Marriage Trends

A very interesting article in this week's Economist: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9218127

Basically, the article discusses the gap between people who have babies in their teens versus those who don't. It equates young marriage and child-rearing with lower education levels, higher poverty, more chance for divorce, and more of the repeating cycle. And it shows this gap rising over time.

It also supports the education of what marriage is and raises questions about the glorified importance of marriage to Americans beyond the core idea of continuing the family line, where as countries like Italy and India stress that importance.

The marriage gap within the US makes me wonder about consumption being tied to a mass of people single without children. With the rising number of people waiting to have greater responsibility, has this aided to our more consumer-based culture? Sure not all people are single and gluttonous, but the single people are sometimes put on a pedestal. Rarely do I see the media value a stable relationship without the bait that it gets you tangible stuff.

Food for thought.

Willy Warmers

This is actually for sale!

Recycling for architecture

Patagonia's offices are made out of reused materials and aiming to be off the grid. Tru Yoga is a green space in the consumption-friendly city of LA. Lot-ek recently submitted an idea to use old airplanes fuselages for the interior structure of a library in Mexico.

I was listening to Lee Iacocca on NPR go on about how Detroit is in the past and how he see the future on electric/fuel combo cars. When asked what got him to this POV, he said it was paying 8 bucks to see a PowerPoint on the big screen. I've seen the Al Gore phonemenah with my friends and with strangers. More people are freaked out by the end of the world. And it's becoming hip to care. Same Underneath is pushing green clothes onto trendy people while Delta and major airline brokers are backing carbon neutral flights. But back to buildings ...

Even with all the old building abandoned buildings in cities, it's still not hard to justify building new ones. Maybe location is not right, or layout, or construction, or parking. Like BP's green gas station, recycling materials for new buildings is "a little better." Not as good as moving back to the city.

Steal My Idea

Exclusive ads on TV to increase effectiveness.

NPR doesn't really advertise. They take in sponsors and spit out their message in a typical NPR tone. The print world has made a fortune off of magazine-specific advertising, most notably GQ's advetorials and The Fader's CPG ads. And even Wal-Mart and Target ask for customized POS. Why hasn't TV done the same?

What if NBC asked Audi to come up with an ad, but that ad could not be on any other channel? The incremental ad production may be cheap while media will be the same price.

I suspect viewership may boom on a network offering unique ad content. The ads will be paid attention to in a more active way by some viewers. The consumers won't feel as bombarded with crap they've seen before. Agencies and production companies will have more business.
And the network will begin to create more of a brand in all 24 hours.

Now I know it is not possible to mandate for all advertisers, and local affiliates and political ads will present some challenges. But if you received a discount for following the network's culture, that may incentivize enough. Who knows; maybe you can even get the network to produce network-specific ads for you.

Biomega Bikes

Biomega unleashed their bicycles on the world around 2004 and have been tearing up the bike world with high design. Their cruiser is available at DWR for about $1200 and their commuter through Puma. These bikes are hyped as the 21st century bike for good reason. They replaced chain with drive shaft. They use new materials like plastic-aluminum combos. And they use crazy wheels.