Posts from — March 2011

Keisher McLeod-Wells may be "New York’s best hope of hatching a crossover female boxing star," reports Alex Williams in the New York Times (3/24/11). With four amateur titles already under her belt, and a 4-1 pro record, Keisher (aka "Fire") isn’t a likely pug. Indeed, she "seems better suited for the tents of the Tuileries than the ring at Madison Square Garden." She’s "a fighter who will teeter into Gleason’s on Prada platform heels, wearing a Tony Burch top and Bulgari eyeglasses that she converted from sunglasses."

But Lou DiBella, a boxing promoter, thinks Keisher is "the total package." As he explains, "Keisher is a pretty girl, she’s very bright, personable, she’s well known in the boxing family in New York, and she’s a married lady with a normal, stable life … And she can fight." Keisher suggests that her looks and her soft-spoken ways give her an edge. "There are many talented female boxers, but a lot of times, you need a gimmick," she says. "The route that I chose is being fashionable and colorful."

Originally hoping to be an actress and model, Keisher discovered boxing after being turned down for a part in Terminator 3 because she wasn’t sufficiently muscular. She "immediately fell in love with the training," especially because it involved jump rope. However, even if she wins a title, Keisher doesn’t expect to make a lot of money like the men do, but she says that’s not the point, because, she says, it’s not about testosterone. "With men, it’s all slugging and no technique," she says. "They get hit, go wild and lose control. Women, we’re kind of like pop, pow, pow, pow … We do want to be pretty and feminine, after all … especially me."

Unilever is out with a new deodorant it says makes women’s underarms more attractive, reports Ellen Byron in the Wall Street Journal (3/30/11). Dove Ultimate Go Sleeveless claims "its formula of specialized moisturizers will give women better looking underarms in five days." The concept is based on a Unilever survey "that found 93 percent of women consider their armpits unattractive … One in three, meanwhile, said they feel more confident when their armpits are in good condition."

Sixty-two percent "said they suffer underarm skin problems such as breakouts, discoloration or itchiness … Nearly half said they have been embarrassed enough by the condition of their underarms that they have changed clothes to cover up." For Unilever, this spells opportunity to persuade shoppers to try something new. According to a survey by Mintel International, "50 percent of deodorant buyers reported using the same brand in the past 12 months, and 29 percent said they tried a new product but didn’t switch to it."

Of course, there’s no shortage of options: "Shoppers are typically choosing from among 300 distinct deodorant products spanning 25 brands or sub-brands, according to data from Spire LLC." Jonathan Asher of Perception Research Services says pointing out problems for which consumers didn’t previously seek solutions "be it dandruff, bad breath or body odor" can be effective. However, he adds: "Any marketer has to be careful of appearing to create a problem that doesn’t really exist." Dove’s ads feature actress Jessica Szohr, and the caption: "With Dove, Jessica’s ready to bare those beautiful underarms."

Don’t let the basics get lost in the shuffle at retail. By Will Minton. Are you as transfixed as I am by the sequences of zeros and ones that make up today’s digital shopper-marketing space? I find myself salivating at the thought of soon being able to scan UPC codes with my smart phone to complete a purchase without ever having to wait in line.

However, many of these advances in shopper-facing retail technology have not exactly been transformative. In fact, new technologies were rated as having the least impact on the customer experience in a recent survey of industry executives by RetailWire and Dechert-Hampe. The editors’ interpretation was that these enhancements are not transforming the shopper experience as much as they are refashioning aspects that were already there … read >>

People loved Edith Piaf because they "knew that her drama wasn’t mere acting," writes James Gavin in a New York Times review of No Regrets by Carolyn Burke (3/25/11). When she "sang her theme, ‘Non Je Ne Regrette Rien,’ (known in English as ‘No Regrets’), Piaf defied anyone to pity her. She embraced life passionately, even at its cruelest; so long as she could use it in her songs, she felt, the suffering was worth it." And yet, "the image persists of a pathetic waif, too frail for this world."

In No Regrets, Carolyn centers on Edith Piaf’s strength as "the chanteuse who reached across social, linguistic and national divides to voice the emotions of ordinary people." Her own story certainly gave her credibility. Edith "grew up being cast aside: by her father, a traveling circus acrobat and contortionist; by her mother, a singer whose drug habit kept landing her in jail; and her grandmother, who ran a brothel where Edith was sent to live." After she almost went blind from a childhood illness, "her father took her to a cafe and had her sing for tips."

