Card from unplannd

Everyday, I consciously make an effort to shift my thinking.

Masses to few (1)

Consumers to people (humans)

Will ultimate utility trump brands in the future?  At what point will brands have diluted their meanings so far that non-branded utility wins?

A return to the beginning of cpg? In what product categories will brands still be applicable? 

Check out debranded home

Found out about this from PI3008 and wanted to share. 

Thought to take away: 

Past: You are what you own.

Present: You are what you share.

One of my hobby horses is the myth of authenticity in regarding consumer blogs and profiles. We’re all performers! And nowhere do we perform most when there’s a chance we might get a hot date.

Anyway. Great article touching on this on Salon today: Megan Hustad’s You Are Not Your Bookcase. I particularly like how she approaches it from the angle that it’s a really weird way for us to interact with each other, the ceaseless posting of our favorites on MySpace profiles, facebook profiles, and who knows what else.

It’s a new angle on the modern condition: our self-definition according to brand. I like x, y, z; do you? No!?! Well, fuck you. And so it goes.

But then, I still think it’s crazy that people ever rapped about their favorite champagnes.

Robert Scoble wrote a post about early adopter angst, basically ripping on people who rip on early adopters. He says that early adopters are the ones who are changing the way the world works by using new services, such as Twitter, Friendfeed that are out there. Not because they use these services, but because they are the type of people to use them. He talks about why he follows 20K Twitterers: 

I want to study what early adopters are doing and thinking. Twitter is the best place — by far — to do that.

So to all those Twitter users out there - way to be the wave of the future!

Well, it’s not that bad. But Forrester agrees with Edelman (or vice versa?): bloggers aren’t trusted. They ain’t trusted worth squat. Again, the people you know, you trust most.

I am obsessed.

Search tool. Visually driven. Smart as hell. Uses Apple-like displays and functionality. 

Sold. I am a user. 

More and more big money makers are heading into Walmart… and are comparison shopping online.  

(Others still continue to spend money like crazy.The theory, we will always have lots of money, let’s just keep spending seems to apply to Paul Parmar.)

Walmart says their number of affluent consumers has increased to 2.2%, while an American Express survey finds that 70% of those households making $100K + prefer to shop online, researching products and prices. 

My question is this: Are the affluent more like to comparison shop when they are in private?  Does shopping at Walmart tarnish their self image or is penny pinching how they built their money?

It’s just not possible to post something unrelated to GTA today. From WIRED:

Calling ZIT-555-0100 on your in-game cellphone tags whichever of the 200 included songs is currently playing on one of the game’s 16 radio stations, so that later, when you log in to Rockstar’s new social network, you’ll be able to preview,  buy and download them in the 256 Kbps DRM-free MP3 format for 99 cents each or less.

Obviously I think the idea of marketing through a social network is brilliant, but I think it’s a bit clunky to have to go from game to PC to Amazon to get your music. I wonder how many people will actually use this feature, as opposed to just checking previews of Amazon’s GTA soundtrack compilation.

Just a quick hit: Grud3008 found this report via TechCrunch. 95% of Facebook users have used a 3rd-party app! And social networks are the big snowball rolling down the hill onto Daffy Duck.