How Shopping Malls Make You Buy
Hungry Beast offers a three-minute primer on how architecture and design elements in shopping malls have been tested and tweaked to create “scripted disorientation” and manipulate and channel our behavior. Most of us have heard of some of the consumption-encouraging tricks used within individual stores, but not necessarily those occurring on a larger level in the surrounding structures and environs. Someday businesses will perfect a method for getting us to shop for just as long as they wish us to:
How Would You Define “Poor” In America?
Greg Hengler writes on TownHall:
The federal government says that 14% of Americans live in poverty. So here’s a list of luxuries that these households retain:
99.6% own a refrigerator; 81.4% own a microwave; 78.3% own an air conditioner; 73% own a car or a truck; 63.7% own cable or satellite television; 54.5% own a cell phone; 53.9% own an Xbox or PlayStation; 48.6% own a coffee maker; 38.2% own a computer; 32.3% own two or more televisions; 31% own two or more cars; and 25% own a dishwasher.
Do any of you remember John Edwards saying that there are 37 million Americans living in poverty and that their kids are going to bed hungry every night—43.6 million Americans living in poverty according to the NAACP President, Ben Jealous? Well, Robert Rector debunks that political talking point of the Left. Rector says that that only 2% experience hunger and it is only temporary. The…
China’s Fake Apple Stores
Fascinatingly, in is now common in China to find counterfeit branches of the Apple store.
Then again, what makes any Apple store “real” when the point is to use psychology to sell an intangible “brand”? And how can you tell a real Apple store from a fraudulent one? Paradoxically, real Apple stores never say “Apple store”. The Consumerist reports:
An American blogger living in the middle of China was amazed to stumble across a fake Apple store in her town. It was a complete counterfeit of a real Apple store, designed to look like the real thing. It had signage, and employees walking around in the iconic blue shirts with those lanyard nametags. It had the big long wooden tables with Apple products on them and the typical Apple store winding staircase. But certain details were off.
None of the employee nametags had their names on it. They just said “staff.” And Apple never writes…
Durban South Africa, Friday Night at The Movies: We Can’t Escape The Tensions Around Us
Soweto. Photo: Michael Toft Schmidt (CC)
It’s Friday night, and the motorways are packed with cars heading for the mall. Here in Durban, the Gateway Mall is the destination of choice. It’s huge, the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s stuffed with stuff, much of it upscale, calling itself a “theater of shopping.” (It is actually built over what was once a dump.) The parking lots are packed with late model cars, many of them high end.
I have to confess, I was invited there to see America’s latest high culture import, the 3D version of the movie Transformers 3, based on a toy and cartoon, in a modern movie complex with 18 theaters and rows and rows of packed gates where you line up for endless popcorn and soft drinks.
Business was booming; the theater was full. Most of the crowd seemed to be whites and Indians but there…
A Year’s Worth Of Makeup At Once
With the aim of highlighting the “cosmetic overkill” prevalent in modern life, directors Lernert & Sander applied the quantity of makeup typically worn over the course of a year, 365 layers, onto a model in a single day.
(Surely she will be 365 times as beautiful?) The results of the experiment are fairly unsettling.
Chris Hedges’s Endgame Strategy: Why The Revolution Must Start In America
Synopsis via The Raw Story:
Pulitzer-winning author and former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has a revolutionary worldview. In the video below, his recent “Endgame Strategy” piece for AdBusters is read aloud by George Atherton. His conclusions are chilling, but not entirely hopeless. “We will have to take care of ourselves,” he wrote. “We will have to rapidly create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and cultural values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.
Even If You Are an Atheist, You Worship Something …
From the late great David Foster Wallace:
Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some in-frangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth.
Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing,…
Chinese Teenager Sells Kidney For iPad
A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report. BBC News reports:
The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.
The story only came to light after the teenager’s mother became suspicious.
The case highlights China’s black market in organ trafficking. A scarcity of organ donors has led to a flourishing trade.
