The Big Fat Marketing Blog

You gotta love the Vermont Country Store. The general merchant’s Website and Fall 2008 print catalog includes an editorial encouraging people to put up clotheslines to dry their laundry—especially folks who live in places where clotheslines are prohibited.

“We’ve been promoting a new kind of civil disobedience to save energy and help the planet: Set up a clothesline and hang your wash out even if you live in a neighborhood where doing such is prohibited,” says the editorial. “Is it not the height of snobbery to declare hanging clothes out to dry illegal?”

The editorial (click here to read it) notes that someone years ago in some rich, exclusive development decided that clotheslines were déclassé and declared them illegal. “Such ordinances and association rules fly in the face of efficient energy use and it’s time to get rid of them.” Vermont this past year tried to pass a “right to dry” law, but it failed. “You can be sure we’ll bring it back this coming year and hope other states do the same,” Vermont Country Store’s statement says.

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You gotta love the Vermont Country Store. The general merchant’s Website and Fall 2008 print catalog includes an editorial encouraging people to put up clotheslines to dry their laundry—especially folks who live in places where clotheslines are prohibited.

“We’ve been promoting a new kind of civil disobedience to save energy and help the planet: Set up a clothesline and hang your wash out even if you live in a neighborhood where doing such is prohibited,” says the editorial. “Is it not the height of snobbery to declare hanging clothes out to dry illegal?”

The editorial (click here to read it) notes that someone years ago in some rich, exclusive development decided that clotheslines were déclassé and declared them illegal. “Such ordinances and association rules fly in the face of efficient energy use and it’s time to get rid of them.” Vermont this past year tried to pass a “right to dry” law, but it failed. “You can be sure we’ll bring it back this coming year and hope other states do the same,” Vermont Country Store’s statement says.

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Was Adolf Hitler a brand? As one of our more recent home-grown brands would say, you betcha. And he was marketed like one. So runs the argument in Steven Heller’s new book, “Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian States.”

Heller does not seem to be a fan of branding even for benign products. A statement attributed to Confucius—“Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws”—is, Heller writes, “just one of many quotations speciously appended to promotional tracts by early graphic design propagandists seeking to validate their burgeoning, though not yet official labeled ‘branding’ profession.”

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Tom Hansen, the executive creative director at Wunderman will be sharing his thoughts with us using a cartoon version of himself. Look for a new episode every two weeks!

Maybe I was ahead of the game. Maybe I was reaching for something that was so far out there. Maybe I was desperate to make our October story on mobile commerce something more than your overplayed “m-commerce is here” article.

But when Ralph Lauren told the world it was going to use QR codes on its marketing materials, I had to go for it. QR code usage could become the next big thing for mobile merchants. Or they may be the next $2 bill.

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Maybe I was ahead of the game. Maybe I was reaching for something that was so far out there. Maybe I was desperate to make our October story on mobile commerce something more than your overplayed “m-commerce is here” article.

But when Ralph Lauren told the world it was going to use QR codes on its marketing materials, I had to go for it. QR code usage could become the next big thing for mobile merchants. Or they may be the next $2 bill.

more