April 2010
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Fast food culture 'makes us rush unnecessarily' →
People who are exposed to fast food logos become increasingly impatient and lose the impulse to save money, researchers said.
Volunteers who were shown the McDonald’s logo on screen so briefly that they could not recognise it still became agitated, the study found.
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Mad Men advertising →
Today, rather than creating a culture of collaboration, the Mad Men advertising campaign reinforces static images and, just as alarming, it builds silos within the brand culture. Stakeholders feel left out of the process and wonder about the mission and core values. Inevitably, the budget office submits the campaign to a cost-benefit analysis and wonders how the expenditures ever got approved. The...
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Wal-Mart's "Project Impact" Has The Wrong Kind Of... →
When Wal-Mart implemented Project Impact at 600 US stores, it had an unintended impact – sales suddenly declined. Part of the reason for the decline was thought to be the company’s decision to remove an area of the store called “Action Alley,” which features some of Wal-Mart’s biggest selling items. Simon admitted that Project Impact was “responsible for some of the...
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Junk Food Tax More Effective than Good Food... →
There was a disturbing outcome when the prices of the healthy food was lowered: the mothers ‘treated’ their family by actually purchasing more junk food with the money they were saving.
March 2010
20 posts
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PepsiCo: Taking the challenge →
Indra Nooyi, the boss of PepsiCo, wants her firm to be “seen as one of the defining companies of the first half of the 21st century”, a “model of how to conduct business in the modern world.” More specifically, she argues that Pepsi, which makes crisps (potato chips) and other fatty, salty snacks as well as sugary drinks, should be part of the solution, not the cause, of “one of the world’s...
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Junk food could be addictive 'like heroin' →
Rats became ‘hooked’ on sausage and cheesecake in same way as drug abusers
Junk food may be addictive in the same way as heroin or cocaine, according to a study showing that laboratory rats will endure painful electric shocks to satisfy their craving for high-calorie snacks made from sausages, bacon and cheesecake.
Scientists have found that a “café-style” diet of fatty,...
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Ambush Marketing →
The powers that be will never truly eradicate ambush marketing, but they are certainly getting tougher and these stories should provide food for thought for marketers looking to develop marketing campaigns, which coincide or somehow relate to the 2012 London Olympics or any other high profile sponsorship-led event.
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Is Olympic Brand Protection Doing More Harm Than... →
With Vancouver’s 2010 winter events concluded, sports fans are looking forward to the London summer Olympics. However, a paradox has popped up in the attempt to promote the 2012 Games: The very rules put in place to protect the Olympic brand are preventing travel agents from promoting the Olympic brand. In an effort to protect the reputation of the games, the London Organising Committee of...
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Fall From Grace: How Brands Can Avoid Losing... →
Like people, brands make mistakes. But their mistakes are much bigger because they reach millions of people and might destroy the image of the brand leading to a phenomenal fall from grace. This is a paper about brands loosing status, respect, and prestige and how to avoid it.
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WatchHave a break: Greenpeace vs KitKat
KitKats, gotta love em. Each bar consists of fingers composed of three layers of crème-filled wafer, covered in an outer layer of chocolate. Each finger can be snapped from the bar one at a time. It is not just a chocolate bar; it is a way of living. Who did not ‘have a break’ eating a KitKat?
Apparently the orangutans in the rainforests of Indonesia are not...
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WatchA film written and directed by Denis van Waerebeke for the « Bon appétit » exhibition, aimed mainly at the kids aged 9 to 14.
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Obesity: The killer combination of salt, fat and... →
Sugar, fat and salt make a food compelling. They stimulate neurons, cells that trigger the brain’s reward system and release dopamine, a chemical that motivates our behaviour and makes us want to eat more. Many of us have what’s called a “bliss point”, at which we get the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat or salt. Combined in the right way, they make a product indulgent,...
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Taxing soda provides a win-win solution →
Lawmakers in New York State are debating whether or not to introduce a tax on sugary soft drinks. Now that’s a great idea that kills two birds with one stone. The new tax would generate much needed revenue for the state and at the same time it could also help to lower obesity rates which have soared in recent years. The New York Times enthusiastically supports the tax as a “healthy solution” and...
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Does fighting obesity also mean fighting... →
If you want to do something to prevent childhood and adult obesity, you are working against the economic interests of corporations that profit from kids eating too much food or watching too much television.
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Keeping Your Brand Alive in Social Media →
You’ve got to find your brand’s personality because until you do, you can never be authentic. Without it, your a ‘poser’ striving to convince customers you have what they want. That’s enough.
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How your idea can win the Pepsi Refresh Contest →
The amazing secret of how your idea can WIN the Pepsi - Refresh Everything contest by Dan Morrison CEO Citizen Effect
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“It isn’t the sudden dramatic death that’s humanity’s biggest crime, it’s...”
– Graham Brown
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WatchAdvertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.
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Change your bank →
“We’re a group of consumers who aren’t happy with the way our banks are being run. We believe banks should be run in the interests of us, its customers. Sadly, the last 12 months have shown us that this isn’t the case. Well, we think it’s about time banks made a change. We want to let our banks know that we’re watching them, and we’re prepared to do...
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February 2010
20 posts
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“Dreams are a great thing, but y’know something, they take a lot of energy. But...”
– “Doctor” Iris Puffybush on pursuing a career at the Eterna-Spring Artificial Flower factory. “Strangers With Candy”
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WatchCultureLab monitored social media chatter during the last quarter of 2009 to get a grasp on evolving trends. We also conducted in-market explorations in Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York. Finally, our Trend Summit in December was a success and helped us glean even more about the trends expected to make an impact in 2010! From lifestyle, technology, media and fashion to music, politics,...
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“I love [the band] Drunkdriver but they would always say that they were just...”
– Mattin on European versus American perceptions of self-agency. From an interview with Wire, issue #312.
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The Wire - Adventures in modern music →
The Wire is an independent, monthly music magazine covering a wide range of alternative, underground and non-mainstream musics. The Wire celebrates and interrogates the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, past and present, in the realms of avant rock, electronica, hiphop, new jazz, modern composition, traditional musics and...
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Context: The 10 Brands that Lead →
Here are the Top 10 Context Brands:
1) Monster Energy Drinks 2) Pure Digital Flip 3) Jet Blue 4) Threadless 5) BeingGirl 6) Toyota Scion 7) Ford Fiesta (Movement) 8) Boost Mobile RockCorps 9) Nike 6.0 10) Red Bull
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Content is Dead… Long live Context →
The era of “Advertising is Content” is dead because content alone is no longer enough to engage youth.
Getting face-to-face with young consumers creates trust.
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WatchThe C Word
Your biggest challenge today as a marketer isn’t asking “how do we engage youth?” but asking “how do we remove the internal barriers that prevent us engaging youth?”. - Graham Brown
http://www.whatyouththink.com/
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What youth think →
If you’re looking for some insight into the youth market for your brand or business, this 3 part report is a pretty good starting point from the guys over at What Youth Think.
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Watch “No More Brand Equity…please”
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WatchBig food companies will feed you rubbish or good stuff, they just sell what we buy, and its time to get them to change. So lets stop buying mass produced, factory farmed junk food, loaded with growth hormones, fat, salt, sugar, and other chemical additives. We’re like ‘pigs at the trough’, eating ourselves into oblivion. We should be ashamed of ourselves for feeding this garbage...
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Does Obesity Rehab Work? →
Elizabeth Fedorchalk’s diet was abysmal. She skipped breakfast, ate lunch at school — usually chicken strips and fries — and frequently had dinner at McDonald’s: a burger and more fries. She drank nondiet soda and snacked on potato chips and Little Debbie cakes. She never exercised because, between school and extracurricular activities, she claimed she didn’t have time. “It...
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Are girls junk-food junkies?
Many girls skip breakfast, live on crisps, cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks, and smoke and drink alcohol more than ever. So do girls really have worse diets than boys?
We asked a selection of young people what they had for breakfast this morning…
Jonathan Pataillot, 16, Toulouse, France
“I’m at boarding school in France but I eat what I want. I have the same breakfast as my father. I...
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Putting America’s Diet on a Diet →
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WatchJamie Oliver sharing powerful stories at TED 2010 about his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Its time for the consumer packaged foods industry, supermarkets, consumers, parents, schools, everyone, to wake up and take decisive action. We are killing ourselves due to over consumption, gluttony, greed and our demand for...
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“When you ingest the poison of violence, even in a just cause, it corrupts,...”
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