NEXT—The “Starbucks Experience”   COMING NEXT—The “Star…

“A certain kind of intense experience… tends to make advertising look like what it is, which is trivial; which is just a pitch, just trying to sell you something.”  Mark Crispin Miller

Branding a Corporation: The “Starbucks Experience”

Starbucks seems “to understand brand names at a level even deeper than Madison Avenue, incorporating marketing into every fiber of its corporate concept—from the chain’s strategic association with books, blues and jazz to its Euro-latte lingo….

The people who line up for Starbucks, writes CEO Howard Shultz, aren’t just there for the coffee.  “It’s the romance of the coffee experience, the feeling of warmth and community people get in Starbucks stores....The old paradigm had it that all marketing was selling a product.  In the new model, however, the product always takes a back seat to the real product, the brand, and the selling of the brand acquired an extra component that can only be described as spiritual.  Advertising is about hawking product.  Branding, in its truest and most advanced incarnations, is about corporate transcendence.

Naomi Klein, NO LOGO (NY: Picador, 1999: 20, 21)

Hear Music (Starbucks’new record label)

Starbucks Gears Up For Paul McCartney's New Album

LOS ANGELES (May 31, 2007) -- Coffee loving Paul McCartney fans are in for a treat. On June 5th, the day the former Beatle releases his latest solo album “Memory Almost Full,” Starbucks will be playing the record all day long.

http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah5563.shtml

Starbucks described this experience as “a global listening event.”  The album played in more than 10,000 Starbucks stores in 29 countries. Based on its high-volume traffic - some 44 million customers a week - about 6 million people heard this music that day.  Starbucks—a global community?

Futuristic Marketing

Off-screen Marketing of Software: ADOBE’s Off-the-Wall Campaign

Pedestrians next to a wall will be able to manipulate a projected image, which demonstrates Adobe software.

Promotion Is Not Just Another Brick in the Wall

Maria Aspan 

July 13, 2007

New York Times

ADOBE software is a well-established tool for anyone working, or even dabbling, in computer-based design. But in order to market its new Creative Suite 3 software package — which includes well-known design software like Photoshop and Illustrator — Adobe has temporarily abandoned the computer screen in favor of a busy Manhattan street.

Adobe will unveil an interactive wall of projected animation this morning in Union Square, along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore. As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall.

As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats. When each selected pedestrian reaches the end of the wall, his or her design will be in full blossom, above the campaign’s message: “Creative license: take as much as you want.”

The wall, which is 7 feet high and 15 feet wide, will be recreated in London in early August, at the Piccadilly Circus Virgin Megastore. Each will be there for a month.

The walls were conceived as part of an online marketing campaign that began last month after six months of development by Adobe and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The agency, which is part of the Omnicom Group, has worked with Adobe since 2001.

Adobe has already placed ads on the Web sites of publications like Wired, AdWeek and the e-mail newsletter Flavorpill to introduce the concept of the sliding bar that allows users to control how much — or how little — creativity they can unleash using Adobe products.

“The best way to experience this is through an interactive medium,” said Ann Lewnes, the senior vice president for corporate marketing and communications for Adobe. “You want to be able to engage your customers, and the campaign itself actually allows you to create your own engaging experience.”

The campaign is Adobe’s first major marketing effort under Ms. Lewnes, who joined the company in November after 20 years at Intel, where she oversaw the “Intel Inside” campaign. The amount spent on the “creative license” campaign was not disclosed, although Ms. Lewnes said that it was Adobe’s largest digital media effort.

Creative Suite 3, which has been released in stages over the last few months and constitutes Adobe’s largest product introduction, compiles stalwarts like Photoshop and Illustrator as well as programs that were inherited — like Dreamweaver and Flash — when Adobe purchased Macromedia.

While graphic designers, Web developers and other creative professionals rely heavily on these products, many Adobe users are amateurs who use Photoshop to spruce up their Facebook photos, or Premier Express to edit their YouTube videos.

“Social networking has spawned a lot of people creating personal content,” said Ms. Lewnes. “We’re pretty high on user-generated content.”

That sort of content is the primary element of the campaign, which had to convey both the professional sophistication and amateur ease of Adobe’s software.

“There was an interesting problem here; because we’re at the highest level of creativity, we aspire to the very best, but you want to bring new people into the creative world,” said Rich Silverstein, co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein.

He pointed to the ubiquity of Photoshop as a sign of the company’s reach beyond the professionals who can spend up to $2,500 on some of the new Creative Suite 3 packages. “How do you launch a product where you don’t talk down to professionals but you allow people to come into the field? So we came up with the idea of the slider,” Mr. Silverstein said.

And, he added, an opportunity to develop a campaign for programs essential to his business was a rare challenge.

The wall was created using Adobe tools, by Brand New School, a directing collective that designed the animation, and Obscura Digital, a San Francisco-based technology and video design agency which had previously worked with Goodby, Silverstein on campaigns for Saturn and Hewlett-Packard.

While Obscura has created similar video projections in the past, this was its first foray into the uncontrolled environment of a busy street. The wall is intended to switch its attention, and control of the slider, to anyone who gets closest to it — but even the activity and movement of people in the background will affect some of the incidental animation.

The idea was to make the wall “a single and multiuser experience simultaneously,” said Travis Threlkel, creative director and co-founder of Obscura. He added that the finished product combined audience participation and “ideas about how people could interact with artwork in public spaces.”

Lisa Bradner, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, said that interactive displays like the Adobe wall “have a great deal of value” if they generate interest. “If you look on the Web or in stores, what you see is marketers trying to create more immersive experiences,” she said, pointing to recent New York efforts like Procter & Gamble’s providing Charmin for the public restroom in Times Square.

But only if they immerse the right people. Ms. Lewnes said that Adobe never seriously considered placing the wall in Times Square, despite its greater human traffic, because that location would be less aimed toward the company’s audience. Union Square draws fewer tourists, but is closer to the concentration of graphic and Web designers who work downtown.

“The buzz we wanted to create among the target audience was the goal for us,” she said. “It was pretty important for us to get the right people, rather than more people.”

Home 

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/business/13adco.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Setting up shop in second life

Awaiting Real Sales From Virtual Shoppers

A Reebok store in the game Second Life, where avatars can design their shoes.

Bob Tedeschi

New York Times E-Commerce Report

June 11, 2007

THE seven million or so inhabitants of Second Life, the three-dimensional online world, have spent millions of dollars on digital makeovers, clothing and other goods and services for their avatars.

But will the game’s players buy anything for themselves?

Retailers and manufacturers like Reebok, Adidas, American Apparel and 1-800Flowers.com are setting up shop in Second Life, hoping that users will steer their avatars to these stores and buy goods to deliver to their real world addresses. So far, retailers say they have low expectations for their efforts, but some believe that the experiments could yield important lessons on how people might operate in the online realm.

“What we’re doing reminds me of the early days of the online world,” said Christopher G. McCann, president of 1-800-Flowers.com. “The first site we launched in 1995 was in 3-D, because I said people wouldn’t want just two-dimensional photos. Here we are, 12 years later, back into this virtual world.”

The company’s Second Life initiative, which rolled out last week, is in a brick greenhouse bearing the company logo. There, users may browse various plants and cut flowers, including a collection of “Happy Hour” bouquets arranged to resemble cocktails. Avatars may take a free floral arrangement, or users may also click from the game’s 1-800-Flowers.com store to the company’s Web site to buy one directly.

Mr. McCann said that he expected to distribute more virtual bouquets than real ones. “This is more about relationship building for us right now, and exposing our brand,” he said.

The opening of virtual stores in Second Life raises interesting questions as virtual worlds mesh elements of both e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retailing. How, for instance, does a company market itself?

As with many companies that opened stores in Second Life, 1-800-Flowers.com contracted an outside vendor. That developer, This Second Marketing, which is based in San Francisco, created avatars wearing 1-800-Flowers.com T-shirts. The team trolled popular areas of Second Life handing out virtual fliers about the greenhouse.

The team interacted with about 1,600 people in 60 hours, according to Joni West, president of This Second Marketing. In the first three days the greenhouse was open, it had more than 900 visitors, she said.

Joseph Laszlo an analyst with the online consulting firm Jupiter Research, said that building a store on Second Life will not come easily to many online merchants. “You actually have to think more like a bricks-and-mortar retailer than a virtual retailer,” he said.

Mr. Laszlo said retailers must still consider such things as store layout, shelf space and ways to help users find an item.

Location can also matter, but not as much as in the physical world. Rather than walk aimlessly through Second Life, people tend to navigate the realm by searching for specific services or landmarks in the search box and transporting themselves directly there.

One of the more successful commercial applications within Second Life has been Reebok’s virtual store, where users may create custom versions of Reebok shoes for their avatars, and for themselves.

According to Benjamin James, who leads the San Francisco office of Rivers Run Red, the agency that created Reebok’s Second Life store, the site distributed more than 27,000 pairs of digital shoes in its first 10 weeks.

Mr. James said he did not know how many of those people clicked through to Reebok’s Web site to buy physical reproductions of their avatars’ shoes, but he said the effort, which began in October, was indeed helping to sell the real items. “This allowed people to get comfortable with their product in the virtual world,” he said.

Other Second Life retailers said they had not seen results in their stores.

“I’m not really sold on it yet,” said Raz Schionning, who oversaw American Apparel’s entry into Second Life last year. Mr. Schionning said the store, allows people to buy digital versions of the company’s clothes, and also click over to AmericanApparel.net to buy the real items.

Mr. Schionning said he could not comment on the level of sales that have come from the company’s Second Life store, but he indicated that the numbers were quite small.

“The user interface is not particularly intuitive,” he said. “It took me a while to figure out how to buy something.”

One problem with selling on Second Life, Mr. Schionning said, is that it is so new that retailers have not come to a consensus on how to do it. As a result, buyers are not sure how to approach a transaction. “We’ve all become accustomed to how an e-commerce site works,” he said, “but on Second Life, those conventions haven’t really been established.”

“It’s not unlike the way it was on the Web initially,” Mr. Schionning added. “So there might actually be an advantage to waiting and watching to see what happens.”

Either way, the sudden popularity of three-dimensional virtual spaces online suggests that consumers are ready for that sort of experience even if retailers are not. Mr. Schionning, for one, says they will have to be ready soon.

“There’s a gap between the current online shopping experience and the next generation,” he said. “A virtual world can at least bring you closer to the store experience without actually bringing you there. I’m not convinced Second Life is that answer, but it is a step along the path.”

In the meantime, Linden Lab, the privately held San Francisco developer of Second Life, is enjoying the increased attention from businesses.

The company does not earn a commission on sales made on the site, but it charges rent to developers who want to create customized spaces on the service. Companies can lease a 65,000-square-meter parcel for $200 a month. But to develop that land, businesses typically pay technology companies between $100,000 and $5 million, industry executives said.

According to Christopher Mahoney, Linden Lab’s business development manager, the company has in recent months experienced a spike in interest from software developers. Those developers, he predicted, will be able to deliver photo-realistic renderings of offline stores and merchandise in the next five years.

“Imagine taking an avatar and walking around a house, painting the walls dynamically and furnishing it with products from Pottery Barn or Ikea,” he said. “There’ll be a point when a 3-D Internet solves problems in your real world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/11ecom.html?ex=1183003200&en=f84c24a4e85b25ab&ei=5070

Futuristic Fantasy: Imagined Marketing Communications Technologies

James Fitchett, Marketing Communication edited by Allan J. Kimmel (NY: Oxford, 2005):46-47.

            In our future hypothetical scenario, by the middle of the twenty-first century marketers will be able to collect personal identity information via retinal scanning as consumers wander through a shopping area.  It will then be possible to beam individually customized holographic advertisements directly into the consumers’ visual and aural vicinity.  It is worth noting that some of the technological advances necessary for these types of marketing communications techniques to be achieved are already being developed.  These include technological advances that allow the capture and storage of biometric data such as fingerprints and facial and retinal recognition, as well as positioning and targeting technologies for transmitting location –based services.

            As consumers pass a billboard for the new Lexus automobile, for example, it could ask whether they would like to schedule a test drive.  An insurance company could remind consumers that their car insurance is due for renewal as they pass by the broker’s office, describing enticing offers and discounts to encourage new policy sign-ups.  Consider walking down an aisle in a grocery store and having the packaging calling out to you.  Brands you had purchased previously could ask: ‘How did you like me?  Didn’t I tell you I could get your clothes whiter than white?  Now you’ve tried me once, why not have another pack, half price?’  Competitors’ brands might then begin calling out rival claims and making counteroffers.  Walking by the sodas the latest pop idol might step out from the display and seductively ask: ‘Why not try Pepsi for a change, I guarantee you’ll prefer the taste or your money back.’  At the confectionary stand cartoon characters from TV franchises might dance along with children while sensual voluptuous images promoting a new range of chocolate are targeted to parents.  Once could even envisage picking up a packet of cookies in one aisle only to be reminded in another aisle by a holographic celebrity dentist that you really should buy some extra dental care products if you intend to include that type of food in your diet.

