10.18.02
Cow Gypping
-- OR --
The Bark of the Oligarch
We skin them. We eat them. We ride them. We herd them. We milk them. Sometimes we even dress them in silly outfits.

Since the dawn of man, animals have served our needs for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, companionship and amusement, not to mention adhesives. At times, the relationship has been symbiotic and respectful. At others, it's been downright exploitative and cruel. Nowadays, we're discovering that our furry friends are more than just strong lumps of flesh and hide. They're blank canvasses.

And what better to grace an empty space than -- you guessed it -- an ad!

The phenomenon has already taken hold in Russia and Switzerland. Let's start off in Russia, where, not surprising, the situation leans towards the lawless. As told in a 9/20 Orange Today story, shopkeepers in the city of Penza have turned the nuisance of stray dogs to their advantage. First, they bait the mangy mongrels with meaty treats. Once the creature comrades are in reach, they're spray-painted with ads for the stores. According to the article, "Logos include not only the name of the shop but also the goods they stock, including Sony and Camel."

In true competitive spirit, the merchant mascots are often commandeered by representatives of rival establishments and retagged with a fresh coat of promo paint. Well, at least nobody's feeding them laxatives and leaving them in the other team's locker room….

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Russians no longer hunt animals for personal survival; they hunt them for the survival of their businesses. Come to think of it, perhaps for these canine captives of commercialism, things were better under communist rule.

Unlike the Ruskis, the Swiss are doing things slightly more legit. Another Orange Today story published on 10/6 reveals that bovine billboards are now a common sight on the pastures of Switzerland. It's all thanks to the Cow Placard Company, an outfit that is "offering advertisers the chance to have a logo or slogan painted onto a cow's side using car paints." The ad costs vary depending on placement duration and size, but usually run around £250 (approx. $385).

Surely the company has chosen to use auto paint for its ability to resist weather damage. Still, it doesn't bode well for the health of the cow. First of all the skin can't breath under that stuff. And second, if the paint seeps into Bessie's skin, couldn't it taint her moo juice? Remind me the next time someone offers me Toblerone to just say no….

Of course animal rights organizations aren't thrilled with this latest round in the survival of the fittest playoffs. However, in truth, that's really all it is: the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Personally, I think it's reprehensible, but I'm not in the least surprised that advertisers are using animals to do their branding bidding. I just wonder what took so long. I guess when your own kind can be so readily duped into donning logos, there's no need to look towards lower forms of life to be the promo pawns.



Brain Craves
-- OR --
Caveman Consumer
Her hyperbolic 90-lb mole landed an innocent man in intensive care and almost got her husband Johnny wacked. She's Ginny Sack, character from HBO's The Sopranos, and she's been struggling to drop "the baby weight" for years (judging from her copious proportions, she gave birth to the Family Truckster). But she's led her sugar daddy and the audience of episode #43 to believe, it's "our world" and "our culture" that makes it so hard for her to reach her ever-evasive goal.

You know what that means. It must have been the advertising industry that stowed that booty of candy bars and snack cakes Johnny found her looting in the basement laundry room.

What are weak willed humans like Ginny supposed to do? Apparently, as suggested by a 9/30 Salon.com feature, we're slaves to the dorsal striatum, nucleus accumbens and amygdala.

It's these parts of the brain that advertisers tap into, wittingly or not, in order to stimulate greater consumption and positive brand associations. Take the diet-disrupting dorsal striatum. When we see and smell food it's activated to incite hunger. Insists Brookhaven National Laboratory neuroscientist, Nora Volkow, in the story, "When it's active, it creates a very strong drive to consume food. This is a reason why [fast food] advertisements are so compelling, and why we are having an epidemic of obesity in this country."

It makes you wonder why there were fat people, say, back in the 13th century. It must have been all those troubadors singing the praises of Roest Venyson McNuggets and Stufed Cruste Tartes of Chese.