The lowlife types she sang to "felt like family to her, and she to them." From this she "began formulating a repertory of chansons realistes, a popular tradition of story-songs about the downtrodden and the desperate." Her career was guided by "several father figures who helped mold her into the Piaf of legend." The first of these, Louis Leplee, bought Edith her first black dress "and christened her Piaf (French slang for Sparrow). By the 1930′s, Piaf had "risen to the top of France’s musical elite," becoming famous as "a singer who lives her songs," before succumbing to a bleeding ulcer and liver damage in 1963, at age 47.

Long dismissed as "hidebound and resistant to change," fado music is enjoying a revival via "an explosion of new voices, most of them female," reports Larry Rohter in the New York Times (3/25/11). Popularized in Portugal by the late Amalia Rodrigues over her 60-year-career, fado is "Portugal’s soulful, guitar-based national song style." It fell into disfavor after Portugal’s fascist regime fell in 1974, abandoned by a younger generation that "saw fado as a symbol of the country’s backwardness and repression."

There was also the legend of Amalia to live up to. "Any time a new singer appears, there’s always a comparison with Amalia, since she is the great goddess of fado," says Yolanda Soares, who is among the singers taking fado in new directions on her latest record, Metamorphosis. Ana Moura is also part of the "novo fado" movement, and catapulting "the genre into the 21st century, opening a space for bold experiments with repertory, instrumentation and ways of singing." For Ana, this includes a fado cover of a Rolling Stones song, No Expectations.

The genre actually dates back to the 1820s, "as the music of a port," explains fado singer Mariza, "a place where mixtures take place, with sailors bringing influences" from around the world. Its essence is in a Portuguese word, saudade, "which basically translates into "longing, yearning, nostalgia or melancholy." Some singers are updating with different instrumentation, like electric guitar and drums, while others are challenging "the traditional fado uniform of severe black dress and shawl," which some see as conveying "the image of a victim." The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, "is fado’s image as a genre in which women dominate."

A pair of writers is making the web safe for long-form journalism, reports David Carr in the New York Times (3/28/11). Evan Ratliff and Nicholas Thompson, who worked together at Wired, are fans of the kind of "deeply reported journalism" that is not necessarily compatible with the sound-bite nature of digital media. But together with Jefferson Rabb, a programmer and web designer, they’ve come up with an app for the iPad, iPhone, Kindle and Nook that makes "the web a friend, not an enemy of the articles they like to work on and read."

The result of their collaboration is The Atavist, a publishing venture that brings "all the richness of the web — links to more information, video … in an app displaying an article, but with a swipe of the finger, the presentation reverts to clean text that can be scrolled by merely tilting the device." The app also lets readers "toggle to an audio version" so they can listen to the piece while driving to work, for example. And there’s "a place for comments that mimics the notes that people put in the margins of complicated, interesting pieces."

Evan wrote one of the first pieces, a 13,000-word story about "an immense heist at a Swedish cash repository." It opens with "an actual video taken by the security cameras," followed by the text. Other pieces feature photography or audio, all of which is uploaded by the writer via a content-management system. Writers are paid a fee to cover their writing expenses, and then they split revenues with the Atavist. So far, the app has attracted 40,000 downloads at $2.99 each for the iPad/iPhone and $1.99 for Kindle or Nook. Various publishers are now negotiating with the Atavist to use the app for books.

The late Frank Griffin didn’t use e-mail or a computer, but his newspaper defined "hyperlocal" before it was "a journalism buzzword," reports Liz Robbins in the New York Times (3/28/11). Frank was publisher of The Home Reporter and Sunset News, covering Brooklyn, which he founded in 1952 (The Sunset News merger followed in 1962). Before that, he earned a journalism degree at Fordham University, and worked for both The World Telegram and The New York Enquirer, which is now the National Enquirer.

By most accounts, Frank was quiet, dignified guy, who was almost never seen without a dress shirt and tie. But his editorial style clearly owed something to his days at the Enquirer. When a car crashed into a bar, his headline was, "Another Wallbanger, Please!" And when a local man tripped on a sidewalk, it was front-page news: "Man Hurt in Fall From Curb." The Home Reporter "mixed murder and mayhem with wedding anniversaries and political gossip." It was also packed with classified ads.

Sara Otey, his companion and managing editor, says Frank was "unorthodox" as a publisher, but that he was also "involved … and instinctive, and he was old-fashioned in his ideas of a weekly newspaper." And for Frank, this meant repeatedly declining opportunities to put the Home Reporter and Sunset News online. However, this past January, while on a Caribbean cruise, Frank "matter-of-factly" told Sara he had sold the paper to the Queens Courier chain. After returning from the cruise, Frank fell ill, and six days after being diagnosed with lymphoma, he died, at 83.

Without male shoppers, brands are missing their Marks (and Jeffs and Phils). By Ken Featherston. For the past century, men have been a marketing afterthought. The old mantra of “he makes, she buys,” has made women the automatic target of countless campaigns, regardless of the brand or service being offered. This is a big miss if you look at the important role that men play in today’s household tasks, decision-making and routine shopping.

The male shopper has evolved with changing societal roles and perceptions. “Metrosexuals” made their entrance into the traditionally female retail space with an increased interest in personal care and grooming. This brought men into the marketer’s consciousness, but also built a narrow and inaccurate picture of male shoppers that lingered for more than a decade. Then came the backlash of the “retrosexual,” who shunned his feminine side and would never be caught wearing pink … read >>

Dante Giacosa‘s fingerprints are all over the design of the latest Fiat 500, reports Phil Patton in the New York Times (3/27/11). Dante’s original Fiat 500 design, in 1936, was known as Il Topolino, the Italian nickname for Mickey Mouse.” He “set the engine over the front axle and tucked the radiator behind it. The big, crusader-shield grille leaned backward, making the car appear, despite its tiny dimensions, speedy and modern.” It sold for the equivalent of about $500 (image).

Il Topolino was meant to please Il Duce “around the same time Hitler was promising a people’s car priced at 1,000 marks.” Dante went on to supervise “three improved versions of the original 500, the last of these in 1948.” In 1955, he created a four-seater, the Fiat 600, and then two years later designed the Cinquecento, or Nuova 500, “a true people’s car that captured the spirit of its 1930′s ancestor.” The Cinquecento became “as much a symbol of Italian life as the Vespa scooter or Bialetti espresso maker.

Pixar Studios “used it as a model for Luigi, in Cars — basically “a 500 with a little mustache and a heavy accent.” But the genius of Dante’s designs, according to Fiat’s current design chief, Roberto Giolito, was because of his background as an engineer who “understood both structure and aesthetics.” Roberto found inspiration in this as he re-designed the newest 500, a version of which is “now being built in Mexico for the American market.” He also “reached for a more recent inspiration in the form of a globally recognized product: an iPod.” You can join a waiting list to buy a new Fiat 500 here.

With names like S-Cargo, Be-1, Figaro and Pao, Nissan once hoped to create a new approach to car design, reports Phil Patton in the New York Times (3/20/11). This was in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and the idea was to borrow "design and marketing strategies from other industries like personal electronics. At the time, Japanese companies like Sony and Panasonic — along with automakers like Toyota, Honda and Nissan — were the envy of the world." Known as Pike Cars, they "were as cute as Hello Kitty, radiating a cartoonish insouciance that spoke of Japanese confidence before a decade of stasis set in."

The designs "represented the height of postmodernism. Unabashedly retro, they were inspired by French and Italian designs of the ’50s," combining elements of Citroen, Renault, Fiat and the Trabant. "They were designed to be polarizing and build a buzz," says Bryan Thompson, a former Nissan designer, who owns a 1990 Nissan Pao. "They are concept cars come to life."

Each of the cars was a limited edition — Bryan’s Pao is only one of 10,000 built — and none of which was sold in America. With a canvas roof and ribbed sides, "The Pao was designed for drives through the countryside, and picnics," says Bryan. Then there was the Figaro, "whose expressive face is worthy of Pixar Studios." The S-Cargo, meanwhile, "whose name was a pun on small cargo and escargot," featured a "rear cargo area, curved like a snail’s shell." Even though Nissan didn’t promote these cars — "customers had to discover them, like an unmarked club — they exceeded expectations." Nissan actually held lotteries for the right to buy one.