 Photo © Mark Gerson

 Author Jim Crace

British author Jim Crace is known for his novels (Being Dead and The Pesthouse among others) for which he has won a number of awards.  He is widely regarded as an innovative and highly original writer.  This flash fiction was published in Flash Fiction Forward, Eds. James Thomas & Robert Shapard. NY: Norton, 2006: 137-138

21

A youngish man, a trifle overweight, too anxious for his age, completed his circuit of the supermarket shelves and cabinets and stood in line, ashamed as usual.

            He arranged his purchases on the checkout belt and waited, with his eyes fixed on the street beyond the shop window, while the woman at the till scanned all the bar codes on his medicines, his vitamins, his air freshener, his toilet tissue, his frozen Meals for One, his tins, his magazines, his beer, and his deodorant, his bread, bananas, milk, his fat-free yogurt, his jar of decaf, and his treats: today, some roasted chicken legs, some grapes, a block of chocolate, and two croissants.  He rubbed his thumb along the embossed numbers of his credit card while each item triggered a trill of recognition from the till.

            The till’s computer recognized the young man’s Distinctive Shopping Fingerprint as well, the usual ration of fat to starch, the familiar selection of canned food, the recent and increasing range of health supplements, the unique combination of monthly magazines.  The pattern of the shopping identified the customer.  Even before the woman at the till had swiped the credit card, the computer had lined up the young man’s details—his list of purchases for the previous seven months, his credit rating, his Customer Loyalty score.  It knew broadly who he was and how he lived.  It could deduce what his modest rooms above the travel shop were like, how stale they were, how flowerless, how functional, how crying out for change.  Here was the man whose cat had died or run away three months ago.  No cat food purchased since that time.  Here was the customer who had not left the neighborhood for more than seven days in living, byte-sized memory.  Last spring, he’d tried—and failed—to cut down on patisseries and sugar.  Today, for once, he had resisted his usual impulse purchase of a packet of cheroots.

            Computer screened a message on the woman’s till: Cheroots…Cheroots…it said.  Remind the customer he has not purchased cereals or cheese or vegetables this month.  Remind him of our special offers: 12 cans of lager for the price of 10.  Buy one bottle of our Boulevard liqueur and get a second free.  Remind him that time is passing more quickly than he thinks—his washing power should be used by now, as should the contraceptives that he bought two years ago.  He must need basics, such as rice and pasta, soap, toothpaste, flour, oil, and condiments.  Inform him of our Retail Schemes and that we open now on Sunday afternoons.  Advise him that he ought to do more cooking for himself.  He ought to tidy up and clean the bathroom tiles with our new lemon whitener.  He ought to start afresh.  Suggest to him he tour our shelves again.  At once.  For what we choose is what we are.  He should not miss this second opportunity to re-create himself with food.

Analyze

Based on the reading you have done, create an analytical framework for different kinds of marketing strategies: cause-related marketing; engagement marketing; product integration; and futuristic marketing.  How do these strategies differ?  Review and make notes for your own reference.  You can add to your notes as you learn more.  See also “Creating an Analytical Framework, Resources, p. 0.

Reflect

The following began as a QuickWriting for a “How To…” writing assignment in a creative writing class. 

How to Get Yourself in Debt

Courtney Gaddis

It all starts when you turn eighteen.  The letters and postcards are sent to your house: “Pre-Approved. No Interest for 6 Months!”  And they are truly tempting.  But you still regard them as junk mail and throw them into your recycling bin sitting in your driveway, read to be taken to the curb.  And then you go into one of your favorite clothing stores and the overly perky sales clerk throws the same pitch to you, “Would you like to put this on your Macy’s charge? Oh, you don’t have one?  Did you know that you could save up to 15% of your purchase if you opened one today?”  And once again you are tempted, but a little voice from your conscience is telling you no, don’t do it, the same voice that told you no the first time your friends offered you a drag off their Newport 100 when you were thirteen.  So you said no at thirteen and you say no to the perky sales clerk.  But you didn’t say no at sixteen when the same offer was make—thank you, Jackie Bloom for starting the nicotine addiction that you still have today—and you won’t say no when you hit college and suddenly have no money.  Mom and Dad are no longer funding your wardrobe, the gas in your beater car that has a twitching headlight, your books for college and of course the nicotine fix that you experience at least fifteen times a day.  Suddenly that 15% savings is a big deal to you.  That 15% could almost amount up to a pack of cheap smokes.  So why not sign up for the credit card?  Buy now.  Pay later.  Some day you will get a job and pay off the bill.  You have thirty days anyway.  Some day turns into some month which turns into some year, and soon the bills start piling up.  You don’t know how it happened.  It all happened so fast.  Soon you are signing up for credit cards to pay off the debt on other credit cards.  And then the day comes when you are denied a credit card, and that pretty little new black sweater with the plunging neckline has to go back on its silk-lined hanger, and the matching black leather knee-high boots that you were also planning to put on the credit card have to go back in their box, back in their box like the cigarette you put back in its pack when you realized it’s the last one you are going to have for a long time.

What marketing strategies have you experienced or observed?  Write quickly for five minutes without censoring yourself and see what comes to mind.  Let the writing pull your thoughts along. 

Discuss

Join a small group of five or six students and collaborate on a list of marketing strategies geared to college students.   What are some ways marketers try to get the attention of college students online?  How has college sports-related marketing changed?  What kinds of marketing strategies have you observed in bars?  Have you observed credit card marketing on campus?  Peer-to-peer or viral marketing?  Foreheadvertising?!?  Network and pull your resources together.  Option: Share some strategies with the whole class. 

Learn More

Learn about strategies used to target college students over Spring Break. Learn about the youth marketing firm Mr. Youth, especially the promotional activities.  Learn about Volkswagen’s music-friendly commercial marketing strategy (Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” was first aired as a Cambrio commercial) and strategies used by other companies (Toyota’s marketing for Hispanic ethnicity, for example.)   Learn more about branding and expanded branding (lifestyle marketing).  Search for more companies and products that use cause-related marketing (CRM).  Find more examples of engagement and viral marketing.  Learn more about brands as patrons rather than sponsors and about using name recognition to sell products.  In a survey conducted by Anderson Analytics (http://www.marketingcharts.com), marketing executives identified “Green Marketing” as the trendiest marketing buzzword in 2008. Is “green marketing” still trendy? 

Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion of your findings.

Write

Write a brief analysis of a marketing strategy used to sell a product and rate the strategy.  Your analysis could appear in an online magazine for consumers who are considering this product.   Option: Brief oral presentations based on written presentations could be made as well.  Use the following format for your written analysis:

Reviewer: (Your Name)

Date of Review:

Reading Consumer Culture: Marketing

Product:

Brand:

Target Audience:

Marketing Strategy:

Brief Description:  @ 50 words

Rating:  1         2       3           4             5

                poor  -  fair  -  good  -  very good -  excellent

Comments (Analysis):  @ 200 words

__________________________________________________________________________

Marketing Obama                                                                        Example

Product: Political Ad

Brand: Barack Obama, Democrat

Target Audience: Young people

Marketing Strategy: Using the social networking site Facebook to reach target audience

Brief Description: Barack Obama won the support of many young people during his campaign, and his marketing strategists knew where to find them—online using Facebook.  Facebook is growing 3% per week (100,000 new users per day) and is the 6th most trafficked site in the U.S. (Arrington, 2007)

Rating:  1         2       3           4             5

                poor  -  fair  -  good  -  very good -  excellent

Comments (Analysis):  Obama had great success during the primaries with younger and more educated people.  College students cannot be reached through more conventional methods (television, billboards, for example).  They spend much of their time online. What better way to reach this group than through technology?  While companies are now advertising on Facebook, I had not thought about political candidates taking their campaigns to this site.  I think this was an excellent strategy to try to increase the turnout of younger voters.  My rating was also high because of the simplicity of the ad.  I personally did not feel the ad was invasive like some ads.  The message is direct and the visual (text and image) is tasteful.  The photo selected showed him as reflective, as if he were thinking about how important this moment is in history.  And instead of using the “we want change” slogan, I found it refreshing to read: “Our moment is now.”  Change is implied and the use of “our” makes me feel included and that it’s up to us to do something—to vote.  In the past, college students have often not even registered to vote. 

___________________________________________________________________________

“Facebook Launches Facebook Platform; They are the Anti-MySpace,” Michael Arrington, 05/24/2007

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/24/facebook-launches-facebook-platform-they-are-the-anti-myspace/

Advertising 

Looking is a practice much like speaking or writing. Looking involves learning to interpret.

We live in an increasingly visual world.  Among the many images we encounter every day, advertisements are prominent in what has become a consumer culture.  In this section of this project, you will learn some “practices of looking” at advertisements.  Your goal is to become a more educated consumer.  Looking, really looking, requires looking again and questioning: What precisely is this ad trying to sell?  How do ads try to “speak” to consumers?  What implied assumptions do consumers sometimes “buy” unaware?  How do ads “manufacture desire” and try to turn “wants” into “needs”?  These are some of the questions you will begin to explore.

The Manufacturing of Desire

Advertising often presents an image of things to be desired, people to be envied, and life as it ‘should be.’  As such, it necessarily presents social values and ideologies about what the ‘good life’ is.  It is also a central strategy of advertising to invite viewers/consumers to imagine themselves within the world of the advertisement. This is a world that works by abstraction, a potential place or state of being situated not in the present but in an imagined future with the promise to the consumer of things ‘you’ will have, a lifestyle you can take part in. 

–Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001:189

Our desire to shop derives from the biological drive of hunting for food, the modern ideology of individual choice, and the social drive to get ‘the best.’     Sharon Zukin, Point of Purchase

Dan and Patricia are always searching

for the best of everything.

[Insert Merrill Lynch & Co. ad, New Yorker, June 2001]

This ad, or “dramatization,” as Merrill Lynch calls it, plays on the social drive to “search for the best.”  Here we see Dan and Patricia in their new living room---we see what they are able to afford, what they think is “best.”  If we take a closer look, we can see that they are standing apart from each other; the living room is the center of attention.  They appear to be showing off their purchases and presentation.  We don’t carefully read the note: “the clients’ names and story are fictitious.”  We assume that if we buy this service, we’ll have the money to go out and buy a “brand” new living room.

                                                     Copyright 2001Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. New Yorker, June 18 & 25, 2001

Porsche: There’s No Substitute.

[Insert advertisement from newspaper.]

____________________________________________________________________________

You press the accelerator and exhilaration consumes you.  As the race-bred engine pushes you through twisting curves, stress fades away.  The thrill of youthful adventure is back in the form of top-down driving.  The authentic roadster experience is yours for the taking.  Visit us today for a test drive.  Porsche.  There is no substitute.

Every time you drive it, it puts a smile on your face.

How much is that worth?

What needs are being projected that this product can supposedly fill?  Who is the target population?  What does it take financially to own a “top-down” Porche roadster?  What are some other questions you could ask as a critical reader of this ad?

Ads speak to us through particular modes of address, and ask us to see ourselves within them.  Often this is done with written text that specifically speaks to the viewer as ‘you’….Many ads speak in emphatic tones to viewers/consumers, as if the voice of the ad knows what ‘you’ need and want….Some ads speak to consumers in folksy tones, as if the ad and the consumer were having a nice chat.

                                                    –Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001:203-204

[Insert Home Depot ad.]

http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/index.html?cm_mmc=Thd_marketing-_-Eco_Options_Site_07-_-Vanity-_-Home

© 2000-2008 Homer TLC, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site is subject to certain

Terms of Use which constitute a legal agreement between you and The Home Depot U.S.A. Inc.

The Eco Options program: our biggest home improvement project ever.

The Home Depot cares about the environment and preserving our natural resources.  Which is why we’re expanding our successful Eco Options program nationwide.  Our customers will have easy access to a wide variety of eco-savvy products.  And not only can these products save homeowners money, they make it easy to curb waste, reduce pollution, save energy, and conserve natural resources.  So, working together, we can all hope to make a difference.  For our people.  For our communities.  For our planet.

homedepot.com/ecooptions

In this Home Depot ad, a little girl, who appears to be of Asian descent, is leaning over a large globe, her arms and hands positioned as if she were trying to hold the whole world in her hands.  With her eyes slightly lowered, she looks reflective as if lost in her own world of thought.  The message?  Home Depot cares about the future of our planet, the future we will leave our children.  And it will work with us to make a difference: “For our people.  For our communities.  For our planet.”  Home Depot is transformed from a corporation (“it”) to “we” in the ad:  this is why “we’re expanding our Eco Options program.”  “We” want “our customers” (you) to have “easy access to a wide variety of eco-savvy products.”  Not only will our products save you money, it will save the world—our world—is the implication. We’re in this together: “So, working together, we can all hope to make a difference.”  “We” finally includes all of us.

Increasingly, markers of ethnicity and race are used in advertisements to demonstrate social or racial awareness and to give a product an element of cultural sophistication.

                                     -Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking, NY: Oxford, 2001: 221-222.

Toyota’s Super Bowl Commercial: A New Hybridity

Straight Talk on Advertising: Toyota and Synergy

Monday, February 6, 2006

ThirdWay Advertising Blog

http://thirdwayblog.com/category/toyota/

Brand: Toyota Camry Hybrid

Execution: TV

Link: Click Here To View

Target: Eco-consumers

Reviewer: David

Rating: *****

Description    “Papa, why do we have a hybrid?” a child asks as the camera pans around a Toyota Camry, highlighting the word ‘hybrid’. “For your future,” the Dad answers. “Why?” the boy probes. “It’s better for the air,” the father says as we see them on the inside of the car. “And we spend less because it runs on gas and electrical power,” he continues as we get shots of trees and an eagle cut in with the car. “Mira. Mira qui,” he says, pointing to the color information screen. “It uses both.” “Like you with English and Spanish,” the boy says. “Si,” the father says. “Why did you learn English?” the boy asks. “For your future,” the father replies. More shots of the car as we hear a voiceover saying “Coming Soon - the all-new 2007 Camry. Also available with Hybrid Synergy Drive,” we see a hybrid synergy drive logo, “Toyota - the power to move forward.”

What Works

We are covering this spot because it broke new ground in the Super Bowl, speaking directly to the Hispanic experience in America. And also because Bob Garfield roundly panned it - deriding it as simplistic and ‘patronizing.’ We are not Hispanic (your reviewer is half-Asian, for the record) but we disagree on Garfield’s overall comments and will wait to hear from the Hispanic community for their own reaction.

Marketing on the Super Bowl is about doing the branding basics well while at the same time delivering something new or entertaining enough to break through the clutter. While this spot was not in the least entertaining, it was new. Ironically, the focused attention of the Super Bowl (where people actually stop to watch the ads) gave this spot a better showing than it might get during normal network TV - where the new ground it broke went unnoticed.

Some of what was missing in many of the spots on the Super Bowl was very evident here - namely the brand, the product and a lot of focus on a unique selling proposition.

The pitch for the Hybrid Camry was straightforward and accomplished with a metaphor. Just as English and Spanish can complement each other and an investment in English is an investment in the future for a non-native speaker, gasoline and electric power complement each other in the hybrid Camry and an investment in a hybrid is an investment in the future.

This is the right selling proposition for a hybrid as gas prices alone still don’t justify them on an economic basis (although economists have neglected to mention that it is easier for consumers to finance a more expensive vehicle over 5 years and then pay less at the pump for gas in cashflow terms).

But what about the Hispanic metaphor here? We would argue that while it is an important acknowledgement of the growing role of this community in American life, the commercial is not focused on selling Hispanic consumers hybrid cars.

Who does buy hybrid cars? Higher income and environmentally aware people (although the demographic is widening as gas prices rise). And these people are more likely to be liberal.

So yes, we are suggesting that Toyota produced - in the most innocent, inoffensive way possible - a spot targeted at liberals who will share the belief in the positive side of immigration. If you believe that immigration from the Puritans to the Irish and Italians to the present has been a source of competitive strength for the country and that the process of assimilation is good for the individual and the society, you are likely to respond to the message in this ad.

We believe this spot works because Toyota has used the newness of a commercial with some Spanish in it (although less than many Americans hear in their daily life) to communicate to the core audience for hybrid vehicles.

And let’s not forget - it is big news. A hybrid Camry brings the hybrid drive to one of the world’s best selling cars. When the sales figures are noted, it might be hard for anyone to argue that this spot was less than a success.

What Doesn’t Work

This spot is super-earnest, and it is possible that it might come off as condescending to the Hispanic community, although we don’t think so. We also wouldn’t run it much outside of the Superbowl, because it looks like such an ordinary car commercial with the volume turned off that it requires focused attention to see what is new.

Toyota shared the new-hybrid spotlight with Kermit and the Ford Escape, who took a very different route to reach the same audience with the same message. This does point out that ‘Hybrid’ in itself will not remain a unique selling proposition for long.

Branding Bottom Line: Mira - it’s a Toyota Camry Hybrid. Can you say ’sold out’?

Another Look at Toyota’s 2006 Super Bowl Commercial

Latino marketing goes mainstream

Prime-time ads break new ground by recognizing the rise of Hispanic consumers

Samar Farah, Boston Globe correspondent

Reprinted in Boston Globe from New York Times

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/07/09/latino

July 9, 2006

Think back for a moment to this year's Super Bowl -- to one commercial that wasn't racy or provocative. In fact, the lack of controversy surrounding this ad is precisely why many advertisers and marketers are still talking about it.

The spot in question promoted a new Toyota Camry Hybrid and featured a father cruising on sun-dappled byways, his son strapped in the back seat. Typical car ad, right? Only the father was a Latino with a discernible accent. Their conversation played on the word hybrid: the son represented a blend of US and Hispanic cultures, the car represented a blend of fuels.

A touching idea, but five years ago, advertising executives say, it would have been unthinkable to blatantly target Hispanics in a mainstream, general market venue such as the Super Bowl. In just 30 seconds, Toyota leapt past two sticking points in corporate marketing departments across the country. The automaker rejected the prevailing wisdom that the only way to connect with Hispanics is in Spanish and through Spanish TV, radio, or print media. Toyota also discredited concerns that prime-time advertising aimed at Hispanics would rankle a non-Hispanic audience; the carmaker says it never heard from any disgruntled viewers.

The Toyota ad ``is a milestone in our industry, to say the least," says Alex Lopez Negrete, former chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies and chief executive of Lopez Negrete Communications in Houston.

Toyota is not the only company switching from targeting Hispanics in Spanish to trying to reach Hispanics in English. Last fall Canton sneaker company Reebok created a website in English -- BarrioRBK.com -- devoted to Hispanic youth, while McDonald's Corp. has been running a TV ad featuring a Latina mother. Shot in both English and Spanish, the fast-food chain's commercial has appeared on high-profile programming including the Oscars and the Grammys.

``We're starting to see a shift in the marketplace with the arrival of cable networks and other Hispanic-centric English-language television shows," says Chiqui Cartagena, author of ``¡Latino Boom! Everything You Need to Know to Grow Your Business in the US Hispanic Market."

Most marketers have understood the importance of the Hispanic consumer at least since 2002, when Census figures showed Hispanics surpassed blacks to become the largest minority in the United States.

To that end, brands have spent millions translating their English advertising into Spanish and placing those spots on Spanish-language outlets, from TV to radio. But the majority of Hispanics in America -- about 60 percent according to the US Census -- are US-born, like the son in the Camry ad. Marketing gurus describe this subset as young, upwardly mobile, tech-savvy, favoring mainstream shows like ``American Idol" and ``The Simpsons," and either bilingual or else preferring to communicate in English. For the most part, brands have been ignoring this group.

Take Evelyn Reyes, 35, producer and host with ``Boston Latino," a local cable program in English geared toward Hispanics. Reyes, who was born in New York and grew up in Jamaica Plain, rarely watches Mexican soap operas, or telenovelas, so popular with Hispanics. Aside from visits to her mother's house, where the television set is often tuned to Spanish-language programs, she's unlikely to catch any advertising in Spanish, and she says the same is true of her Hispanic friends.

``We're different from foreign-born Latinos," she says. ``I've felt that difference ever since I was a kid. We're more acculturated."

``Acculturation" is the newest buzzword among multicultural marketers. According to the acculturation model, minorities -- from Latinos to Asian-Americans -- will blend certain elements of American culture with their own background. Rather than grouping minorities according to language preference and hiring agencies to translate ad copy, marketers who buy into this view are concerned with cultural differences -- not only between large ethnic categories like Hispanics and Asians, but also between smaller segments like US-born Hispanics and foreign-born Hispanics.

Rick Marroquin, director of Hispanic marketing for McDonald's, explains the fast-food giant's decision to speak to Latinos in English: ``We know that Hispanics, regardless of language preference, are more attentive to [marketing] that is culturally relevant. It is a concerted effort to deliver our message to the breadth of Hispanic consumers in the US today."

Toyota has been marketing to Hispanics for about 15 years, but the Super Bowl ad marks its first effort to reach bilingual Hispanics in English, says Sandi Kayse, National Car Advertising Manager for Toyota. While developing the campaign, the company feared a backlash.

``Prior to the ad coming out, we received a small amount of negative feedback saying that we shouldn't use Spanish on English TV stations," Kayse recalls, referring to a bilingual exchange in the father-son conversation using ``Sí" for ``yes."

Kayse said certain facts overrode their concerns: that among Hispanics Toyota is the number one-selling car brand, that the Camry is the number one-selling car in the United States , that Toyota has a firm reputation as a producer of hybrid cars, and that research shows that a significant number of Hispanic Super Bowl viewers care about the environment.

But a gut feeling about the ad's message is what ultimately carried the campaign through. ``We wanted to show that [Toyota] is moving forward and that [Hispanics] too are moving forward."

Kayse won't say whether the commercial has translated into more sales among Hispanics but is confident that it has been effective. ``It's done more than just highlight a car -- it showed that we respect our Hispanic customers and that we're willing to go to the expense of buying a Super Bowl ad to reach them," she said.

Will Toyota try a bilingual ad again? ``While we don't have plans to do something similar right now, we certainly realized there are opportunities to cross over diversity media lines," Kayse said.

Liz Cheng, vice president of programming at WCVB-TV, Boston's ABC affiliate, has tried to embrace such opportunities. She said she has made it a priority to reach out to Hispanic viewers -- through bilingual efforts like Spanish-language captioning and Hispanic programs in English. Cheng sites Census figures that show that Massachusetts's Hispanic population is quickly expanding. From 1990 to 2000, the state's Latino community grew 49 percent.

Even so, Cheng said her sales teams grouse that it's an uphill battle persuading advertisers to shift Hispanic advertising dollars into general market outlets.

``You feel like you're constantly in the process of educating," Cheng said.

© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Nike’s Hip Social Politics: Empowering Which Women?

Some ads sell concepts by attaching them to products.  Nike, for example, has attached the feminist concepts of empowerment and strength to shoes for women.

Serena Williams stars in a provocative Nike ad.

Nike serves up new ads supporting women

USA Today

Theresa Howard

August 26, 2007

NEW YORK — Nike has done it again: created an ad campaign sure to generate buzz.

The sporting-brand giant has put a marketing spin on the offensive comments made by radio shock jock Don Imus against the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Serena Williams, Picabo Street and Gabby Reece are part of the campaign that began Saturday. It includes TV ads, a giant New York City billboard with Williams that goes up Tuesday and a website with more than a dozen videos and space for women to share their sports stories.

Nike also anted up $425,000 in cash and equipment and launched the Let Me Play Fund, which will issue grants for equipment and uniforms. The fund is named after an emotional Nike ad that last aired in 1995 in which girls and women reveal the benefits of organized sports.

"We've been a supporter of female athletes, but we thought it was a good time to come out with a stronger message," says Nancy Monsarrat, Nike's U.S. brand director. "When the (Imus) comments were made, we said, 'This is our team. This is our coach.' We had to defend them, but that was just the start."

This new push comes months after sexist and racist comments by Imus about the Rutgers players and days after reports last week that Imus could return to radio.

After Imus' comments on April 4, Nike took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that did not mention Imus by name but opened with: "Thank you, ignorance" followed with several more "thank yous" for "moving women's sports forward" and "making us all realize we all have a long way to go."

It has been 35 years since Congress passed Title IX, the law requiring gender equity for boys and girls participating in federally funded education programs.

Yet, shortly after the Imus comments, Nike marketers interviewed female high school athletes who reported they still don't feel as respected as their male counterparts. "We want to make sure women and girls are respected as athletes, and we wanted to provide a platform for them," Monsarrat says.

Williams clearly demands respect in the New York ad. In it, she stands holding a tennis racquet. The provocative ad asks: "Are you looking at my titles?" Hint: She's got eight Grand Slam titles.

"It's important to hear from women who overcome stereotypes, ignorance and inequality," Williams says. It's also important for a woman "to be an athlete, be strong and not feel sorry for kicking someone's butt," she says.