Another scapegoat for our consumer compulsion: the vindictive nucleus accumbens. As noted in the article, the dopamine rich structure "helps animals to form pleasure-related mental associations and to stay motivated in the pursuit and repetition of positive experience." And, as opined in the article, "it probably also helps to make us indefatigable consumers."

Emory University neuroscientist, Gregory Berns, argues that because "New things grab the brain's attention by tapping directly into these reward pathways," the nucleus accumbens "is constantly seeking out new information and gets rewarded through these specific neural circuits when it finds it." He also contends that this dopamine desire "unknowingly" inspires marketers to create new and improved products.

A-ha! So it's not Procter and Gamble's product development team that's responsible for it's latest repackaging sham to fight dreaded "aging mouth," "Crest Rejuvenating Effects" toothpaste; it's the nucleus accumbens!

And if you've ever wondered why imagination-free advertisers insist on employing sex to sell everything from beer to ball bearings, look no further than the amygdala. An emotional response to something like that in-store Coors Light Halloween display featuring Elvira, Mistress of the Dark in her "Mali-Boo" beach bikini stimulates the amygdala to lock the event into memory. Many of these neurological responses, according to the Salon piece, stem from our primeval survival instincts to seek out food, adapt to changes in our environment and select mates.

Are we really inherently susceptible to advertising? Somehow I doubt it. Simply because our brains naturally respond to stimuli in a particular way, does that necessitate that our actions must follow along? My mind may be enticed by TV visions of caramel and chocolate swirls or some cute guy in a pair of Levis, but I'm no Pavlovian dog. I'm a human being with free will and the ability to reason. Although I'll acknowledge the influential impact that outside stimuli such as advertising and marketing can have on a person, I refuse to believe that it -- or my perception of it -- drives my actions.

In fact, my actions are almost entirely driven by the voices in my head, and they don't even watch television.



CD Freedom Comes at a Price
-- OR --
The Other Dani's Hard Drive
Some make it their lives' mission to obtain every Budweiser neon sign ever made before 1975. Others are on the hunt for all the Red Rose Tea animal figurines. Still others are in pursuit of every Kool Aid Man promo item ever garnered through pink-stained proofs or purchase. They belong to a special breed of collector. You can call them the brand fans. Or better yet, you can call them by their Latin nomenclature, doucheus baggus.

Now there's a whole new subspecies of collector geek-kind, and, at age 17, the lead loser of this pack has a long way to go 'til she reaches full dork potential. A recent Raleigh News & Observer story sheds light on the sadly misguided "life" of one Dani L. Funk, proud owner of 2,500 free AOL trial CDs. Yes, while we're using them to balance table legs, as coasters, or simply tossing them away like the tangible spam they are, she's embracing them as if they were precious stones.

Some people are even swapping them on eBay; according to Lowbrow Lowdown Lackey research, bids range from a buck or two to $75 for the complete "Solid Gold Collection" of 21 CDs. Evidently, AOL "doesn't know" how many Dani-like dweebs have fallen under the spell of its beguiling giveaways. There is an online club, however, which goes by the stodgy title of "AOL Data Family Protection Agency." Hmmm…I guess "AOL Virginity Protection Agency" was already taken….

Dani's 'rents don't seem too keen on the craze. They already attempted to trash a couple thousand of her discs, some of which Dani managed to retrieve. In the story, her mom comments eerily, "It's like she has a personal connection with them." Dani assures, "It's more like a lifestyle." (I think she means "get-a-lifestyle.")

To be serious, she's got a point. These extreme gatherer types do tend to center their priorities on their prized possessions and the ultimate goal of completing their collections. It can certainly dictate how a person spends his waking moments, not to mention his wallet lining.

What's behind this consuming behavior, and is there a distinction to be made between the collector of branded promotional items and the more traditional accumulator of baseball cards or rare 78s? In the end, possessing items that represent a personal interest, such as an Atari game cartridge or vintage National Geographic issues may indicate a high degree of passion and appreciation that separates the true fans from the non-believers. But what does a collection of Snap! Crackle! and Pop! statuettes, Coca-Cola tin signs or AOL CDs display other than the hollow embrace of some product and its marketing department-driven faux culture?

