while reading enlisting madison avenue: the marketing approach to earning popular support in theaters of operation (a handbook for ‘shaping’ the opinion of ‘indigenous’ populations in US-occupied countries) via chris c, i came across many failures and few successes. one of the biggest problems in US propaganda efforts is that many ‘shaping’ attempts find their […]
Category Archives: marketing
war weave
Also posted in blogogracy, fabrication, futurecraft, product design, soft/glowing, visualization
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useful packaging
reading stephen fenichell’s plastic about polymer history i was amazed by the story of cellophane. initially useless, it took some clever marketing to find a market for the transparent film. first, camel used it to wrap packs of cigarettes and ‘lock in flavor’ to regain market from lucky strike. then, cellophane became used for wrapping […]
Also posted in possessed products, upcycling
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whose footprint?
produced by the packaging industry, this commercial helped usher in the modern environmental movement in the US. This anti-littering campaign, combined with ‘recycling’, convinced consumers to buy packaged products in bulk and carefully clean and return them for downcycling. today, the concept of ‘ecological footprint’ is used to urge people to use less energy for […]
Also posted in possessed products
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foot fab fetish
for the past few hours i’ve been modeling a shoe and trying to get to the heart of what makes it so fascinating – this timeless object – and i decided it’s the opacity. not because it’s hard to use (although it takes practice) but because a shoe appears to be a homogenous, solid mass, […]
Also posted in fabrication, open objects
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gratuitous kittens
ever since chris c showed me lolcats (now icanhascheezburger) i have been fascinated with the syntax and hilarity, especially during boring meetings. now true genius: lol:digg, a machup of flickr kitten pictures and digg article headlines. along with news arcade games i’m starting to think that information is going to have to piggyback on entertainment […]
Also posted in visualization
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public sedations
these days truth seems to be at a disadvantage. of course, people who are concerned with reality are generally less convincing than spin doctors unafraid to lie openly for personal gain. but persuasion is always tricky: if you load down your audience with too many facts, they may get bored, and if you appeal to […]
Also posted in visualization
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hyperpump
the ovation ix is a new gas pump that allows users to be ‘more productive’ while pumping gas by watching advertisements, receiving coupons and even buying music for download. now given that gasoline in general (and pumping gas) are a waste of time, it is easy to be more productive – but does downloading music […]
Posted in marketing
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healthy spam
lately i’ve been interested in what social good can be achieved by spam. ron plotnikoff led a study entitled Efficacy of an e-mail intervention for the promotion of physical activity and nutrition behavior in the workplace context which looked at the effect of unsolicited emails promoting healthy behaviors on the health of recipients. people who […]
Posted in marketing
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