Concept Testing
If there’s one thing guaranteed to raise people’s hackles about marketing, it’s the concept of a “target market”. Nobody likes to be told they’re predictable. Particularly as (in general) they’re not. But demographic targeting is one part of a larger concern – brand positioning, the creation (or discovery!) of a Unique Selling Point for a commodity. Marketing in this active sense – as opposed to passive attempts to sell an existing product without changing it – is not entirely dissimilar to conceptualism in art. One begins with an idea which one then moves to realise in the marketplace or aesthetic space.
But the creation of a brand positioning is still only half the story. It’s a promise made to the consumer and that promise needs to be delivered on by the reality of the product. People who dislike conceptual art will often say that once you’ve grasped or formulated the concept, what is the point of seeing – or making – the finished artwork? This is missing the point, though – conceptual art which offers nothing beyond its concept is bad conceptual art: the presence of the finished art, the interaction between concept and realisation and viewer, is where the impact and value appears. Delivery on the promise. And something more – an artwork which was precisely and only what a verbal description suggested would also be a failed artwork, I think.
This to me is the failure of marketing. Its ever-more-finessed definitions of brand positions and offers work in its disfavour. If you are being made continually aware of that a brand is meant to be then the chances of surprise or delight when you encounter it are dependent on its stepping outside those expectations*, but the zealous guardianship and territorial mentality of brand positionings make such delight almost impossible. As long as success is defined only by the precision of delivery people will continue to chafe against marketing and distrust it. The profession could learn a lot from art.
*(In business-speak you come across “exceeding expectations” a great deal. But it means “meeting expectations but more so” rather than “doing something surprising”)
Tom in The Brown Wedge • No Comments
Dining Distractions
Children in restaurants: no bad thing, train their palates young, etc etc.
Lone diners: no bad thing, takes a bit of guts but lack of company should never deter the dedicated foodie.
BUT!
Children in restaurants ignored by their parents, left to run rogue, sing, yell, stamp their feet, generally caterwaul: DUD.
Lone diners who attempt to lure said children with fragments of dosai as if they were a squirrel in the park and then make CREEPY CLUCKING NOISES at them: DOUBLE DUD.
It was a strange meal.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
Sports Pick N Mix
This is the viewer appeal of the Olympics. Or to put it another way: if a football match is a big bar of Bourneville, which takes a while to munch through (but might still leave you feeling sick), the Olympics are the open box of Black Magic on the dinner table. Just one more? Oh, go on then. Ooh, what’s this one?
Almost all the events are pretty short and when they’re not you don’t generally see more than the highlights. No sooner have you picked sides than it’s on to something else – the revered and ancient Games are essentially a three-week episode of Banzai!. I don’t consider this a bad thing, by the way.
Meanwhile the great stories keep coming:
“No serious person, anywhere in the world, can support the idea that our prime minister, our health minister and the top doctors of this hospital are treating and protecting people who have nothing wrong with them”
US basketball shocker – I have nothing against the US basketball team, but this story is of interest to TMFD regulars because of its analysis of why things went so wrong. Though naturally the Guardian lacks the precise scientifical terminology we would apply.
Tom in TMFD • No Comments
ABBA Song of the Week!: a weekly partwork of amateur downloadable ABBA remixes, quality not guaranteed, and only one at a time, but even so this is the kind of thing that makes me feel good about the Internet. All these tireless remixers working to add their tiny contributions to the unfolding ABBA legend! This site was I think the source for “Like An Angel Passing Through My Room (Christmas Mix)”. I thought it was about time we had an MP3 on NYLPM and what better time than mid-August for a Christmas Mix, eh? “Like An Angel” in its original is a song of unbearable hushed loneliness, but the sleighbells treatment suits it rather well and turns the haunting visitor into an unusually beautiful Santa.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
Fruit Cobblers
I’m not much for sweets, but it’s hard to beat a fresh fruit cobbler when the peaches and blueberries start coming in. I’ve tried several cobbler recipes over the years and they’ve all come up short – producing either a goopy, doughy mess at the bottom, or a tough, chewy top crust. But I’ve finally found the cobbler recipe I’ve been looking for for twenty years.