Perhaps even more pathetic than the empty excuse for culture it's spawned is AOL's response to it. Opines AOL spokesman (and AOL CD collector) Nicholas Graham in the piece, "I think the bottom line is that the AOL CD campaign has been incredibly successful….The goal behind the AOL CDs is to make them hip, fun, noticeable."

Hey, and all this time, I thought the goal was to attract more subscribers. Then again, considering how poor business has been for the company this past year, maybe AOL would be better off orchestrating a black market for its collectible promos than it has been wooing new and current customers.



Good Man for Mayor
-- OR --
Gin City
Give 'em some diamond pendants and grossly oversized TV sets and our Senators will gladly do your dirty work in Korea. Toss 'em 20 large and our County Execs just might set you up with some lucrative contracting deals. Lend our Mayors the cash to pay for their girlfriends' jobs or trips to Rio, and your bid to do work for the city just may go uncontested. They're the good folks in government here in New Jersey, and they're in good company.

Some politicians will do anything for a buck. And thankfully, some will actually be forthcoming about it. Beloved and controversial Mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada, Oscar Goodman, is one politico who takes his product pitching almost as seriously as he does his partying. And this guy means business. In fact, he considers the ability to hold one's liquor a prerequisite to holding public office in Sin City. (See the Las Vegas Mercury story.)

"The raisin knows the mayor loves his gin," quoth the humble Goodman at a news conference touting a new cross-promotional magazine campaign promoting Las Vegas dining and the California Raisin Marketing Board. According to a city press release, the ads have debuted in the October issues of Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Sunset, Good Housekeeping and others. In the 10/4 Las Vegas Review-Journal article he continues sheepishly, "If you put a darkened raisin into the Bombay Sapphire, it makes the gout disappear."

Why the Bombay Sapphire plug? That'd be Southern Wine and Spirits' $100,000 hard at work. You see, according to a 5/23 Las Vegas Review-Journal piece, Goodman agreed to do "anything legal" to promote Bombay Sapphire gin, in exchange for $100,000, half of which will go into the city's general coffers and the other half to a school chaired by Goodman's wife. Because there are no upcoming votes involving the liquor company and the Mayor's wife takes no salary from the school, many see Goodman's hooch huckstership as just another one of his silly ways to promote Vegas (not to mention himself).

"But what about the wee ones?" uptight adults may inquire. "Mayor Goodman ought to be ashamed for promoting an alcoholic beverage." As seen in the Review-Journal story, his answer to those prudes went something like, "We're in Las Vegas, OK? We're supposed to have a good time here. If you can't have a drink in Las Vegas, unless it's against your religious convictions, and have fun with that drink, then Las Vegas isn't the Las Vegas that I think it is."

Me like Mayor Goodman. Me give him big hug.

But what to make of his sponsorship deal? Sure, Mayor Goodman's affiliation with the Bombay Sapphire brand assures promotion of Las Vegas. And since Las Vegas gets the proceeds from the cross-promotion, perhaps it ain't all that bad. The question is, regardless of the nature of the product, or where the money goes, is it appropriate for any government official to play the role of spokesperson for anything but the locale he represents? As Mayor of Las Vegas, Goodman's time in the public eye is paid for by the citizenry. Shouldn't that time be spent talking up Las Vegas rather than pushing product at "Martini with the Mayor" fundraisers?

Mayors act as symbols of the cities they lead. In essence, through Mayor Goodman's paid association with Bombay Sapphire, the City of Las Vegas is endorsing a brand of gin. You'd think his constituents would at least get to vote on it! The fact that Mayor Goodman embraces the spirit of his city is one thing, but promoting a brand name product that otherwise has no correlation with that city is quite another. I'll admit that it's refreshing to see a politician openly divulge his paid affiliation with a corporation, as opposed to denying it like most do. However, I regret to say that this time the good Mayor has crossed the line.

Who knows? Maybe if it weren't for all that gin he'd have been able to walk it straight….