Ambi-marketing: The sublime art of selling “skum"

For decades, we’ve heard the joke that McDonald’s food is “McCrap,” but now the chain has actually embraced the term. McWrap looks innocent enough when spelled out, but it’s the pronunciation that matters. McDonald’s marketing army is well aware of that.

It’s the most blatant instance of anti-marketing since the introduction of Death brand cigarettes, or Ikea’s Skumtopp pastries.

Researcher Stephen Brown has studied ironic marketing or anti-marketing marketing, and writes that “Sublime though it is…the tongue-in-cheek anti-sellers are themselves involved in selling. They are complicit with the thing they're creating.

“They aren’t so much anti-marketers as ambi-marketers…ambiguous, equivocal, conflicted.”

A load of McCrap? Read Brown’s essay titled “Ambi-brand Culture” in the Brand Culture essay collection. 

-Ken DuBois

NYT to Prince: “You were right”

When Prince declared in 2012 that “the internet is over,” many assumed that he’d finally gone completely around the bend. But this week The New York Times reported that the purple prognosticator may have been on to something after all. “The web…,” the story grimly notes, “is in decline.”

This comes as no surprise to users who have long preferred online apps, which load faster and are often easier to navigate and read.

More surprising may be the article’s assertion that web banners are on the way out. Those ubiquitous in-your-face ads, industry experts now admit, just don’t work. According to the NYT, they’re “one of the most misguided and destructive technologies of the Internet age.”

Read the New York Times article, “Fall of the Banner: The Monster That Swallowed the Web.”

The Message in Seattle: You're Okay

This week at Seattle’s Delridge Playfield, hundreds of grade school children chased soccer balls around an acre of synthetic turf – perhaps the first generation in a century who have never seen signs reading “No Dogs Allowed” and “Don’t Litter.”

Public messaging in Seattle is based on the assumption of your inherent goodness. It’s centered on the concept that, when treated with respect, we rise to the occasion and do the right thing.

The assumption is that we already know that dogs are not allowed on the playing field (though fine most other places), so why mention it at all? And the only moral decision around refuse is which bin to use. Rather than scold, the messaging informs, as with this helpful wording spotted on a public garbage can:

Please be aware!

The contents of this trash can

go to a

LANDFILL

At Delridge Playfield, the only sign needed is one that addresses a relatively new issue, one that needs clarification for young and old alike:

NO

SUNFLOWER

SEEDS

ON FIELD

A "fragile" public image: How the Stones reached 50

The Rolling Stones are celebrating their fiftieth year, but things almost came to a screeching halt somewhere around year twenty-one. That’s one revelation in Keith Richards’s score-settling memoir, “Life,” in which he details the Jagger-Richards war of ’85. The problem: They disagreed about the brand.

Mick Jagger’s first solo album was the bone of contention. It lacked the badass attitude the group had worked so hard to project. The Rolling Stones public image had always been “Under My Thumb,” not, as Jagger titled his album, She’s the Boss.

At that point, the band members were a long way from being arrogant youths, or working class toughs, or even British. But careful marketing had kept that image alive. Richards explains:

He didn't realize that by doing something else he was breaking a certain image in the public mind that is very fragile. Mick was in a unique position as lead singer of the Stones, and he should have read a little more into what that actually meant.

Through the tabloids, the two fired barbs at each other for a while, then grew tired of it and got back together. Obviously, the band survived.

So did the brand. In an antique store I recently came across a 70s-era Stones sticker, the iconic tongue logo. As I headed toward the cash register to buy it, a woman walked toward me wearing a Stones t-shirt – the exact same logo. "Nice shirt," I said, and pointed to my sticker. She just shrugged and walked on by. After all, it’s only rock and roll.

- Ken DuBois

"Shut up" for more brand visibility

This week, when tennis pro Stanislaw Wawrinka told a rowdy fan at the U.S. Open to “shut up, man” and “seriously, shut up,” the crowd booed – but sponsors cheered. They had paid big bucks for a moment like this.

Without the brief disruption, viewers were only exposed to the product logos on the court. But the “shut up” incident required cameras to point into the crowd, bringing into view a different promotional tableau.

THREE QUARTER SHOT: An irritated Stanislaw Wawrinka is yelling into the stands, wearing Yonex and Fromm logos on his shirt, shorts, and racquet. Also in the frame: Ralph Lauren Polo, IBM, Emirates Airline, Chase Bank.

CUT TO: Noisy fan in the first row: Heineken, esurance, American Express, Chia Pod, JP Morgan, Xerox.

CUT TO: Warwrinka’s opponent, Thomaz Bellucci, enjoying a breather during the altercation: Wilson, adidas, Correios, Mercedes Benz, Westin Hotels & Resorts.

Professional tennis wasn’t always this way. But everything changed in 1979 when IMG sports management signed Bjorn Borg, branded him from head to toe, and made him the wealthiest athlete in the world. Every pro player has been doing it ever since.

And who could blame them? Just for sporting the Yonex logo, Wawrinka earns $20 million a year, according to SportsPro news.

At the post-match press conference, a victorious Wawrinka relaxed in front of a logoed backdrop and calmly remarked that “People get drunk” and “it’s okay.” As if to exert his off-court independence, his clothing was logo-free. The only branding on his body was his personal brand, in big black letters on a bright red t: STAN THE MAN.

- Ken DuBois