In TV and Web ads by agency Wieden & Kennedy, the athletes in unscripted monologues share their achievements and views on being an athlete. Says Heidi O'Neill, global vice president of women's training for Nike: "We're trying to move away from the negative and move toward the voice of optimism."

The campaign does just that, says senior Rutgers basketball guard Essence Carson, 21, of Paterson, N.J. "I'm very happy Nike is taking advantage of the situation to spread awareness."

The campaign, broadcast on MTV, Fuse and ESPN, includes five TV ads: one with the roster of Nike athletes and four others with Mia Hamm, street baller Alvina Carroll, high school coach Bill Ressler and skier Street. Digital ads on Facebook.com, Sports Illustrated's SI.com website and ESPN.com will drive traffic to nike.com and nikewomen.com.

"It's a very tough time transitioning from being a young woman to a woman," says volleyball player Reece, 37. "Sports is a great influence in balancing that and helping you with self-esteem."

In the ads and videos, the women wear T-shirts bearing the Nike swoosh and "ATHLETE." The $25 shirts and $9 rubber bracelets with words such as "strength" and "passion" are on sale at nike.com and select retailers. Nike donates $1 from the sale of each item to the fund. Grant requests can be made at nike.com and nikewomen.com. Applications by female teams or their coaches will be reviewed by a panel of 12.

O'Neill acknowledges that part of this effort is branding for Nike, which has 20% of worldwide sales for women's footwear and apparel. "But the other part is making the right products for (women) in footwear, apparel and equipment," O'Neill says. "What you're going to see is more and more of those products for specific sports and performance."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2007-08-26-ad-track-williams_N.htm

Leave a Comment

Subject: “But the Buzz Wasn’t Always Positive”

“Nike has done it again: created an ad campaign sure to generate buzz,” but the buzz wasn’t always positive.  In 1997, a coalition of women’s groups attacked Nike as hypocritical for its television commercials that featured female athletes, asserting that “something is wrong when the company calls for empowering American women but pays its largely female overseas work force poorly” (“Nike Supports Women in Its Ads but Not Its Factories, Groups Say, New York Times, Oct. 26, 1997).  Sturken and Cartwright (2001): “The shoes could no longer be stripped of the meaning of their conditions of production and “filled” with the signifiers of feminism” (200). 

Question:  Have working conditions improved or has that “buzz” died? 

_____________________________________________________________________________

POP- UP ADS

Each time I log onto the Internet, the screen is covered by pop-up advertisements for retail websites.  Point of Purchase, Sharon Zukin

Sign up for email alerts and you’ll be automatically entered into our monthly drawing.

Pop-Up Ads: Good? Bad? Ugly?

Tessa Wegert is an interactive media strategist with Enlighten, a digital marketing, Web development, and e-business consulting firm ranked as one of the nation's top 50 interactive agencies by Advertising Age.

ClickZ Experts: Advice & Opinions. By & for Marketers  http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=991121 http://oascentral-nx.incisivemedia.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/2020668580@Left,Left1,Left3,x30,Position3,x36,x25,x36,x37,x39,x40,x41,x42,x43,x44,x45,x46,x47,x48,x49,x50,x51,x52,x53,x54,x55,x56,x57,x58,x59!Position3

March 14, 2002

If domination of newspaper headlines, industry studies, consumer polls, and market reports is any indication, it's safe to say pop-up ads are the most contentious online advertising format yet. Any wonder they're getting so much attention? Most reports say consumers downright despise these "intrusive" and "annoying" messages. We've all seen the articles -- some more melodramatic than others -- quoting outraged surfers who throw around words such as "violated" and "molested" to describe their experiences with the scandalous ad format. We're smack in the middle of a media-fueled consumer backlash rivaling the assault against spam. There's no end in sight.

Things are now more complicated than ever. A recent Dynamic Logic study shed new light on the controversial issue. As it turns out, Internet users are actually more tolerant of pop-ups than previously thought. Results of the survey showed 72 percent of U.S. Web users accept limited use of pop-ups, and 47 percent agree as many as two to six ads per hour are "appropriate" to support free content. This suggests it's not so much pop-up ads that irk consumers, but the sheer volume of ads they must endure during any single session.

This news has left marketers scratching their heads. One the one hand, we hear consumers chanting pop-ups are intolerable and should be stopped. Commercial ad-blocking software that zaps pop-ups indicates there are consumers whose hatred of pop-ups runs so deep they're willing to pay good money to retaliate. On the other hand, research tells us consumers are OK with pop-ups -- in moderation. They understand most free sites are supported by ads, and viewing online ads is the price they pay to skirt subscriber fees.

This uncertainty leaves us with the question: Should we or shouldn't we include pop-ups in our online campaigns? In the past, opinions divided media buyers into two camps. For those in favor of pop-ups, the consensus was exposure and increased brand awareness was worth running the risk of potential collateral damage, such as a tarnished company name or a temporarily boycotted product. Skeptics, meanwhile, opposed the ads for fear of falling victim to these same consequences. Overly cautious media buyers considered pop-up advocates foolish and reckless. Pop-up supporters flooded the online environment with ads.

The conflict peaked in reaction to pop-up and pop-under advertisers X10 and Orbitz, whose carpet bomb approach took online advertising to a new level. Tireless tactics and devil-may-care attitudes seemed to offer an opportunity for marketers to finally learn the value and purpose of pop-up advertising. They became our guinea pigs. Was their hard-line approach to Internet marketing self-destructive? After dissecting and scrutinizing the campaigns, contradictory results only spawned more confusion. We regarded them with aversion (for blatant disregard of consumer irritation) and awe (for managing to elevate their brand awareness to near-mythical status). But we have no firm conclusions.

As whatever we believe about consumer attitude toward pop-ups continues to be challenged, a third camp emerges. This one comprises slightly more daring media buyers determined to gain a better understanding of this baffling format by doing some testing of their own. Should we embrace or eschew pop-ads when planning campaigns? Do pop-ups work best when combined with other, less aggressive ad formats? Will frequency caps be our salvation?

Share your stories. By pooling our experiences, we'll unravel the mystery of this format!

Analyze

Create an analytical framework for the different kinds of ads included: ads that (1) “manufacture desire,” (2) use or target race/ethnicity, (3) seek to empower women, and (4) pop up on the Net.  As you learn about more kinds of ads, you can add to your analytical framework. See also “Creating an Analytical Framework, Resources, p. 0.

Reflect

QuickWrite for five minutes about an ad that comes to mind.  What makes you remember a specific ad?  Honesty?  Humor?  Aesthetic appeal?  Whether it’s current or hip, creative or entertaining?

Discuss

Share with a small group the ad that came to mind.  Then share one or two from the group with the whole class.  What is the appeal of these ads?  Were particular ads popular in your classroom community? 

Learn More

Browse advertisements of a new product.  Look at Lucky magazine and learn about why a magazine that consists only of ads is so popular.  Learn more about ads designed for mobile phones for people on the go.  Are these tech-produced ads taking the lead now (over TV ads, for example)?  Browse through some advertising magazines and journals—what are some topics of discussion? Study some ads that use celebrities to endorse products.  Search for some ads that are designed to appeal to your age group or gender or race/ethnicity and study them.  Look beyond their surface appeal. What interests you as a critical observer? What is the role of advertising in developing a consumer culture?

Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion of your findings.

Write

Note: Before you analyze an ad individually, consider previewing this assignment and using some guiding questions to analyze an ad together as a whole class.

Select one ad to analyze.  Length: @ 500 words.  Make a copy (or post the ad) and include the source.  Begin by QuickWriting your initial impressions.  Then stand back and consciously observe and study the ad.  Identify the ad's direct claim(s) about the product. Then evaluate each claim.  Is there any way the claim could be proven true or false?  What do you see when you study this ad now that you are a more educated viewer?  What “need” is being projected that the product can supposedly “fill”?  How does the ad attempt to be persuasive?  Is the product really going to have the impact that the ad implies?  Will stress really fade away when you press the accelerator of a new sports car?  Juliet Schor: “As the Swoosh swooshes by, consider whether Nike really stands for women’s power, independence, and hipness, as it wants us to believe.”  Question what you see.

Waste: The Result of Consumption

The United States consumes far more stuff than any other developed country.  According to the biologist Edward O. Wilson, if the rest of the world consumed at our levels—with existing levels of technology—we’d require the resources of four more planet Earths.  - Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land

We are already consuming beyond the earth’s ecological carrying capacity. 

-Juliet Schor, “The New Politics of Consumption: Why American Want So Much more Than They Need,” Boston Review

Constant serial replacement is the backbone of commodity culture.

                                                                                           -Gay Hawkins, Trash

Waste: thrown away or aside as worthless, defective or of no further use

                                                       Webster’s Third International Dictionary

The word ‘waste’ in Old and Middle English originally referred to a land or an environment that was unsuitable to sustain human habitation, but as the Middle English lexicon expanded to replace this older sense of the term with equivalents like ‘wilderness’ and ‘desert’, new uses of waste emerged that began to indicate moral censure. But, if we are to generalize, we can say that in both its pre-modern and modern usages the notion of waste generally refers to an imbalance.  In more specific terms we may locate this in our contemporary relationships to places, objects, as well as in behaviours and practices.  For example, such an imbalance is reflected in a perceived excess of consumption—that is, where household rubbish, scrap heaps or other junk and clutter stabs through to consciousness the very profligacy of modern living.   

                                                                                                 On Garbage, John Scanlan. London: Reaktion Books: 2005 (22)

    *profligacy: reckless waste and extravagance: the trait of spending extravagantly

[Insert PHOTO of “stuff”]

Garbage [‘rubbish,’ ‘waste,’ ‘trash’] is the “mountain of indistinguishable stuff that is in its own way affirmed by a resolute dismissal: it is refuse-d (not accepted, denied, banished).”  It is “the result of a separation—of the desirable from the unwanted; the valuable from the worthless.

                                                                                On Garbage, John Scanlan. London: Reaktion Books: 2005 (14, 15)

Matt: “How’s the waste business?”

Nick: “Booming.  The waste business.  Bigger by the minute.

Matt: “I’ll bet it is.”

Nick: “We can’t build enough landfills, dig enough gaping caverns.”  (205)

In Don DeLillo’s novel Underworld, the central character Nick Shay, is a waste management consultant.

From Cradle to Grave

Imagine what you would come upon today at a typical landfill: old furniture, upholstery, carpets, televisions, clothing, shoes, telephones, computers, complex products, and plastic packaging, as well as organic materials like diapers, paper, wood, and food wastes.  Most of these products were made from valuable materials that required effort and expense to extract and make billions of dollars’ worth of material assets.  The biodegradable materials such as food matter and paper actually have value too—they could decompose and return biological nutrients to the soil.  Unfortunately, all of these things are heaped in a landfill, where their value is wasted.  They are the ultimate products of an industrial system that is designed on a linear, one-way cradle-to-grave model. Resources are extracted, shaped into products, sold, and eventually disposed of in a “grave” of some kind, usually a landfill or incinerator.  You are probably familiar with the end of this process because you, the customer, are responsible for dealing with its detritus.  Think about it: you may be referred to as a consumer, but there is very little that you actually consume—some food, some liquids.  Everything else is designed for you to throw away when you are finished with it.  But where is “away”?  Of course, “away” does not really exist.  “Away” has gone away.

     Cradle-to-grave designs dominate modern manufacturing.  According to some accounts more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the United States become waste almost immediately.  Sometimes the product itself scarcely lasts longer.  It is often cheaper to buy a new version of even the most expensive appliance than to track down someone to repair the original item.  In fact, many products are designed with “built-in obsolescence,” to last only for a certain period of time, to allow—to encourage—the customer to get rid of the thing and buy a new model.  Also, what most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg; the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it (27-28).  Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough & Michael Braungart (NY: North Point Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 2002.

The archaeological study of the garbage of consumer society only confirms a truth that was already evident to those who bothered looking—that no matter ever really disappears; but also that by means of entombment and preservation it does not greatly change form either, it is still possible to recognize it as what it was.                                                                                                       John Scanlan, On Garbage, 142.

On Trash

This selection is from an essay by Barry Allen in TRASH. Ed. John Knechtel.(Cambridge, MA., Alphabet City Media, MIT Press: 198-213). Allen teaches philosophy at McMaster University.

The most impressive thing about our trash is how well made it is.  A plastic juice container tossed in the trash is astonishingly well made: the regularity of the surfaces; the fine hard ridges of the screw-top; the elegant fusion of bottom and walls, all rendered in a light, transparent medium.  Or think of a polystyrene fast-food container, used for seconds, then discarded.  Imagine the astonishment of a Leonardo da Vinci encountering such an object.  How was it made?  What is its material?  How were the colors applied?  What is the source of the exquisitely regulated workmanship?  Yet to us, it is incidental utility and enduring trash.