It all started when the high school student saw an online advert offering money to organ donors. Illegal agents organised a trip to the hospital and paid him $3,392 (£2,077) after the operation. With the cash the student bought an iPad 2, as well as a laptop.
Brain Scans Show Apple Products Triggering The Same Parts Of The Brain As Religion
Go figure — scans taken when Apple devotees were shown the company’s logo and products demonstrate that we literally worship our favorite brands. Digital Trends writes:
UK neuroscientists suggest that the brains of Apple devotees are stimulated by Apple imagery in the same way that the brains of religious people are stimulated by religious imagery.
Alex Riley contacted the editor of World of Apple, Alex Brooks, an Apple worshipper who claims to think about Apple 24 hours a day, which is possibly 23 hours too many for most regular people. A team of neuroscientists studied Brooks’ brain while undergoing an MRI scan, to see how it reacted to images of Apple products and (heaven forbid) non-Apple products.
According to the neuroscientists, the scan revealed that there were marked differences in Brooks’ reactions to the different products. Previously, the scientists had studied the brains of those of religious faith, and they found that, as Riley…
Study: Advertising Plants Memories Of Experiences We Never Had
On the bright side, is it really such a bad thing to be implanted with false memories of, say, dancing with smiling, multicultural nu-ravers while drinking a refreshing Pepsi? Partial Objects explains:
A newly published study by two marketing professors suggests that advertising can create memories of experiences that never happened, simply by including sufficiently evocative imagery and descriptions in the ad:
Exposure to an imagery-evoking ad can increase the likelihood that consumer mistakenly believes that s/he has experience with the advertised product when in fact s/he does not. Moreover such a false belief produces attitudes that are as strong as attitudes based on true beliefs based on previous product experience, an effect that we label the false experience effect.
Advertising has always been an appeal to a fantasy, and this study seems to suggest that if the ad is created just right, that fantasy can be in the form of a desire to…
Disney Trademarks ‘Seal Team 6′
Alex Weprin writes on FishBowlNY:
In a perfect example of a big media company looking to capitalize on current events, The Walt Disney Company has trademarked “Seal Team 6,” which also happens to be the name of the elite special forces team that killed Osama Bin Laden.
The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″ was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation.
Disney’s trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things.
Osama Was Crazy About American Soft Drinks, Apparently
A nugget from a Bloomberg article — Abbottabad shopkeepers say that the men revealed to be bin Laden’s aides would regularly purchase bulk quantities of both Pepsi and Coke. It seems his hatred for the infidels was matched only by his love for our sweet, sweet carbonated colas.
The two polite Pakistanis who helped Osama bin Laden hide in the shadow of their country’s army bought bulk food orders, chose major brands and equally favored Pepsi and Coke, neighbors and a local shopkeeper said.
The men called themselves Akbar and Rashid Khan and they owned the fortified home where U.S. commandos killed bin Laden in an early morning raid May 2. They did the daily shopping in the Pashtu-language accents of Waziristan, a region on the Afghan border, said grocer Anjum Qaisar, 27, who works 150 meters from the compound.
“I was curious about why they bought so much food, but I did not…
The Power Of Clothing Labels To Shape Your Life
In another experiment, volunteers watched one of two videos of the same man being interviewed for a job. In one, his shirt had a logo; in the other, it did not. The logo led observers to rate the man as more suitable for the job, and even earned him a 9% higher salary recommendation.
