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.

Hard to pin down – a bit low on polish & surprise? No interior designer finesse? A bit too pubby? S thinks it’s the lighting and the music is wrong. Music should perhaps be jazz – 1806 prides itself on its historical cocktails so why not some historical hooch music. I think maybe more clutter, some veils and partitions, more couches, and less signage outside. It’s already on a main road. There’s other possibilities too – maybe we aren’t the chosen demographic, or maybe this isn’t a “pretentious city nook-bar” bar. Maybe it’s like the plain-looking girl who’s content to sit it out and wait for the boy who’ll like her for who she is and what she does, rather than her looks.

So given this coolness, it’s needless to say the world was calling out for the Ted696 project, an effortlessly logical blend of art competition and bogan street drinking. Competitors design an artsy bag in just the right size to caressingly sleeve a (new) 696mL size bottle of Tooheys Extra Dry.

Duh, even with the extra culture, blind Myrtle could tell you were an alco from half a mile.

I totally know some faffy pseudovegan yuppies who would totally modify their beauty routines to ensure that it was all “energy friendly.” Also would be great if the energy used to cart all that product all the way from Blaine, Minnesota, were generated by wind energy too. But they won’t be mentioning that.

Muji was born… to create products designed not to make the shopper feel “I’ve got to have this,” but to inspire the feeling of “this is good enough for me,” because people don’t live only by their desires. The capacity to choose and judge what is “good enough for me”, without shopping for status, is something to be proud of. (Monocle 11)