     Why is our trash so well made?  Primarily, because it is mass-produced in conditions of industrial automation.  Leonardo would look at a polystyrene container through the lens of a culture whose manufacturer depended almost entirely on the ability of the individual workman to manage the unpredictable qualities of the material he had: a workmanship of skill and risk.  Practically nothing was made with the kind of certainty that we routinely extract from automated artifice (see Pye).

     Trash is what it has always been—quotidian refuse.  But the nature of trash is changing fast.  Over the last five thousand years it has become increasingly urban, and now, with globalization, urban trash is nearly all the trash there is.  Moreover, in the last two centuries trash has become first industrial, then technoscientific, as industrial production has merged with technology and science.  Trash is now technological.  Drive around neighborhoods on garbage day in a large city: at the curbside, you’ll see television sets, old speakers, daisy-wheel printers, video monitors, even entire computers.  Sometimes they’re broken and not worth repair.  Sometimes they’re just unwanted.  Even when malfunctioning, they remain exceptionally well made.  The detail, precision, joinery, materials, and finishes are unique in the history of detritus. . . .

     It is probably impossible to become trashless.  The challenge, however, is not to become trashless but to make trash for which we can care.  What matters is not trash per se but its cost.  The best trash is trash we are prepared to care for.  We care for trash not just by waste management but by taking care not to trash for trifling reasons, or to make things that can only be trashed after one cycle of use.  (198-199, 212).

David Pye (1978)

The Nature and Aesthetics of Design

Bethel: Cambium Press

______________________________________________________________________

The ways in which consumption degrades the environment is another area we need to educate ourselves about.  Americans know very little about the ecological impacts of their lifestyles beyond the obvious (cars are bad, recycling is good, excessive packaging is bad).  We are oblivious to some of our most damaging consumer habits: air conditioning, jet travel, meat, household toxins, and the sheer volume of resources consumed each day (120 pounds).  We are unaware that even seemingly innocuous products like coffee (new growing methods are reducing species diversity) and hamburgers (cattle grazing is causing desertification, and pesticides for corn feed are damaging human reproductive systems) have significant impacts.  A necessary first step toward becoming an educated consumer is to learn about the impact your consumption has on the environment.  Only then can you make responsible and informed choices. To become educated, you cannot rely solely on the information that manufacturers provide….With the exception of a few federally mandated measures (gas mileage, energy use information on appliances), environmental impacts are rarely revealed to the consumer.  Companies do not want to uncover or publicize negative information about the products they sell.

                                                                                           Juliet Schor, from Principle 5, The Overspent American 

______________________________________________________________________

My Beer Can, Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff

Fred Pearce

Fred Pearce is the author of several books including When the Rivers Run Dry and articles. A former editor at New Scientist, Pearce who lives in England currently works as an environment and development consultant.  This selection is from Confessions of an Eco-Sinner (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008: 143-152) in which Pearce traces “the lineage of his ‘stuff.’”

E-Waste: “Media in the Dump”

Jennifer Gabrys

An excerpt from “Media in the Dump,” a report by Jennifer Gabrys on the residues from our digital devices

In TRASH. Ed. John Knechtel.(Cambridge, MA., Alphabet City Media, MIT Press:157-165).

“Waste is now electronic,” writes Gopal Krishna, describing the escalating number of obsolete electronic devices headed for the dump.  Here is the other side of electronic waste—not a byproduct of the manufacturing process, but the dead product headed for disposal.  E-waste—trashed electronic hardware, from personal computers and monitors to mobile phones, DVD players, and television sets—is, like the electronics industry, growing at an astronomical rate.  In the US, it is expected that by 2010, 3 billion units of consumer electronics will have been scrapped at a rate of 400 million per year.  The volume of obsolete electronics is so great that in the near future the number of outmoded computers is projected to surpass the number produced or consumed (IAER; Kuehr and Williams).  Of the hundreds of millions of computers declared useless, at least 75 percent are stockpiled, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.  Computer owners store the outmoded model as though there might be some way to recuperate its vanishing value, but the PC is one item that does not acquire value over time.  At some point, stockpiled computers enter the waste flow, and are either landfilled, recycled for reuse, or shipped for salvage to countries with cheap labor and lax environmental laws.  The Digital Revolution, as it turns out, is littered with rubbish (158).

Where do all the cell phones go? 

 Seattle artist Chris Jordan creates images about consumerism in his exhibit "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" (2007).

Our consumerism holds an anesthetizing kind of mob mentality; collectively we are committing a  vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences... So perhaps my photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-reflection. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know we are awake. - Chris Jordan (2005)

Cell Phones

426,000 are retired in the U.S. every day.  And yes, there are 426,000 in this photograph.

www.chrisjordan.com

Plastic

In the sixties, you could always insult a guy by calling him “plastic.”  It meant he was phony or superficial.  The opposite of plastic was ‘real.’  In Mike Nichols’s 1967 film The Graduate, the hopelessly straight Mr. McGuire, a friend of the Braddock family, offers career advice to the recently graduated Benjamin Braddock.  ‘I just want to say one word to you.  Just one word.  Are you listening?...Plastics.’  The word became a kind of shorthand for a suburban life of conspicuous consumption and upward striving.  It stood for a rejection of old ways and an embrace of modernity, which included the throwaway culture made possible by the expanded use of plastic. (176) ….

Across the nation, recovery rates for almost all recyclable materials have declined over the last couple years.  But the recovery rate for PET plastic (polyethylene terephthalate, that is, marked by a number 1 surrounded by chasing arrows), the most widely collected type, has fallen especially hard, from a high of 39.7 percent in 1995 to a low of 19.9 percent in 2002, when 3.2 billion pounds of PET bottles were buried or burned.  Number one water bottles have an even worse recycling rate than number one soda bottles.  In 2002, only 11 percent of plastic water bottles were recycled in the US.  And as the market segment grows—and it is growing faster than any other segment in the US beverage market—the problem is bound to get worse.  In 2003, Americans consumed 13 billion liters of bottled water, much of it in half-liter servings, and global bottled-water sales reached 155 billion liters.

     Recycling experts link the drop to the rising number of beverages consumed away from home—in offices, parks, cars, and other places that lack a handy recycling bin….After e-waste, plastics are the fastest-growing portion of the municipal waste stream: according to the GrassRoots Recycling Network, Americans trash more than forty million plastic soda bottles a day. (177)

“Of all materials we throw out, plastic is among the hardest to kill.”  (191)

                                from Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, Elizabeth Royte, NY: Little Brown & Co., 2005

[PHOTO]

Where are all the postconsumer plastics going?

It’s estimated that Americans go through about a hundred billion polyethylene bags—the ubiquitous eighteen-microns-thick grocery sacks that snag on branches, skip along on the breeze, clog sewers and storm drains, and burrow into ditches and dunes—a year.  Although plastic bags don’t take up a lot of landfill space, they persist in the environment for decades, if not centuries.  (192)

Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?

Susan Casey

Best Life magazine

Oct. 25, 2007

Susan Casey is the author of The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks (Henry Holt, June 2005). Her writing has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Time, Fortune, the New York Times, and Outside.  The following is an excerpt from an essay originally published in Best Life magazine.  It  was selected by the American Society of Magazine Editors for the 2007 collection of The Best American Magazine Writing (NY: Columbia UP). 

A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse.

Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life’s purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

            It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Little wind. Water the color of sapphires.  Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.

            Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita’s course, veering slightly north. He had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. For one thing, it was becalmed. “The doldrums,” sailors called it, and they steered clear. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

            The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had grown up in Long Beach, 40 miles south of L.A., with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He’d seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand; things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

            It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

            How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so, and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “Eastern GarbagePatch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a weekthrough bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body.

            “Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” This Andy Warhol quote is emblazoned on a six-foot-long magenta and yellow banner that hangs—with extreme irony—in the solar-powered workshop in Moore’s Long Beach home. The workshop is surrounded by a crazy Eden of trees, bushes, flowers, fruits, and vegetables, ranging from the prosaic (tomatoes) to the exotic (cherimoyas, guavas, chocolate persimmons, white figs the size of baseballs). This is the house in which Moore, 59, was raised, and it has a kind of open-air earthiness that reflects his ’60s-activist roots, which included a stint in a Berkeley commune. Composting and organic gardening are serious business here—you can practically smell the humus—but there is also a kidney-shaped hot tub surrounded by palm trees. Two wet suits hang drying on a clothesline above it.

            This afternoon, Moore strides the grounds. “How about a nice, fresh boysenberry?” he asks, and plucks one off a bush. He’s a striking man wearing no-nonsense black trousers and a shirt with official-looking epaulettes. A thick brush of salt-and-pepper hair frames his intense blue eyes and serious face. But the first thing you notice about Moore is his voice, a deep, bemused drawl that becomes animated and sardonic when the subject turns to plastic pollution. This problem is Moore’s calling, a passion he inherited from his father, an industrial chemist who studied waste management as a hobby. On family vacations, Moore recalls, part of the agenda would be to see what the locals threw out. “We could be in paradise, but we would go to the dump,” he says with a shrug. “That’s what we wanted to see.”

            Since his first encounter with the Garbage Patch nine years ago, Moore has been on a mission to learn exactly what’s going on out there. Leaving behind a 25-year career running a furniture-restoration business, he has created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to spread the word of his findings. He has resumed his science studies, which he’d set aside when his attention swerved from pursuing a university degree to protesting the Vietnam War. His tireless effort has placed him on the front lines of this new, more abstract battle. After enlisting scientists such as Steven B. Weisberg, Ph.D. (executive director of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project and an expert in marine environmental monitoring), to develop methods for analyzing the gyre’s contents, Moore has sailed Alguita back to the Garbage Patch several times. On each trip, the volume of plastic has grown alarmingly. The area in which it accumulates is now twice the size of Texas.

            At the same time, all over the globe, there are signs that plastic pollution is doing more than blighting the scenery; it is also making its way into the food chain. Some of the most obvious victims are the dead seabirds that have been washing ashore in startling numbers, their bodies packed with plastic: things like bottle caps, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, and colored scraps that, to a foraging bird, resemble baitfish. (One animal dissected by Dutch researchers contained 1,603 pieces of plastic.) And the birds aren’t alone. All sea creatures are threatened by floating plastic, from whales down to zooplankton. There’s a basic moral horror in seeing the pictures: a sea turtle with a plastic band strangling its shell into an hourglass shape; a humpback towing plastic nets that cut into its flesh and make it impossible for the animal to hunt. More than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being ensnared in it and drowning.

            Bad enough. But Moore soon learned that the big, tentacled balls of trash were only the most visible signs of the problem; others were far less obvious, and far more evil. Dragging a fine-meshed net known as a manta trawl, he discovered minuscule pieces of plastic, some barely visible to the eye, swirling like fish food throughout the water. He and his researchers parsed, measured, and sorted their samples and arrived at the following conclusion: By weight, this swath of sea contains six times as much plastic as it does plankton.

            This statistic is grim—for marine animals, of course, but even more so for humans. The more invisible and ubiquitous the pollution, the more likely it will end up inside us. And there’s growing—and disturbing—proof that we’re ingesting plastic toxins constantly, and that even slight doses of these substances can severely disrupt gene activity. “Every one of us has this huge body burden,” Moore says. “You could take your serum to a lab now, and they’d find at least 100 industrial chemicals that weren’t around in 1950.” The fact that these toxins don’t cause violent and immediate reactions does not mean they’re benign: Scientists are just beginning to research the long-term ways in which the chemicals used to make plastic interact with our own biochemistry. [You can access this essay from http://www.bestlifeonline.com to learn more about the chemicals included in plastic and various negative effects that caused one researcher “to throw out every polycarbonate plastic item in his house and to stop buying plastic-wrapped food and canned goods (cans are plastic-lined) at the grocery store.”]

.  .  .  .  .

This news is depressing enough to make a person reach for the bottle. Glass, at least, is easily recyclable. You can take one tequila bottle, melt it down, and make another tequila bottle. With plastic, recycling is more complicated. Unfortunately, that promising-looking triangle of arrows that appears on products doesn’t always signify endless reuse; it merely identifies which type of plastic the item is made from. And of the seven different plastics in common use, only two of them—PET (labeled with #1 inside the triangle and used in soda bottles) and HDPE (labeled with #2 inside the triangle and used in milk jugs)—have much of an aftermarket. So no matter how virtuously you toss your chip bags and shampoo bottles into your blue bin, few of them will escape the landfill—only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way.

            “There’s no legal way to recycle a milk container into another milk container without adding a new virgin layer of plastic,” Moore says, pointing out that, because plastic melts at low temperatures, it retains pollutants and the tainted residue of its former contents. Turn up the heat to sear these off, and some plastics release deadly vapors. So the reclaimed stuff is mostly used to make entirely different products, things that don’t go anywhere near our mouths, such as fleece jackets and carpeting. Therefore, unlike recycling glass, metal, or paper, recycling plastic doesn’t always result in less use of virgin material. It also doesn’t help that fresh-made plastic is far cheaper.

            Moore routinely finds half-melted blobs of plastic in the ocean, as though the person doing the burning realized part way through the process that this was a bad idea, and stopped (or passed out from the fumes). “That’s a concern as plastic proliferates worldwide, and people run out of room for trash and start burning plastic—you’re producing some of the most toxic gases known,” he says. The color-coded bin system may work in Marin County, but it is somewhat less effective in subequatorial Africa or rural Peru.

            “Except for the small amount that’s been incinerated—and it’s a very small amount—every bit of plastic ever made still exists,” Moore says, describing how the material’s molecular structure resists biodegradation. Instead, plastic crumbles into ever-tinier fragments as it’s exposed to sunlight and the elements. And none of these untold gazillions of fragments is disappearing anytime soon: Even when plastic is broken down to a single molecule, it remains too tough for biodegradation.

            Truth is, no one knows how long it will take for plastic to biodegrade, or return to its carbon and hydrogen elements. We only invented the stuff 144 years ago, and science’s best guess is that its natural disappearance will take several more centuries. Meanwhile, every year, we churn out about 60 billion tons of it, much of which becomes disposable products meant only for a single use. Set aside the question of why we’re creating ketchup bottles and six-pack rings that last for half a millennium, and consider the implications of it: Plastic never really goes away.

Ask a group of people to name an overwhelming global problem, and you’ll hear about climate change, the Middle East, or AIDS. No one, it is guaranteed, will cite the sloppy transport of nurdles as a concern. And yet nurdles, lentil-size pellets of plastic in its rawest form, are especially effective couriers of waste chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which include known carcinogens such as DDT and PCBs. The United States banned these poisons in the 1970s, but they remain stubbornly at large in the environment, where they latch on to plastic because of its molecular tendency to attract oils.

            The word itself—nurdles—sounds cuddly and harmless, like a cartoon character or a pasta for kids, but what it refers to is most certainly not. Absorbing up to a million times the level of POP pollution in their surrounding waters, nurdles become supersaturated poison pills. They’re light enough to blow around like dust, to spill out of shipping containers, and to wash into harbors, storm drains, and creeks. In the ocean, nurdles are easily mistaken for fish eggs by creatures that would very much like to have such a snack. And once inside the body of a big eye tuna or a king salmon, these tenacious chemicals are headed directly to your dinner table.

            One study estimated that nurdles now account for 10 percent of plastic ocean debris. And once they’re scattered in the environment, they’re diabolically hard to clean up (think wayward confetti). At places as remote as Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, 2,100 miles northeast of New Zealand and a 12-hour flight from L.A., they’re commonly found mixed with beach sand. In 2004, Moore received a $500,000 grant from the state of California to investigate the myriad ways in which nurdles go astray during the plastic manufacturing process. On a visit to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe factory, as he walked through an area where railcars unloaded ground-up nurdles, he noticed that his pant cuffs were filled with a fine plastic dust. Turning a corner, he saw windblown drifts of nurdles piled against a fence. Talking about the experience, Moore’s voice becomes strained and his words pour out in an urgent tumble: “It’s not the big trash on the beach. It’s the fact that the whole biosphere is becoming mixed with these plastic particles. What are they doing to us? We’re breathing them, the fish are eating them, they’re in our hair, they’re in our skin.”

            Though marine dumping is part of the problem, escaped nurdles and other plastic litter migrate to the gyre largely from land. That polystyrene cup you saw floating in the creek, if it doesn’t get picked up and specifically taken to a landfill, will eventually be washed out to sea. Once there, it will have plenty of places to go: The North Pacific gyre is only one of five such high-pressure zones in the oceans. There are similar areas in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. Each of these gyres has its own version of the Garbage Patch, as plastic gathers in the currents. Together, these areas cover 40 percent of the sea. “That corresponds to a quarter of the earth’s surface,” Moore says. “So 25 percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes.”

            It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 1865, a few years after Alexander Parkes unveiled a precursor to man-made plastic called Parkesine, a scientist named John W. Hyatt set out to make a synthetic replacement for ivory billiard balls. He had the best of intentions: Save the elephants! After some tinkering, he created celluloid. From then on, each year brought a miraculous recipe: rayon in 1891, Teflon in 1938, polypropylene in 1954. Durable, cheap, versatile—plastic seemed like a revelation. And in many ways, it was. Plastic has given us bulletproof vests, credit cards, slinky spandex pants. It has led to breakthroughs in medicine, aerospace engineering, and computer science. And who among us doesn’t own a Frisbee?

            Plastic has its benefits; no one would deny that. Few of us, however, are as enthusiastic as the American Plastics Council. One of its recent press releases, titled “Plastic Bags—A Family’s Trusted Companion,” reads: “Very few people remember what life was like before plastic bags became an icon of convenience and practicality—and now art. Remember the ‘beautiful’ [sic] swirling, floating bag in American Beauty?”

            Alas, the same ethereal quality that allows bags to dance gracefully across the big screen also lands them in many less desirable places. Twenty-three countries, including Germany, South Africa, and Australia, have banned, taxed, or restricted the use of plastic bags because they clog sewers and lodge in the throats of livestock. Like pernicious Kleenex, these flimsy sacks end up snagged in trees and snarled in fences, becoming eyesores and worse: They also trap rainwater, creating perfect little breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.

            In the face of public outrage over pictures of dolphins choking on “a family’s trusted companion,” the American Plastics Council takes a defensive stance, sounding not unlike the NRA: Plastics don’t pollute, people do.

            It has a point. Each of us tosses about 185 pounds of plastic per year. We could certainly reduce that. And yet—do our products have to be quite so lethal? Must a discarded flip-flop remain with us until the end of time? Aren’t disposable razors and foam packing peanuts a poor consolation prize for the destruction of the world’s oceans, not to mention our own bodies and the health of future generations? “If ‘more is better’ and that’s the only mantra we have, we’re doomed,”Moore says, summing it up.

            Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Ph.D., an expert on marine debris, agrees. “If you could fast-forward 10,000 years and do an archaeological dig…you’d find a little line of plastic,” he told The Seattle Times last April. “What happened to those people? Well, they ate their own plastic and disrupted their genetic structure and weren’t able to reproduce. They didn’t last very long because they killed themselves.

            "Wrist-slittingly depressing, yes, but there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Green architect and designer WilliamMcDonough has become an influential voice, not only in environmental circles but among Fortune 500 CEOs.McDonough proposes a standard known as “cradle to cradle” in which all manufactured things must be reusable, poison-free, and beneficial over the long haul. His outrage is obvious when he holds up a rubber ducky, a common child’s bath toy. The duck is made of phthalate-laden PVC, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive harm. “What kind of people are we that we would design like this?” McDonough asks. In the United States, it’s commonly accepted that children’s teething rings, cosmetics, food wrappers, cars, and textiles will be made from toxic materials. Other countries—and many individual companies—seem to be reconsidering. Currently, McDonough is working with the Chinese government to build seven cities using “the building materials of the future,” including a fabric that is safe enough to eat and a new, nontoxic polystyrene.

            Thanks to people like Moore and McDonough, and media hits such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, awareness of just how hard we’ve bitch-slapped the planet is skyrocketing. After all, unless we’re planning to colonize Mars soon, this is where we live, and none of us would choose to live in a toxic wasteland or to spend our days getting pumped full of drugs to deal with our haywire endocrine systems and runaway cancer.

            None of plastic’s problems can be fixed overnight, but the more we learn, the more likely that, eventually, wisdom will trump convenience and cheap disposability. In the meantime, let the cleanup begin: The National Oceanographic &Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is aggressively using satellites to identify and remove “ghost nets,” abandoned plastic fishing gear that never stops killing. (A single net recently hauled up off the Florida coast contained more than 1,000 dead fish, sharks, and one loggerhead turtle.) New biodegradable starch- and corn-based plastics have arrived, and Wal-Mart has signed on as a customer. A consumer rebellion against dumb and excessive packaging is afoot. And in August2006, Moore was invited to speak about “marine debris and hormone disruption” at a meeting in Sicily convened by the science advisor to the Vatican. This annual gathering, called the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies, brings scientists together to discuss mankind’s worst threats. Past topics have included nuclear holocaust and terrorism.

            The gray plastic kayak floats next to Moore’s catamaran, Alguita, which lives in a slip across from his house. It is not a lovely kayak; in fact, it looks pretty rough. But it’s floating, a sturdy, eight-foot-long two-seater. Moore stands on Alguita’s deck, hands on hips, staring down at it. On the sailboat next to him, his neighbor, Cass Bastain, does the same. He has just informed Moore that he came across the abandoned craft yesterday, floating just offshore. The two men shake their heads in bewilderment.

            “That’s probably a $600 kayak,” Moore says, adding, “I don’t even shop anymore. Anything I need will just float by.” (In his opinion, the movie Cast Away was a joke—Tom Hanks could’ve built a village with the crap that would’ve washed ashore during a storm.)

            Watching the kayak bobbing disconsolately, it is hard not to wonder what will become of it. The world is full of cooler, sexier kayaks. It is also full of cheap plastic kayaks that come in more attractive colors than battleship gray. The ownerless kayak is a lummox of a boat, 50 pounds of nurdles extruded into an object that nobody wants, but that’ll be around for centuries longer than we will. And as Moore stands on deck looking into the water, it is easy to imagine him doing the same thing 800 miles west, in the gyre. You can see his silhouette in the silvering light, caught between ocean and sky. You can see the mercurial surface of the most majestic body of water on earth. And then below, you can see the half-submerged madhouse of forgotten and discarded things. As Moore looks over the side of the boat, you can see the seabirds sweeping overhead, dipping and skimming the water. One of the journeying birds, sleek as a fighter plane, carries a scrap of something yellow in its beak. The bird dives low and then boomerangs over the horizon. Gone.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can…   

-John Lennon, “Imagine”

In her garage strewn with cartons to be given away, Mrs. Harris shook her head. “Stuff, stuff that a family has,” she said, “the stuff of our lives.”

Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions

Ralph Blumenthal and Rachel Mosteller

New York Times

May 17, 2008

AUSTIN, Tex. — Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

            Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

            “It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

            The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

            “We’re not attached to any outcome,” said Mrs. Harris, a would-be doctor before dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken in a family that traces its lineage back through the Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton.

            Mr. Harris, 30, who dropped out of high school and “rode the Internet wave,” agreed, saying they were “letting the universe take us for a ride.”

            They are not alone.

            Matt and Sara Janssen, who traded down from their house in Iowa to a studio apartment in Montana and finally an R.V. powered by vegetable oil, now crisscross the country with their 4-year-old daughter, highway nomads living on $1,500 a month.

            Not that simplicity need be that spartan. Cindy Wallach and her husband, Doug Vibbert, of Annapolis, Md., moved out of their apartment with an “everything must go” party and, along with their 3-year-old son, now sail and make their home on a 44-by-24-foot catamaran.

            “We never wanted four walls and beige carpet,” Ms. Wallach said.

            Though it may not be the stuff of the typical American dream, the voluntary simplicity movement, which traces its inception to 1980s Seattle, is drawing a great deal of renewed interest, some experts say.

            “If you think about some of the shifts we’re having economically — shifts in oil and energy — it may be the right time,” said Mary E. Grigsby, associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri and the author of “Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.”

            “The idea in the movement was ‘everything you own owns you,’ ” said Dr. Grigsby, who sees roots of the philosophy in the lives of the Puritans. “You have to care for it, store it. It becomes an appendage, I think. If it enhances your life and helps you do the things you want to do, great. If you are burdened by these things and they become the center of what you have to do to live, is that really positive?”

            Juliet B. Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College and author of “The Overspent American,” said the modern “downshifters,” as she called them, owed debts to the hippies and the travel romance of Jack Kerouac.

            “Their previous lives have become too stressful,” Dr. Schor said. “They have a lack of meaning because their jobs are too demanding.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/us/17texas.html?_r=1&th&

Responsible Consumerism

Chris W. Burger

The Bridge (alternative newspaper)

Binghamton, NY

Vol. 4, Issue 1, Winter 2008 (8)

            A radio newscaster pledges to carry her trash around for two weeks.  A writer describes her experience when she joined the Yahoo Web Group, The Compact, pledging not to buy anything new for a whole month.  They both challenged their listeners and readers to do the same.  Both understood that their actions are not the answer to our nation’s waste problems, but, rather serve to educate those who take on the challenge of how much we are addicted to wastefulness and consumerism.

