Salty Dog Chips. I love how the dog looks like it’s doing something naughty. I think that resonates with the furtive naughtiness of eating crisps.

Nudie’s whole direction is so cute, spirited and cheerful.

It kinda looks like the brand is “I WANT” but Commissary Kitchen is responsible for this one. Why make the consumer turn it over when you can talk to them on the front? Use of “I” engages the consumer’s higher level wants.

Great form factor and stylish packaging. It wouldn’t really matter if the tea was shit, which given the flavour of Darjeeling Cherry, it probably is.

Can’t immediately think of a more bullseye execution than this. Brilliant.

Great sense of locality and craftsmanship but executed in a modern way, rather than Ye Olde or Down Country design. Actually the cheese is only slightly above average and tastes relatively mass-produced, so they are investing a bit in dis-satisfaction here, but in terms of getting into my trolley, it’s full of win.

What we need now:

• a meta-list: i.e. a site which ranks the rankings. How do I know that Urbanspoon is the best ranking? (I suppose this could always be Google.)
• more open APIs. Open APIs may seem like a strategic no-no but actually they’re a big yes: they’re a signal about the value and quality of your data. More importantly, they amplify your signal too. Everytime someone creates a Twitter app, there’s the Twitter brand in play again. (I want Urbanspoon to have an open API so someone can write a trending application for it. Their implementation on this isn’t enough for me!)

I know women who would like this ad. This is sort of like a classic pad ad dressed up – still the classic blue water demo but there are more reasons to watch it. I wonder if anyone’s tried to give pads a male personality before.

I love how they purposely get the audience for this ad wrong to prevent the real target audience feeling too queer. At least that’s what I think they’re doing. Beautiful repositioning and freshening of a tired brand. It’s instantly OK again.

Advertising Age had an article recently on how companies are trying (successfully and unsuccessfully) to harness the power of viral media.

I find the ANZ ad kinda depressing – ANZ’s world is a world of suits. The characters seem more emphathic in the Citibank ad – humans in real human habitats and real human situations.

On Nicholson St in Carlton.
I love the heritage of some of these signs. They have an earnest artlessness that imparts a real sense of place and time. Artlessness isn’t something that goes much with marketing, where the awareness and associations tend to be managed to the nth degree. Even seeming artlessness is often highly staged, such as RACV’s Jason call centre ads or iinet’s BOB. I reckon there’s a case for preserving as much true, authentic artlessness as you can find in a heritage brand. Where people have become wary of agency schmick and having their psychology over-understood, artlessness is a refreshing reminder of a different meaning for consumer orientation.

We were talking about Costco in my brand management class so I had to go and check it out for myself. Thanks to my friend JB and his wife E for showing me around the joint.

It is another world that exists according to another logic entirely.

In my world, I look to buy the smallest size of anything in groceries because I live alone and don’t use a lot of stuff. In the Costco World, sugar comes in 25kg bags.

In my world, $5699 Cartier watches are found in a luxurious branded environment where the retail experience is at least part of the brand associations. In the Costco world a $5699 watch is mere paces from the twelve pack socks.

In my world, you buy a Royal Doulton figurine, a treadmill, 10kgs of dogfood, artisan bread, a pair of jeans and a $150,000 emerald ring at different stores. In the Costco world there is no reason to leave the building.

In my world, you pay for things when you shop. In the Costco world you pay to shop: an annual membership fee. There is a fair bit of membership card flashing (to get in, at the register, at the entrance to the booze section, etc.)

From a cultural level, consumption at this level of conspicuousness is quite confronting. Supermarkets by comparison seem tame. The amount of product in a supermarket seems somehow manageable or imaginable. The sheer quantity of product at Costco is a monument to the project of consumption in our society and the sheer logistics of catering to the consumption habits we have. Of course, Costco deliberately sets out to generate patterns of consumption (there is nothing like buying in bulk to get you to consume in bulk). At times I felt a sense of revulsion and at others a profound sense of wellbeing. Costco may not be pleasurable, but it is certainly arousing and invokes feelings of human dominance.

All my photos here.