Like a lot of guys, I appreciate and embrace what has come to be called workwear style: boots, flannel or chambray shirts with two flapped or buttoned pockets, waist-length jackets. I feel I can claim it honestly, because I've been wearing variations on this look for decades. I spent a good portion of the '80s in a variety of thrift-store shirts that had been worn by actual people to do actual work, like a white poplin Dallas Police Department uniform shirt. I also had a sweet khaki Indiana Jones-type shirt with epaulets from Banana Republic back in their pre-Gap days, when they still made stuff that was interesting and utilitarian. (If BR wants to regain some of that cachet, they should ditch that bogus "heritage" line and do a real heritage line of products from their own history.)
The latest company to jump on the "mining our archives" bandwagon is Dickies, who plan to sell shirts and pants made in a factory in Texas using American-sourced fabric. (More than anything else about this announcement, I was surprised to learn they still had an operating factory in this country.) The shirts will cost $175 and the pants $200, which means the people who will most likely be buying them are the same guys who favor those Japanese brands that produce quirk-infused versions of classic American workwear and sell them at ridiculously inflated prices in trendy boutiques to skinny guys with beards who like to talk about selvage denim.
I don't begrudge Dickies for wanting a piece of this action, but it bugs me that they have so completely missed the point. If you want to celebrate your company's heritage, wouldn't it make much more sense to produce something that you can sell at a price that average people can afford, thereby making it more visible to other average people? The type of person most likely to wear Dickies is least likely to be able to afford such gear, and the esoteric connoisseur market (the most likely customer for this type of limited-production item) is least likely to care about the heritage of a company like Dickies, which is just colossally ironic.
[I have one Dickies garment, a short black canvas jacket with a gray corduroy collar and a blanket lining. I picked it up a couple of years ago for around $40 from a place online that sells work clothes, and I typically wear it this time of year. It came with a big red logo patch with a D on it on the pocket, which I removed, not because I don't want to be associated with the company, but because I don't like logos.]
I would have liked to see Dickies land somewhere in the middle, with some pieces inspired by archival designs, made with soft, broken-in fabrics but priced in the $80 to $100 range. (Bill's Khakis are made in Pennsylvania and cost $98 a pair, which is a little steep but still seems reasonable to me.) Maybe they'll do something like that later. But for now they're giving the impression (to me, at least) that they care more about marketing an image than about their own history.
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
27 April 2010
14 January 2009
29 December 2007
Of Loos and Logos
This is just a random observation: to get to the men's room in the Lord & Taylor store at the Burlington Mall, you have to go through the children's department. This creeps me out, as I feel like it's practically inviting a pedophile to grab a kid and whisk him or her into the bathroom. Is there something wrong with me for thinking about these things? Really, shouldn't the men's room be adjacent to the men's department?
The Mrs. and I were shopping in Macy's last night at the same mall, up on the third floor in The Cellar (ponder that one for a moment), because we got a gift card from my brother and sister and we're thinking about getting a new coffee maker, the kind that grinds the beans and then brews the coffee in one unit. Turns out that in that Macy's, both the men's and women's restrooms are in the children's department, which is adjacent to the kitchen stuff. I guess I can see the logic of this: when the kid says, "Mommy/Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom," it's certainly more convenient if the bathroom is right next to where you're shopping for overpriced kids' clothes with shrunken versions of adult designer logos.
Seriously, have you seen this stuff? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Nearly every popular adult clothing designer had a kids' line. I know it's about money and "extending the brand" in marketing-speak; what it really means is turning kids into consumer whores before they even realize that's what they've become. As parents, how do you fight this? We don't have kids, so this is not an issue we have to face.
The Mrs. and I were shopping in Macy's last night at the same mall, up on the third floor in The Cellar (ponder that one for a moment), because we got a gift card from my brother and sister and we're thinking about getting a new coffee maker, the kind that grinds the beans and then brews the coffee in one unit. Turns out that in that Macy's, both the men's and women's restrooms are in the children's department, which is adjacent to the kitchen stuff. I guess I can see the logic of this: when the kid says, "Mommy/Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom," it's certainly more convenient if the bathroom is right next to where you're shopping for overpriced kids' clothes with shrunken versions of adult designer logos.