            Yet, what approach should we take if we are serious about reducing the negative impact we have on our environment or freeing ourselves from the knee jerk consumerism we seem prone to engage in?  What if we were to pledge we would not bring anything into our lives for which we were not willing to take responsibility? Such an approach would set up a decision tree that would be much more practical than carrying around all our trash and far more strategic than the simplistic “we won’t buy anything new” approach.

            In regard to our generation of waste, we would have to face that putting our trash out to the curb is not taking responsibility for the waste we produce, but is rather an attempt to pass the responsibility on to someone else.  We well know that the waste does not magically disappear.  Typically, it is taken to a landfill, which technically is a waste warehouse.  Landfills are designed to store waste for future generations to deal with.  It can hardly be said that we are taking responsibility of our waste by simply taking it out to the curb.

            If landfilling is not the solution, what are our alternatives? Fortunately, we have recycling and composting as options.  Recycling is a process that extracts and recovers materials from garbage or waste to enable the material to be reprocessed and made into new products.  Composting utilizes natural processes to convert organic matter (food, paper, cotton, wood, etc.) into a soil-like product (humus) by micro-organism activity.

            Most things can be recycled and/or composted and either option would qualify as a more responsible way of taking care of the things we bring into our lives.  I can attest that when recycling and composting are combined with a strict avoidance of those materials that cannot be either recycled or composted, the storing of all other waste becomes negligible.  It has taken our family of four 15 years to fill a paper grocery bag with waste.  It is our bag of failures, if you will, but we haven’t given up on trying to responsibly deal with this one bag either.

            Admittedly, it took us a while to reach this point.  We pledged to act responsibly in 1970 on the first Earth Day.  We started a compost pile, but there were few recycling programs back then.  Avoiding what could not be recycled or composted seemed like a daunting task.  There were the scrap metal dealers for our metals, a local glass manufacturer took our glass and the Boy Scouts collected newspapers along with some other uncontaminated paper and cardboard.  Our compost pile was a huge success, taking both food and remaining paper waste.  More and more products were being made from plastic, however, and plastic recycling was unheard of.  It was becoming harder to avoid such items.

            With perseverance, we joined with others to form a community recycling program.  This made our lives a lot easier (anyone who makes the commitment to act responsibly is very motivated to help develop a recycling/composting infrastructure).  In addition, the plastic industry was beginning to support recycling efforts.  Today, in our community at least, we have recycling programs for glass, metal, all plastic except for Styrofoam and most uncontaminated paper products.  In addition, we have programs for electronics (which saves us the trouble of disassembly) and hazardous waste (which we still avoid as much ad possible).

            More could be done. While backyard composting works fine for us, a composting facility would help others who, for whatever reason, cannot undertake home composting.  Products and packaging could be designed to make recycling more convenient.  There are still far too many products that are next to impossible to disassemble and recycle or compost (products we avoid, but maybe we would like if given a responsible choice).

            Recycling and composting, however, are not the whole answer.  The writer who took the pledge to avoid buying anything new made a good point: taking a hard look at our consumer habits has significant benefits. Too many times we fail to ask even the most basic question: do we really need it?  Like addicts we fall prey to advertising and are lured into buying the most trivial things.  Unfortunately, manufacturing most items consumes materials (mined with considerable environmental degradation), causes pollution and uses energy.  Distribution and sale of such items consume fossil fuels as well.  Recycling uses additional energy.

            No one would fault the purchase of needed items, but many of us go well beyond that level of consumption.  Even the occasional buying of a convenience, vanity, or recreational item could be forgiven if it was not simply tossed after one or two uses and, of course, if it were recycled or composted afterward.  Giving little thought to purchasing, however, is the very definition of “impulse” buying which hardly qualifies as “taking responsibility for one’s actions.”

            Imagine if the consumer acted more responsibly and more deliberately.  Aside from the impossibility of everyone purchasing used items and given the aforementioned writer’s struggle with her “30 Days of Consumer Celibacy,” buying used items may not be the best long-term strategy.  A one or two time use certainly calls for such an approach, but if one was acting more intentionally and planned to use a product for a longer period of time, purchasing a new item of good quality might be a better, more responsible choice.

            When we make a purchase, we become responsible for all the actions that went into making the product.  While this article has focused on the environmental aspects of consumer responsibility, there are, of course, other equally important issues.  For example, if the product was made and/or sold by people making less than a living wage, this raises a whole host of moral and social justice issues.  While recycling and composting are straightforward, consumers are often unaware of the social exploitation behind a product.

            If true costs (both environmental and social) were embedded within the price of a product, the consumer could make a more informed decision, but we are far removed from this free-market ideal where costs would be accounted for.  Until such time as environmental and social costs are incorporated within the price of an item, it will be incumbent upon every one of us to educate ourselves as to what kinds of activity have brought the product to the shelf.  A truly responsible consumer will do nothing less.

Option: Leave a comment.

Analyze

Create an analytical framework for kinds of consumer waste issues and problems.  Review and make a list.  Then make notes for your own reference.  You can add to this framework later as you learn more.  See also “Creating an Analytical Framework, Resources, p. 0.

Reflect

Make a list of things you have thrown away in the past year; QuickWrite for 5  minutes.

Discuss

Break into small groups and read your lists.  Then, in light of the reading you have done, discuss some of the “stuff” you have thrown away.  Option: Keep a record of the products you consume in a week, 2 weeks, or a month.  Reflect & Discuss.

Learn More

Learn more about the history of waste.  How has what consumers throw away changed?  Learn more about how contemporary design and packaging increases waste.  What products take longer to decompose and what ones will never decompose?  Learn more about recycling.  What problems do plastic containers pose?  Learn about toxic chemicals in household cleaners, polyester clothing, perfume, cosmetics, leather shoes, shoe polish, rubber outer soles of some sneakers, the lining in canned goods, and other consumer products.  Learn how to identify toxic substances and find non-toxic products. What can be done about digital trash? Landfills commonly have many CDs and MP3 players, which contain toxic metals and chemicals. Music fans with digital copies of songs often use blank CDs to record their music and store them in plastic jewel cases.  How can we keep electronics out of landfills?  Learn about music companies trying a greener approach. Learn about consumer education and alternatives to “buy more.”  Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion of your findings.

Write

“A necessary first step toward becoming an educated consumer,” writes Juliet Schor, “is to learn about the impact your consumption has on the environment.  Only then can you make responsible and informed choices.”  Based on the reading you have done, compose an ad to help educate college students about the impact of consumption on the environment and to be responsible consumers.  Your ad should include both text & image.  Aim to get the attention of viewers with a simple message and visual. Also help to educate by providing some facts.  You can make a paper poster or post your ad online in your blog or on a website. 

Options: You could either work individually or in a small group.  You could also do an oral presentation.  Still another option in conjunction with composing an ad is to write a paragraph (or short article or blog) about the problem you are addressing and what you have learned.  This last option could be included as part of an oral presentation as well.

Rewrite

Some Guidelines for Peer Review of Composition of “Responsible Consumer” Ad

1. What is the message of the ad?

2. Is it stated clearly?  Is it attention-getting?  If not, recommend a revision.

3. Visually, is the message well-placed and easy to read?  If not, suggest a change.

4. Does the image (drawing, photograph, or other graphic) help draw attention to the message, and is it well presented?  If not, what do you suggest?

5. Does the ad include some factual information to help educate viewers?  If so, is the information appropriate?  Is there enough information?  Too much?  Is the information well-placed?

Overall Rating:   1     2     3     4      5 (Excellent)

Comments:

Writers: After reading reviews, write about your revision plans.

Writers at Work: A Guided Writing Assignment

Write an analytical essay or educational blog (800-1000 words) that demonstrates your critical thinking about a topic related to consumer culture and invites readers to reflect and perhaps respond. Review the categories for analysis—shopping, advertising, marketing, and waste—to see if there is a topic that you would like to pursue further.             Before you go back and review, it might be helpful to look at some Writers at Work. These writers all decided to focus on marketing and advertising to college students.

Selecting & Narrowing a Topic

Writer at Work: Kristina                                                                     

KRISTINA was interested in cause-related marketing (CRM) and in Gap’s Red Campaign in particular.  When researching, she came across Edun-Live’s website and different approach.  Earlier she wrote the following educational blog, ending with a number of questions and concerns.                                            

EDUN LIVE—Too Good to Be True?

krose | 15 April, 2008 15:21

The socially conscious clothing company EDUN created by artist/musician Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, launched the edun LIVE sub-brand in 2007. The new brand’s major goal to create economic growth in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa bases itself upon trade rather than aid for self-made financial growth of the country. For this reason, edun LIVE has chosen to conduct minimal advertising since the foundation of the brand bases itself on not directly funding this crisis, but in turn, creating a socially-positive outcome in Africa.

LIVE brand’s merchandise, consisting of plain "Adam" and "Eve" black, white and natural t-shirts, are made from 100% organic African-grown cotton. The tees have no aesthetic appeal, and the only indication of branding is a small logo on the inside back of the shirt. The company hopes that these environmentally-friendly tees will not only help keep the African soil replenished and fertile, but will also improve the working conditions of farmers who will no longer subjected to toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

Every step of the edun LIVE t-shirt-making process occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, offering the opening of several jobs for the unemployed, creating skill-transfer, trade and the chance for a stable, long-term apparel industry. Since nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa lives below the poverty line due to the destruction of natural resources, lack of employment opportunities and scarce amount of markets to sell goods, edun LIVE hopes that by creating goods that benefit the environment and that are produced from start to finish successfully in these impoverished locations, other companies will catch on, creating a rise in jobs and a decrease in poverty.

Not unlike apparel companies which outsource for their production, EDUN brand utilizes a non-profit monitoring company to regulate their factory spaces, and EDUN’s internal staff also monitors the working spaces twice a month. This enables the company to supervise the working conditions and help avoid sweatshop-like conditions.

While Bono and his team’s revolutionary ideas on improving sub-Saharan Africa’s poor economy seem to be successful thus far, how does edun LIVE expect to publicize their positive efforts? How will they make enough of an impact to encourage other consumers to purchase their blank tees without using commercial advertising? Because edun LIVE does not aid sub-Saharan Africa, and therefore does not build factories there for the t-shirt labor, will there be enough space for all of the workers who want or need jobs? Is overcrowding in the factories a probable consequence that will inevitably lead to sweatshop-like conditions? Regardless of factory monitoring, Bono’s previous Gap (Product) RED campaign, funding research for the AIDS epidemic in Africa, was found to be producing their apparel using sweatshop labor. How will Bono’s LIVE campaign differentiate itself from this previous problematic campaign aiming for somewhat similar issues?

LEAVE A COMMENT

_____________________________________________________________________________________

*Underlining indicates links to sources. If your writing is presented on paper, you will need to include sources at the end. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

For her end-project writing, Kristina decided to build on her prior work and analyze three ads for t-shirts: two that approached CRM differently (Gap and Edun) and one that used an entirely different marketing strategy (Abercombie & Fitch).  

Writer at Work: Tanya

While doing research about the use of pop-up ads, Tanya came across an article about how the cost of college textbooks could be lowered considerably if they were published online, but they would need to include ads. When she talked to her writing group members, they thought it was a great idea to write about. She asked how much they paid for textbooks that semester and searched online to see what statistics she could find.  In her blog, she asked students in and outside her class whether ads in e-textbooks would bother them to the point that they would rather continue buying textbooks in print. Most students were used to the appearance of ads.  She also came across articles about the rising costs of tuition as well as textbooks and ended up arguing that ads in e-textbooks would be a small price to pay (pun intended ;-)

Illustration by: Christopher Serra

Writer at Work: Sam

SAM had written briefly earlier about his personal experience with credit card debt.  For his shopping artifact, he chose his credit card.  He had been enjoying the new lifestyle that his credit card provided and thought he was doing fine because he could pay the minimum payment each month.  His credit rating was excellent.  After reading about the nationwide increase in credit card debt, he did some math and realized he had a problem.  For his end-project writing, he decided he wanted to do some more research and write to help educate college students about the use of credit cards and get them to think.  Here’s how he began:

            I was strolling through the Student Union with my friends when we heard a racket accumulating from a campaign table. We started noticing people wearing and carrying these “college” t-shirts, like the nostalgic sweater John Belushi wears in “Animal House.” Citicard was offering these freebies just for filling out a simple credit card application. What a deal! Fill out a sheet of paper and get a free t-shirt. Who could resist? A credit check and a few weeks later, a piece of plastic convenience arrives at your door.

Sam incorporated Juliet Schor’s statement (“The Politics of Consumption”) that “credit cards are firmly entrenched pillars of our way of life” and included statistics revealing the high credit card debt of American families. He also wrote about the marketing of credit cards to college students and how easy it was to accumulate debt. Finally, he suggested some ways students could become more informed.

Review & Reflect

There are many possibilities for writing.  Take time to go back and review the categories for analysis and perhaps earlier writing and make a list of topics of interest.  QuickWrite for five minutes about one or two topics.

Discuss

Join a small group and tell members what you think you would like to write about or want to explore further. Everyone in your group is working on this consumer culture project.  You are part of a network of researchers and writers. Instead of just presenting, engage in conversation.  Ask questions.  Share knowledge and initial responses.  Talking with others can help you think further. 

Learn More

After discussing a topic in a small group, try a key words search and see what comes up.  Also find out what relevant books and articles are available.  When you learn more, does the topic still interest you or interest you even more, or has your research and reading led you to another related topic of interest?  Keep in mind that you will need to develop a perspective (your “reading” or point of view), not just be informative.

Writer at Work: Dan

Dan chose to write about marketing cigarettes to college students.  A draft is followed first by some samples of peer review of his introduction and then of his whole draft, using a peer review guide.  The highlighted areas on his draft are in reference to some mechanical problems (grammar, documentation) for Dan to add to his Editing List.  (See “Learning to Edit Your Own Writing,” pp. 0-00.)

Submitted by Dan on Tue, 2007-04-10 13:13.

Blog Group 3: Marketing to College Students

Tobacco Advertising to College Students

You Are a Bigger Target Than You Think

         When I return home for a weekend or a break, I find that even the least likely candidates have taken up a deadly habit—cigarette smoking.  The high school track stars, mathematicians, trumpet players and “straight edgers” are all as likely to begin smoking cigarettes once they leave the confines of their home and are on their own.  Many of us have seen or even shared in a moment where groups of student smokers shiver outside their dormitories without even realizing that these people may have never indulged in the pleasure before coming to college.  It would be easy to attribute this new habit to the new freedom, peer pressure and stress that are part of a student’s introduction to a college lifestyle.  While all of these reasons may lead to students thinking about taking that first puff, or puffing on a new level, it is the successful marketing of cigarettes to college students that really makes the habit kick-off.

Many of us have seen the assault that anti-smoking campaigns have led against the tobacco industry, and, until recently, one of the top goals of the anti-smoking agenda was to stop tobacco companies from targeting potential smokers under the age of 18.  As many students enter college at the very same age that they officially become open season for tobacco advertising, they may not even realize that “when the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement prohibited tobacco advertising to children under age 18, the tobacco industry intensified its marketing efforts towards 18-24 year olds” (TTAC, 2007).  Use full name of source first time followed by abbreviation and then you can abbreviate. The tobacco companies needed to compensate for not advertising to the underage market by targeting the youngest possible age of potential smokers.  Thus, college students have become both the easiest and most essential targets for the marketing rampage led by tobacco companies.

            One of the easiest ways to get a young adult smoking is to target them when they are most vulnerable to deception.  As I am sure many college students can attest, our most vulnerable moments seem to come with the influence of alcohol, and that notion has not gone unnoticed by the likes of big-name tobacco companies.  According to a study conducted by The Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium (2007), bar promotions featuring free samplings are used to develop a database of college students who are seen as potential clientele.  According to Glantz and Sepe (2002), this marketing technique was fully implemented when, during the 1990s, bars and nightclubs became major promotional venues for the tobacco industry:  “Inside bars, patrons are exposed to a variety of advertisements, promotional items, and events, including logos on cocktail napkins, sale of cigarettes behind the bar, and sponsorship of live music events.  These venues offer an age-restricted, young adult-focused environment where substance use (tobacco and alcohol) is legal and socially reinforced.  Age restriction allows these promotional activities to continue with minimal criticism or surveillance from public health or tobacco control advocates because of public health’s emphasis on smoking initiation among adolescents.  This focus on adolescents ignores the fact that smoking initiation occurs over several periods, including young adulthood (the ages of 18 to 24 years)” (Glantz and Sepe, 2002, p. 75)   Citation problem

Inside the various bars and nightclubs, tobacco companies offer a coupon or a free sample to any student that is willing to give the company his or her e-mail and mailing addresses.  After the companies have enough e-mail addresses, rebates and specials are mailed to the houses of the students who may have tried a cigarette on a drunken impulse.  The rebate and free sampling techniques wrap students into the world of discounted cigarettes—a realm they may never escape.  Unfortunately, after promotional events are used towards initiating the college smoker, the habit does not fall off the chart.  Becoming part of a social community of smokers offers students the opportunity to smoke with absolute approval from their peers.  The camaraderie involved when students light-up together makes smoking an even harder circle to break.  As I am sure many of us know, it is much easier to maintain a habit when those around us are also doing it.  Nowhere is this example more evident than on college campuses.  Trips to the dining hall, library, and even Wal-Mart are done in a communal origin, and smoking is no different than the other things college students do when around one another. 

While many of us would love to believe that the smoking fades as students approach graduation, the truth is quite the contrary. Tone shift: college students/us  According to a study of college smokers appearing in the March issue of Health Psychology (2004), “Researchers found that 90% of the students who smoked daily at the start of the study continued to smoke four years later, and half of those who smoked occasionally did the same. Only 13% of daily smokers quit smoking by the end of the study.” Source below? If big-name tobacco companies did not target the young and vulnerable college students, there may not be a line of shivering smokers outside of the local bars during the frigid winter months, but that remains to be a sight unseen. 

References

College Tobacco Prevention Resource: Tobacco Marketing To College-Aged Youth.

College Tobacco Facts.  Retrieved April, 6, 2007  Web site: College Tobacco Prevention

Sepe, E and Glantz, S. (2002). Bar and Club Tobacco Promotions in the Alternative  

           Press:  Targeting Young Adults.  American Journal of Public Health, 92, 75.

UPenn (2004).  College Smokers Stay Smokers Years Later.  Retrieved April 6, 2007, from             University of Pennsylvania’s First Step.  Web site: UPENN

TTAC???

__________________________________________________________________

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/alcohol/firststep/collegesmoke.php

PEER REVIEW

Dan's blog | add new comment |

Review of Introduction

Submitted by Hannah on Thu, 2007-04-26 15:04.

I like how you opened your introduction with a common occurrence, something that the majority of college students have experienced at least once. I was easily able to associate myself with what you were writing about since I have had many friends fall into the same nasty habit. You give great examples of students starting to smoke and reasons why (i.e.; peer pressure, freedom, stress), but then lead into what your blog is really about--the successful marketing tactics of cigarette advertising to college students. Your first paragraph gives a great description of why college students are now the most easily targeted. I like how you used the word “assault” when talking about the anti-smoking campaigns. By including the quote from your source, as a reader I saw the justification in your reasoning.

Submitted by William on Thu, 2007-04-19 14:17.

I used to only think I saw smoking advertisements in magazines. What's odd about bar promotions is that it’s generally illegal to smoke inside bars these days. The statistic on smokers who quit after college is shocking!

This student used a peer review guide to respond and a rating scale. 5=Excellent

___________________________________________________________________________

PEER REVIEW GUIDE                             Submitted by Amanda on Tue, 2007-04-17 14:42.   

1. Reader Orientation  I think you did a really good job orientating the reader: “While all of these reasons may lead to students thinking about taking that first puff, or puffing on a new level, it is the successful marketing of cigarette advertising to college students that really makes the habit kick-off.”    Rating: 4-5

2. Tone (the relationship between the writer and the reader)

You mostly maintained the same tone throughout.  You used words such as ‘us,’ ‘them,’ and ‘we.’  I think these words helped make your writing more personable. Read through again just for tone?

Rating: 4   I liked the way you were personable without getting too personal. I think  you can keep the personal tone and still use the information and support and I think you can go up to a 5.

3. "Outline Later" Note: This strategy requires readers to outline what writers have already written.

(1) Even the most unlikely person can take up smoking once they enter the college atmosphere.  The marketing of cigarettes plays a role in the formation of this habit.

(2) Since the tobacco companies aren't allowed to market to children under the age of 18, they market to the next youngest age group - 18-24 year olds.  Most college students fall into that age range, so they become easy prey.

(3) People are most likely to begin smoking when they're most vulnerable to deception – i.e. being drunk. Many tobacco companies market their products in bars.  The combination of alcohol and tobacco is highly reinforced in these bars, making it more likely that college students will partake.

(4) Through free-samples and discount offers, college students become 'hooked.' This addiction becomes reinforced when the smoker sees their peers partaking in the same behavior.

(5)People don't stop smoking once they are out of that 'vulnerable state.'  90% of those who begun smoking at the start of study continued to do so four years later. The targeting of tobacco to young and vulnerable children may be the reason you see so many smokers when you're out in public.

This order flows very logically.  You start with why the tobacco companies market to 18-24 year olds and then go on to discuss why this age group is vulnerable, how they get ‘hooked’ and how they stay hooked.  This seems to be the way this process works in real life, so I think this is the best way to go about discussing the topic.

Rating: 5. Very logical flow.

4. Development.

    (a) Marketing to 18-24 year olds: supported well. Example: 1998 Master Settlement

    (b) Vulnerability: supported well. Examples: The Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium (2007) and Glantz and Sepe (2002).

    (c) Discount Offers: supported logically, but not with outside information. Perhaps you could find an article pertaining to this?

    (d) Staying hooked: supported well. Example: information from Health Psychology (2004).

Rating: 4   Additional information on the discount offers may be useful.

5. Sentence Structure

Good flow in this draft! In your last draft I remember a few of your sentences were wordy.  [Example:  “While many of us would love to believe that the smoking fades at the same time as students become more grounded in their new environment or even after graduating college, it just is not so.”]

Rating: 5

6. Punctuation

I think you should try using a semi-colon or a dash!

Rating: 4

7. Documentation Style

Check in-text citation, 3rd paragraph from end. References look good except I don’t see the 2004 article listed. And perhaps you could make the names in text links like some of the other students have done.

Rating: 3.5 (sorry ;-) but, if you add links, it will go up)

8. Credibility of Sources 

Both of the sources that are linked look as if they are credible. They are giving statistics and facts. They aren't just stating opinions. Rating: 5

How has this reviewer misunderstood “credibility”? What assumption does she make about the statistics and facts sources have included?  How can you as a reviewer (and a writer) check for credibility? 

9. Conclusion   

I like the personal tone you used at the start of your conclusion but then you switch in the next sentence and it sounds like a research report. You also bring in a statistic which is good to use.  It’s shocking but it takes away from the personal tone. Could you use the statistic earlier or revise your conclusion somehow so you…Maybe if you didn’t use a direct quote but had a reference? Or maybe you could use the statistic earlier?   

Rating: 3.5

10. Length-The length is good—around 900 words.  Rating: 5

Overall Evaluation = 4.5

Comments:  I really liked your blog. I thought it was informative yet personable.

I think you generally did a good job balancing between the statistics and relating to your audience. You might want to read it over one more time for tone. 

______________________________________________________________________

Let’s look back at Dan’s blog and think about how else he could have developed or supported his claim.  When did big tobacco companies agree not to market cigarettes to anyone underage?  Has marketing to college students increased since then and if so, is this the primary cause?  What if he included a report of a study published in the Journal of Medical Association (JAMA)?  The Journal of American College Health is another good resource.  What are some other possible supporting points and sources? 

________________________________________________________________

What have you finally decided to focus on?  What is your main claim or perspective?  How can you support your claim?  Where could you include some evidence or examples?  Do more research than you can use.  Make a list of points, evidence, and examples.  Then decide what sources best support your perspective.  Also consider the credibility of your sources.  

Reflect

QuickWrite for five minutes about how you can support your claim.  What have you come across so far that you think you can use?  What are you uncertain about?  What else would you like to find out?

Discuss

In a small group, give some brief background on your topic, state your claim, and support you have found so far.  Ask group members for suggestions or if they have any questions.

Learn More

Using an Internet search engine or the resources available at your college library, do some reading to uncover evidence—facts, statistics, reasons, observations, testimony from authorities, results of studies.  Explore a variety of credible sources. 

Now draft your blog or essay.  Provide any background information to introduce your readers to the subject.  Concentrate on using evidence to support your claim.  Use types of evidence your readers will find most persuasive and use credible sources. (See Resources, p. 0-00.)  Consider also an appropriate tone for relating to your readers and be consistent.

Option: Prepare a class anthology on “Reading Consumer Culture” or a classroom community blog.

~from NETWORKED: A Project Approach to Writing

By Pamela Gay (2010)