Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
No marketing campaign is more contrived than a marketing campaign that wants to avoid being perceived as contrived, Rob Walker reports in today’s New York Times. Well actually that isn't exactly what Walker reports but the message is clear.
Towards the end of the piece, after detailing some "poor behavior" -my term- by the company responsible for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Walker writes:
Does it matter? I actually doubt that a single P.B.R. drinker who hears the history of Pabst Brewing will give up the beer as a result. P.B.R. may be a ''political'' brand but not in a 1960's sense of political, which assumes a kind of zero-sum ideological game. In this politics, symbolic solidarity with the blue-collar heartland trumps the real thing. (Actually, the brand's growth is occurring in urban centers; it's losing share in the rural Midwest.) And you could argue that no-benefits line cooks, bike messengers and temps add up to new blue-collar equivalents.
Well maybe but it is quite odd that they none the less rely on the symbols of "authenticity " that comes from a very different group.