Seriously, have you seen this stuff? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Nearly every popular adult clothing designer had a kids' line. I know it's about money and "extending the brand" in marketing-speak; what it really means is turning kids into consumer whores before they even realize that's what they've become. As parents, how do you fight this? We don't have kids, so this is not an issue we have to face.
17 July 2007
Supercrap
I'm deeply disturbed by something, and I need to gripe about it: it seems that one of the worst music groups of the entire half-century of the pop/rock era is popular again. I'm talking about Supertramp. I keep hearing them on that damn TD Banknorth commercial that runs nearly every morning on New England Cable News. Blessedly, the name of the specific song in question escapes me, and I'm not about to make any effort to find it out, so you'll have to take my word for it. And if you know, don't tell me--I really don't want to know.
Typically I mute the TV when commercials come on, but I watch a little NECN in the mornings while having breakfast, then I leave the room to get dressed, and the commercial always seems to come on when I'm out of the room. By the time I can make it back to the TV, the song has already triggered that alcove of my brain that stores memories of songs, and it's too late: even though it's been three decades since its inexplicable popularity, it's lodged in there until I can get out the door, get my headphones on, and force it out with something else.
Then the other day I was in a store, minding my business doing an errand, when another song of theirs came on. I felt trapped. I felt queasy. I wanted to run away without buying my shampoo. I know that retailers pay a lot of money to companies to select the music that gets played in their stores, and that makes me think: really? This is the best you could come up with? The soulless, musically bankrupt, late 70's analogue of the Dave Matthews Band? I was only in junior high back then, and I didn't like it the first time.
I know whose fault it is, too. I can pretty much guarantee that some baby boomer working at an ad agency or "branding consortium," someone probably a couple of years older than me, who lost his or her virginity in the back seat of a Duster (look it up, kids) a couple of hours after seeing a Supertramp concert, is responsible for this travesty being forced upon us. I don't care about your blissful memories of sexual awakening. Just stop it. Stop torturing us. I think I actually liked it better when everyone's songs weren't for sale, and we were forced to endure cheesy jingles.
Typically I mute the TV when commercials come on, but I watch a little NECN in the mornings while having breakfast, then I leave the room to get dressed, and the commercial always seems to come on when I'm out of the room. By the time I can make it back to the TV, the song has already triggered that alcove of my brain that stores memories of songs, and it's too late: even though it's been three decades since its inexplicable popularity, it's lodged in there until I can get out the door, get my headphones on, and force it out with something else.
Then the other day I was in a store, minding my business doing an errand, when another song of theirs came on. I felt trapped. I felt queasy. I wanted to run away without buying my shampoo. I know that retailers pay a lot of money to companies to select the music that gets played in their stores, and that makes me think: really? This is the best you could come up with? The soulless, musically bankrupt, late 70's analogue of the Dave Matthews Band? I was only in junior high back then, and I didn't like it the first time.
I know whose fault it is, too. I can pretty much guarantee that some baby boomer working at an ad agency or "branding consortium," someone probably a couple of years older than me, who lost his or her virginity in the back seat of a Duster (look it up, kids) a couple of hours after seeing a Supertramp concert, is responsible for this travesty being forced upon us. I don't care about your blissful memories of sexual awakening. Just stop it. Stop torturing us. I think I actually liked it better when everyone's songs weren't for sale, and we were forced to endure cheesy jingles.
14 July 2007
(Beer) Blast from the Past
When summer rolls around, I like to change up my beer choices a little. In winter I like to drink moderately heavy stuff--the various Sam Adams and Harpoon offerings, Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn Brewery, and of course Guinness--but in warmer weather I prefer lighter beers.
The Mexicans have the combination of decent flavor and light body down pretty well, and each year I enjoy reacquainting myself with the pleasures of ice-cold Dos Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca, etc. (Corona is okay in a pinch, but it's kind of like drinking colored water.) I used to like Rolling Rock as my summer beer, but since it was bought by Anheuser-Busch last year and is no longer brewed in Latrobe, PA, I can't bring myself to buy it anymore.