First, cream together a softened stick of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar. In another bowl, combine one cup of self-rising flour, 1/2 cup milk and your preferred amount of vanilla extract. Combine this with the butter-sugar mixture, mixing well. You’ll have something that’s too thick to be called a batter but too pourable to be called a dough. In a lightly sprayed or buttered baking dish, put 2 to 3 cups of firm, unsweetened fruit – whole blueberries or blackberries, sliced peaches, whatever you like – and spread the thick batter over it. Now the surprising part: cook together 1 1/2 cups of water and a cup of sugar, just long enough to come to a boil and dissolve the sugar. Carefully pour the sugar syrup over the top of the cobbler, and bake it at 350 degrees until the top gets a nice golden color – at least an hour, as much as 90 minutes.
Some of the sugar-water mixes with the fruit down below and makes a nice fruity syrup, and some of it soaks into the dough as it bakes and keeps it moist, resulting in a delicious, sweet, fluffy southern-style biscuit texture over the fresh fruit: the essence of cobbler-ness. Don’t forget the ice cream.
William in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
What is the correct response to the old ‘what are your influences‘ chestnut?
It really should be an interesting question as genuine influence is usually pretty fascinating. Witness, for example, the John Lennon jukebox CD/documentary or, perhaps, the Buzzcocks/Joy Division/Mick Hucknall Sex Pistols gig in Manchester or some such canonical event. Of course, we never get anything like that in interview. It’s all ‘everything from Tchaikovsky to Abba’ or whatever. But, as music history seems to be charted as much in terms of ‘influence’ as anything else, its a pretty key question. This may all sound a little rockist – and it is – but it’s reassuringly general. So, with the blues, rock conciously found itself a history from which to continue a tradition. ‘Dance’ did a similar thing with disco and Kraftwerk. Hip hop had it built in with sampling, doing a similar thing as ‘dance’ by sampling the same disco (Rapper’s Delight) and Kraftwerk (Planet Rock). Being so selflessly NOW!!!, ‘Pop’ may be a little more complicated, but ‘influence’ is still relevant apparently.
But I reckon this role played by influence is a damn strange one. From this point of view, music journalism seems to be ‘Tradition and The Individual Talent‘ style history combined with the lit theory rivals that Eliot tried to usurp. It’s a typically silly loop of lazy journalist/lazy artist/musical snobbery amounting to some weird self-fulfilling fantasy.
So, apparently, good bands are always in the tradition of a certain artist. But these artists are, inevitably, the ones that stand outside of tradition. From the journo point of view, bands are influenced by the mould-breakers and the misunderstood: Velvets, Stooges, King Tubby, whoever. By ‘rejecting’ tradition, these bands are the creators of traditions. So, with reference to the chatter about The Strokes and The Hives in that article, an *obvious* influence, a *recent* influence, is a critical sideswipe. Saying Oasis copied The Beatles was enough. Saying Jet copied ACDC or Lust For Life was enough. Saying The Strokes copied Television was nearly enough. And when Razorlight did it (via The Strokes apparently) it was a double faux pas.
In fact, someone like Television might be a good case study. Even though they seem to be musically at odds with, say, The Ramones or that wave of punk, they are talked about in that CBGBs ‘tradition’ that was started by Velvet Underground. But, back in the day, Verlaine is said to have banned Reed from taping Television shows while mumbling lyrics so Reed couldn’t steal them. Even if that’s not true, it’s indicative. They became a band its okay to cite, both the buckers and the founders of a tradition. So The Strokes could just about surf the wave of Television/CBGB references as a ‘positive’ thing. But, a few years on, that Razorlight are pretty lame is ascribed to them robbing off Marquee Moon rather than anything else. Television are an influential cliche just as they become comfortably ‘traditional’, an accepted ‘influence’. And, of course, its then they decide to tour and pick up Mojo Awards. Indeed, you could probably say the same kind of thing about Mojo Hall Of Famer Arthur Lee, another influenced by Reed. In fact, its this kind of historicizing that leads to Bowie’s ‘everyone who bought VU & Nico formed a band’ crap, with VU as the font of all that is arty and guitary or, it seems, beautifully camp. So, Television are Reed’s sons and heirs rather than the descendants of The Shadows or Les Paul and Sunday supplement articles trace Franz Ferdinand back to Blondie and allow them to deny themselves a history, a tradition, an influence.
Correct me if I’m wrong but, to conclude, the Sunday Times Style magazine is the new Sacred Wood, which makes haute couture swimwear the new sympathising with the Nazis.
Jim in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments