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.

Who is Philip Mangano

Philip Mangano's name rolled off Malcolm Gladwell's tongue the other day and I had to learn why.

He was a Bush appointee and has been working to fight homelessness in the US. It's funny he shares his name with a mafia don.

Some stats: 34 m Americans live below poverty, estimated 3 m homeless.

Mangano has been traveling the US holding press conferences on homelessness. This issue has not been a Bush admin hot button but it has been impacted. Large Section 8 housing cuts needed counter-spin by an investment in helping the homeless without families get back in the workforce. Mangano has been shuffling around federal funding from one homeless program to another. Either he's hoping to get his agenda across with a radical shakeup or he's demanding more accountability and not finding it. Either way, I am not sure why Gladwell thinks he's so great.

This may just be one more instance where government passes off social programs to the non-profit sector. In Costa Rica, rural schools grow crops to pay for amenities like books and paper. He has been working closely with churches and local groups to solve the problems. Though Mangano has been working with California heavily, the evidence of his impact may lie in New Orleans. Keep your ears open to see if he's worth the hype.

Comparison Shopping

Progressive designed their whole advertising campaign off of comparison shopping, but I used them and felt a little overwhelmed with the plan features and a little skeptical of the prices they compared with. It turns out I was better off going to someone else.
Travel aggregators and shopping aggregators were some of the first online players to get comparison shopping right.
Survey Monkey is doing comparison shopping in a more honest way. They recognize that their savvy consumer is going to want to look around and they are making life easier by giving them links to other sites. They are also giving a pitch on why you should choose them even if they are not the lowest. Smart marketing.