A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a guy who bought back the rights to the Narragansett brand and has reintroduced the beer to the marketplace, at least in New England. This was news to me, but being a born-and-raised Rhode Islander, where the beer originated back in 1890, I was curious, so on the way home from work I stopped at the liquor store. They did indeed have it, though only in 16-ounce tall-boy cans. I never buy beer in cans because drinking it tastes like drinking the can, but in the interest of, um, "research" I went ahead and got a six-pack.
I thought it might be amusing to sit on the front steps drinking it out of the can to see what sort of reaction I might get from the neighbors, but I decided that might be a little too Larry the Cable Guy. So I sat on the back porch instead, and used a glass. The results of my unscientific testing? It's not bad. It isn't going to win any awards, but it certainly tastes better than Miller or Budweiser (I've long held that I would rather drink tap water than either of those) and kind of reminds me of Coors, which is probably just a coincidence.
I'm not saying Narragansett is a great beer, but the company's new leadership understands the beer's heritage here in New England. For a couple of decades it was the official beer of the Red Sox, and for many people it was their one and only beer. Both my grandfathers and my great uncle on my mom's side were loyal Narragansett drinkers. Its recipe had been altered several times under its various owners, so the new president went to the trouble to find the company's old brewmaster to return Narragansett to its original flavor.
It was decades of ownership by companies like Pabst and brewing in places like Wisconsin that caused the world to forget about Narragansett. Currently it's being brewed in Rochester, NY, which is a lot closer than Wisconsin and close enough to be almost New England. The company president says he hopes to start brewing it in Rhode Island again next year. I think that would be great. It would be like the Rolling Rock situation in reverse: in an era when it seems like everything is the same no matter where you go, it would be nice to have something with a distinct local flavor again.
The Mexicans have the combination of decent flavor and light body down pretty well, and each year I enjoy reacquainting myself with the pleasures of ice-cold Dos Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca, etc. (Corona is okay in a pinch, but it's kind of like drinking colored water.) I used to like Rolling Rock as my summer beer, but since it was bought by Anheuser-Busch last year and is no longer brewed in Latrobe, PA, I can't bring myself to buy it anymore.
A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a guy who bought back the rights to the Narragansett brand and has reintroduced the beer to the marketplace, at least in New England. This was news to me, but being a born-and-raised Rhode Islander, where the beer originated back in 1890, I was curious, so on the way home from work I stopped at the liquor store. They did indeed have it, though only in 16-ounce tall-boy cans. I never buy beer in cans because drinking it tastes like drinking the can, but in the interest of, um, "research" I went ahead and got a six-pack.
I thought it might be amusing to sit on the front steps drinking it out of the can to see what sort of reaction I might get from the neighbors, but I decided that might be a little too Larry the Cable Guy. So I sat on the back porch instead, and used a glass. The results of my unscientific testing? It's not bad. It isn't going to win any awards, but it certainly tastes better than Miller or Budweiser (I've long held that I would rather drink tap water than either of those) and kind of reminds me of Coors, which is probably just a coincidence.
I'm not saying Narragansett is a great beer, but the company's new leadership understands the beer's heritage here in New England. For a couple of decades it was the official beer of the Red Sox, and for many people it was their one and only beer. Both my grandfathers and my great uncle on my mom's side were loyal Narragansett drinkers. Its recipe had been altered several times under its various owners, so the new president went to the trouble to find the company's old brewmaster to return Narragansett to its original flavor.
It was decades of ownership by companies like Pabst and brewing in places like Wisconsin that caused the world to forget about Narragansett. Currently it's being brewed in Rochester, NY, which is a lot closer than Wisconsin and close enough to be almost New England. The company president says he hopes to start brewing it in Rhode Island again next year. I think that would be great. It would be like the Rolling Rock situation in reverse: in an era when it seems like everything is the same no matter where you go, it would be nice to have something with a distinct local flavor again.
28 June 2007
Luxury Condos
Riding on the T this morning, I noticed another passenger reading the Metro. For those of you who might be reading from somewhere other than the Boston area, the Metro is a free weekday paper handed out at subway stations and street corners that is read looked at by people who don't want to spend their commute just staring into space, but also don't want to think too hard in the morning. The only reason I noticed was because it appeared this person was reading it upside down. I suppose this isn't a radically unusual thing to observe in the spectrum of T rider behavior, but still.
Later I saw another copy of the paper on an adjacent seat and picked it up. It turns out that on Thursdays the Metro runs a home section (as do many other papers), and for reasons likely known only to them, they print this section upside-down from the rest of the paper. A four-page insert in the center of the paper would seem to be a much more logical and professional choice, but I'm not part of the Metro brain trust, so what do I know?
Anyway, that's not really the point of this story. There was an ad on the back of the upside-down section for a new condo development in Everett, which is adjacent to our end of Medford. I hadn't heard of it, so when I got to work I typed in the web address; turns out it's not too far from our house (there was no map link on the site; I had to map the address myself to find its exact location, which is definitely an infraction of Web Site Usability 101). They're pitching it as essentially (I'm paraphrasing) "city-style luxury living at lower prices and without city hassles."
[CORRECTION: I was wrong. There is a link that says "click here to preview directions from your location," and if you click it (which I admit I didn't do this morning), it gives you the Google Maps page I linked to above. But it's not obvious that's what's going to happen, because when you see something about directions, you think that it's going to ask for your starting location first, because that's what the web has conditioned us to expect. So I'm still calling them out for a lack of clarity, but I didn't want to get a truckload of email from people about it. When I'm wrong, I believe in admitting it.]
Oh, and did I mention it's called "Britney Place"? Is this an intended association with you-know-who? Are the people who would want to live there the sort of people who would also want to name their daughters after the recently-unhinged celeb? Or is it just poor spelling? Neither is advantageous, in my humble (and admittedly biased) opinion.
The site was fairly generic and a little short on things like pictures, but there were a couple of things I found interesting. On the right side of the "Community" page, there are three photos. One is of a guy walking a couple of dogs, one is of the Boston skyline (presumably a view from somewhere in the complex), and the third is of... a row of brick town houses on what looks a lot like Beacon Hill. I'm not sure how those things go together, but I'm thinking the developers want to plant the idea that living at Britney Place will make you feel as much a part of a community as if you lived on Beacon Hill. Okayyyy, sure, if it makes you happy.
On that same page, if you happened to follow that link, there is some general info about the area and its convenience to Boston locations. If you didn't feel like following the link, I copied this part for your benefit: "4 minutes by car to Boston’s North End neighborhood of restaurants, cafes, shops." Read that again. Four minutes. Four minutes. If you live around here, you have a pretty good idea of how realistic that claim is (or isn't). And it's not even a sort-of-round number like five minutes.
Now remember, I said it was close to my house. I can absolutely guarantee you that it is completely impossible to drive from Britney Place to the North End in four minutes, even under totally ideal road conditions--no other traffic on the roads, all green lights--and I don't even drive. I know people who LIVE in the North End who can't get to the North End in four minutes. What flavor crack are these marketing copywriters smoking? I'm fairly confident that you could drive from Britney Place to the Gateway Plaza (Target, Costco, Home Depot, lots of other fun stuff) on Route 16 in four minutes, but I guess that wouldn't have seemed as comparably glamorous a selling point as the North End.
So, where does that leave us? Looking for some sort of a way to wrap this up, I guess. Britney Place's marketing people have, um, taken a few liberties with the materials promoting their development. Not exactly news, I guess, but it makes me wonder what other things they may have fudged or glossed over. Like, walls cost extra?
Later I saw another copy of the paper on an adjacent seat and picked it up. It turns out that on Thursdays the Metro runs a home section (as do many other papers), and for reasons likely known only to them, they print this section upside-down from the rest of the paper. A four-page insert in the center of the paper would seem to be a much more logical and professional choice, but I'm not part of the Metro brain trust, so what do I know?