In a society in which the populace is now referred to as “consumers” rather than “citizens”, we all know the power of branding. The Economist reports on a study showing just how far this effect goes — the cooperation, respect, and money which others will give you varies widely based on the logo that appears on your shirt:
Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands examined people’s reactions to [actors] who were wearing clothes made by Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, two well-known brands that sell what they are pleased to refer to as designer clothing.…
Jingoism for Dollars: How to Make a Quick Buck
Chuck Sudo writes at Chicagoist:
We shouldn’t be shocked that businesses and budding entrepreneurs use historic moments to parlay them into a little bit of scrilla. It’s the American Way. We stopped counting the number of knock off t-shirts printed to commemorate President Obama’s election, or Michael Jackson’s death two years ago, or Sears tying advertising to the recent tornadoes in the South, or the seemingly endless stream of “Never Forget” paraphernalia that still trickles from the 9/11 faucet and businesses that still hold Martin Luther King Day “white sales.” We’re not even shocked that a trove of merchandise and events capitalizing on the Osama bin Laden raid are already up and looking for someone’s discretionary income. We only question the taste of some of the endeavors.
The photo in this post comes from a Miami nightlife promoter who wasted no time in organizing a “Na na na, Hey Hey, Goodbye” party…
Apple’s Chinese Workers Treated ‘Inhumanely, Like Machines’ — Some Sign ‘Anti-Suicide’ Pledge
Wondering how that Apple “magic” happens at that “unbelievable” price? Gethin Chamberlain writes in the Guardian:
An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.
The research, carried out by two NGOs, has revealed disturbing allegations of excessive working hours and draconian workplace rules at two major plants in southern China. It has also uncovered an “anti-suicide” pledge that workers at the two plants have been urged to sign, after a series of employee deaths last year.
The investigation gives a detailed picture of life for the 500,000 workers at the Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, which produces millions of Apple products each year. The report accuses Foxconn of treating workers “inhumanely, like machines”.
Among the allegations made by workers interviewed by the NGOs — the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations…
NYC Bill Would Criminalize Buying Knockoff Goods
The Wall Street Journal reports:
NEW YORK — A city lawmaker said Tuesday she’ll introduce a bill to criminalize the purchase of counterfeit designer goods including handbags and watches.
The bill proposed by City Councilwoman Margaret Chin would impose penalties of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine for buying knockoffs.
“I urge visitors that come to New York to come for the authenticity, not to buy these fake bags or electronics,” Chin said. “We have local designers that create unique items at affordable prices, and they’re available. So don’t just come here for the knockoffs.”
A 2004 report by then-city Comptroller William Thompson found that about 8 percent of the approximately $287 billion in counterfeit goods sold in the United States annually is sold in New York City, resulting in more than $1 billion in lost tax revenue.
It is already illegal to sell fake designer goods, but Susan Scafidic, head of the…
Life Inside Store Displays
In advertising and window displays, companies invite us to step into a lifestyle which we may access by purchasing their products. Suppose someone took the message too literally? While visiting IKEA with friends, photographer Christian Gideon created a series of pictures in which all facets of daily home life were simulated within the store’s famed mock interiors. The results are hilarious and poignant (with lots of bro bonding). Via My Modern Metropolis:
KidZania: The Consumerism-Brainwashing Amusement Park Coming To The U.S.A.
The Morning News visits KidZania, a surreal amusement-park-of-the-future with locations in Dubai, Portugal, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and soon, the United States. Its a Sims-like miniature world in which children play-act at being adult worker-drones and consumers:
The children are learning factory work, it’s in a job bottling Coca-Cola, and when they’re working at a restaurant, that “restaurant” has golden arches. The dentist office is sponsored by Crest.
At the heart of the concept and the business of KidZania is corporate consumerism, re-staged for children whose parents pay for them to act the role of the mature consumer and employee. The rights to brand and help create activities at each franchise are sold off to real corporations.
Atomic And Radioactive Products
“In the early 1900s, radium was more valuable than gold and platinum. As such, the term “Radium” was incorporated into the brand names of any number of products even when these products didn’t actually contain radium. The same was true for the term ‘X-Ray.’”
How To Be A Retronaut has a nice collection of early to mid-twentieth century consumer brands that tapped into a general public enthusiasm for anything related to atomic bombs and radiation. Those were simpler times, when happiness meant an “atomic meal” on every kitchen table and (usually faux-) radioactive products in every medicine cabinet.
