Des Temps

Tag: pop culture

  • Mimic Drink

    Our pal Sorry I Missed Your Party tipped us to the fact that:

    MillerCoors is discontinuing Sparks due to government concerns that it was too popular with teenagers and its energy and booze combination was dangerous…
    I guess I understand that it’s important to protect our impressionable youth; they are our future, after all. [But] lets be honest – has anyone ever actually enjoyed a Sparks “responsibly”?

    Drinking Sparks created the Fun Dipesque byproduct of an orange tongue. Such markings of use are an advertisers dream. Alas it’s the U21 set who derived the most pleasure from it.

    No surprise that the bev was the brainchild of a marketing firm – McKenzie River. These are the same folks who hired rappers in the way back to shill for St. Ides – one of the first marketing moves into the rugged hip-hop space, presaging 50 and Vitamin Water. Impressionable lad that I was, the Crooked I was my first 40.

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  • So L.A. it hurts

    Sticking with our location theme here, I’ve got to give a shout out to the Sacramento Community College Players. Those being, of course, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Margaret Cho, Neil Patrick Harris et al. with a special appearance by Jack Black. Prop 8, the musical. Does it count less if all the actors are stars?

    I’ve been quizzing everyone I know recently about social media and the web. The old gray lady just started including external links to blogs (among other things) on the front page, and the funniest shared video I’ve seen this week has ads popping onscreen ad infinitum. I’m not sure anyone’s figured out the content / advertising /subscription model yet, but hell if they’re not trying.

    —
    h/t to MTLB

  • Brooklyn We Go Hard

    Love this new vid, made by Evan Roth, one of the originals from Graffiti Research Lab. And, uh, anyone else think Jay cribbed that voice-buckle from Wayne?
    —
    link from Michael Karnjanaprakorn

  • Sex For Sale

    i can’t tell you you’re oppressed
    without asking your opinion on it.
    -Fatemeh Fakhraie

    I’ve written before on the subject of sex and authorship and believe in the virtues of Neo Burlesque and Suicide Girls as a potential source of empowerment. Yet what still struck me in this clip from Sundance’s Pleasure For Sale is the frank calm with which Kittie approaches prostitution as an independent contractor. Or at least, that which we see on screen? Dunno.


    That said, we must keep questioning those things that make us nod or shake our heads, be it assent or dissent.

  • The World According to James

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    The popcorn, jokes, and testosterone zing around the room with all the patience of an electron. Across town the same scene is amplified in a crowded bar, long and skinny, the popcorn substituted with beer. In both rooms the flicker of television screens — rhythm — and the dance between sports and advertising provides the meter by which the hours will unfold. Where elbows and dripping bottles crowd one space, coasters and crumbs crowd the other. It is the job of Lebron James to communicate above the din in both these spaces. If, during commercial breaks, he can do just half of what his body does during the game many millionaires not pictured on the screen sweating and chest-bumping will be just as enthused.

    LeBron James, the icon, comes to form before our eyes. We see, just a bit sharper in Nike’s new spot “Chalk.”

    And was that Lil Wayne mugging from the courtside seats? Indeed, we’re not sure if the cameo will help sell more albums to sports fans or sneakers to hip-hop fans, but the will is there. He’s even blogging for ESPN. Guess who he talks about most?

    LeBron James was a junior in high school when he first appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. His senior season’s games were broadcast nationally on ESPN. Now a six-year pro and gold medalist, the table is set for him to become a legitimate media personality, or, as Nike once put it, for us to Witness.

    —
    further reading at Esquire.
    Early SI cover here.

  • Slang

    WTF?!

    I’m outspoken, my language is broken into a slang / But it’s just a dialect that I select when I hang. -Special Ed

    I’ve been thinking about the use of slang and LOLspeak in advertising and have deduced a simple rule. The logic is as follows:

    Standard language is a strategy for communication. Slang is a tactical response to linguistic strategy – a way to speak within the space, yet occasionally cloak or subvert your content, creating a space of insider/outsider. Sometimes slang will cross the fence from linguistic tactic to strategy. An example would be the words bling or phat. Once slang, now OED English.

    So with that in mind, if an advert aims to use slang within a communications strategy – to sound like the target demo and be edgy – the slang must do one of two things. Either contain code that employs a real insider/outsider barrier or (better yet) truly be subversive. Otherwise it does not achieve the desired effect of being decoded.

    Two examples of deft slang use are the Gossip Girls poster that says “OMFG” (ie Oh My F*cking God) and the Akademiks “Read Books, Get Brain” poster (ie Read Books, Get A Bl*wjob). The target demo knows what these posters are saying and that if the copy were written sans slang, the adverts would not pass the censors. Equally important, they know that many passerby are clueless to their code, yet your brand is in the know.
    (or neck)

  • Fred Flare

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    Etailer Fred Flare just opened their first storefront round the corner from my house. The folks at Zeus Jones have been looking at this trend of click-to-brick and how to discern what should stay DIY and what should be sleek.

    Following the lead of NYC venues Grand Opening or Kiosk, which change their content every few months, could a similar rotating space serve as an incubator for online brands seeking to test the waters? It’s a spatial/ narrative/financial investment that could work quite well. The shell could even be branded + franchised, yet leave room for curatorial individuality within its walls.