Anyway, that's not really the point of this story. There was an ad on the back of the upside-down section for a new condo development in Everett, which is adjacent to our end of Medford. I hadn't heard of it, so when I got to work I typed in the web address; turns out it's not too far from our house (there was no map link on the site; I had to map the address myself to find its exact location, which is definitely an infraction of Web Site Usability 101). They're pitching it as essentially (I'm paraphrasing) "city-style luxury living at lower prices and without city hassles."
[CORRECTION: I was wrong. There is a link that says "click here to preview directions from your location," and if you click it (which I admit I didn't do this morning), it gives you the Google Maps page I linked to above. But it's not obvious that's what's going to happen, because when you see something about directions, you think that it's going to ask for your starting location first, because that's what the web has conditioned us to expect. So I'm still calling them out for a lack of clarity, but I didn't want to get a truckload of email from people about it. When I'm wrong, I believe in admitting it.]
Oh, and did I mention it's called "Britney Place"? Is this an intended association with you-know-who? Are the people who would want to live there the sort of people who would also want to name their daughters after the recently-unhinged celeb? Or is it just poor spelling? Neither is advantageous, in my humble (and admittedly biased) opinion.
The site was fairly generic and a little short on things like pictures, but there were a couple of things I found interesting. On the right side of the "Community" page, there are three photos. One is of a guy walking a couple of dogs, one is of the Boston skyline (presumably a view from somewhere in the complex), and the third is of... a row of brick town houses on what looks a lot like Beacon Hill. I'm not sure how those things go together, but I'm thinking the developers want to plant the idea that living at Britney Place will make you feel as much a part of a community as if you lived on Beacon Hill. Okayyyy, sure, if it makes you happy.
On that same page, if you happened to follow that link, there is some general info about the area and its convenience to Boston locations. If you didn't feel like following the link, I copied this part for your benefit: "4 minutes by car to Boston’s North End neighborhood of restaurants, cafes, shops." Read that again. Four minutes. Four minutes. If you live around here, you have a pretty good idea of how realistic that claim is (or isn't). And it's not even a sort-of-round number like five minutes.
Now remember, I said it was close to my house. I can absolutely guarantee you that it is completely impossible to drive from Britney Place to the North End in four minutes, even under totally ideal road conditions--no other traffic on the roads, all green lights--and I don't even drive. I know people who LIVE in the North End who can't get to the North End in four minutes. What flavor crack are these marketing copywriters smoking? I'm fairly confident that you could drive from Britney Place to the Gateway Plaza (Target, Costco, Home Depot, lots of other fun stuff) on Route 16 in four minutes, but I guess that wouldn't have seemed as comparably glamorous a selling point as the North End.
So, where does that leave us? Looking for some sort of a way to wrap this up, I guess. Britney Place's marketing people have, um, taken a few liberties with the materials promoting their development. Not exactly news, I guess, but it makes me wonder what other things they may have fudged or glossed over. Like, walls cost extra?
01 February 2007
Much Ado...
So yeah, here in Boston we now look like a bunch of fools in the wake of yesterday's Mooninite invasion. Clearly the mental geniuses (I attempted to link to the hairy guy's web site, but who knows if it's ever coming back) who were hired to make and place these things didn't use good judgment, and even if the city's response seems like an overreaction in hindsight, it's understandable why they reacted the way they did.
But I have to wonder: even though apparently not one policeman, firefighter, EMS worker, or other emergency response person involved had ever heard of Adult Swim, doesn't it seem like one look at the device in question would make it clear it was some kind of spoof? I mean, it doesn't exactly look threatening, plus it's giving the finger (which, incidentally, made for some amusing moments in the local media, as some TV stations reportedly blurred the digit and others did not). Do we have to be so uptight about everything?
But I have to wonder: even though apparently not one policeman, firefighter, EMS worker, or other emergency response person involved had ever heard of Adult Swim, doesn't it seem like one look at the device in question would make it clear it was some kind of spoof? I mean, it doesn't exactly look threatening, plus it's giving the finger (which, incidentally, made for some amusing moments in the local media, as some TV stations reportedly blurred the digit and others did not). Do we have to be so uptight about everything?
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