Marketing Indie Cred Ethically?

The connection between your title and the article isn't obvious to me.

Banking is not supposed to be trendy at all. It's true that the financial industry has become a "I'll suck your small cock if you open up a savings acoount with us" sort of mentalty, yet it is not necessary for you to grow or cultivate your money in an atmosphere where it is just.......well yuppie.

It also sucks for the customer most because they could earn a higher rate on their CD or their Money Market account rather than having elaborate "Stores" (that's another per peeve i have but i'm not goin into it) with fancy furniture and branded coffee

Bank of America has their own brand of water, These guys have their own coffee. The moment that i start to see big red couches in the branches them i'm quitting faster that a competant Best Buy employee.

Companies wooing the hip are so insidious. "But we're supporting local artists!" What kind of art/music scene is happening where local artists and musicians see corporate puppetry as their only viable option in order to be noticed? I saw this firsthand at the Venus September issue release party. Big Friendly Giant Corporation throws money at the cool kids to make their party even cooler. Would it have been just as cool without corporate accompaniment? We'll never know but I'd like to think so. Does this mean that folks are getting tired of fighting and are letting banks and car companies hand them their lifestyle in a free totebag?

Well, this was an interesting one 'cause it's a small, local bank, actually using local, independent music. BUT FOR A BANK.

Harpy, tell me more about the Venus release party. That's a part of the Toyota YarisWorks thing I was askin' about earlier in the fourms!

independents' day media rulezzzz!

I'm still kinda exploring this website, so I haven't made it to the forums (fora?) yet. *sheepish grin*

Anyway, the release party was admittedly a LOT of fun. The Toyota presence was subtle but definitely clear. So subtle, in fact, that I didn't even realize they were there until I'd been at the party for at least an hour. Toyota also wasn't mentioned in the original post I'd seen for the party.

A Yaris was parked out in front of the gallery with a buncha Toyota people milling about as the party began. Later those folks would hand out little cameras with instructions to film something representing a random adjective you pulled from a hat. I got roped into doing it 'cause I'm mostly a wimp but I ended up leaving the camera on a desk without "completing my assignment". The downstairs party seemed to be mostly devoted to Venus-related hobnobbing and feasting. Upstairs was the real meat of the Yarisworks tie-in -- which was not apparent to me until later. There were stations to make different crafts with tons of available, free-to-use supplies. My husband and I were able to make tshirts, buttons, a hand-tooled leather cuff, and could have made little stuffed creatures if we'd wanted to. Did I mention plentiful supplies? There were hundreds of dollars worth, even if some stuff was donated (e.g. the tshirts were all from American Apparel and looked to be possibly unpopular styles/colors.) I know from personal experience that craft supplies can get really expensive so Venus either sprang for it or Toyota did.

As I said, the Toyota presence was subtle. In the upstairs area there were little booklets showcasing the Yarisworks campaign and listing who was involved (Buy Olympia surprised me). The booklet seemed to be published in conjunction with Readymade magazine -- it even looked like a mini version -- and focused on instructions for a few DIY projects as well as how to modify your Yaris. I think there may have been a CD of various bands (doing covers of Toyota jingles?) but I didn't pick one up. My husband was also pulled to do a little video interview about the event and his thoughts on the Yaris. I'm assuming they're going to use these interviews for future hipster endorsements in TV ads.

In the fetrid white turd world of Professional Librarianship, we have been slowly accustoming ourselves to the idea that we are no longer a "profession." Instead, what has become of us is something akin to a poorly constructed backyard homologous, a cardboard and roofing tile heap of bad one liners cribbed from a Dilbert cartoon and the drool soaked bullet points from some self help business consultant's seminar handout about empowering the workplace or dealing with difficult customers in an exceptional service enviroment.

In short, what I am attempting to say is that the words hidden in a swift scattering flay within that article strike me as horribly dangerous. Dangerous because these reductions of common sense, these violent terms attacking plain speaking language create such a confusion of meanings and mixed metaphors as a means of self-propelling a false sense of importance and station in society.

Phrases such as "community hub” and the recasting of traditional labels like "branches" to "stores" sets off loud alarm bells in the ears of anyone who has undergone a "visioning" process or participated in a "strategic planning" program. Those avant garde business techniques that stole hours of an employee's life away from them by trapping them in endless meetings with large easel-sized notepads, slowly catching a buzz from the stench of sharpie markers.

The cost of Ray Oldernburg's Third Place, Robert Spector's The Nordstrom's Way, and Daniel Golman's Emotional Intelligence will never fully be calculated. But somewhere in there, one would have to add a line item for such travesties as bank's producing records, coffee retailers making movies, and libraries throwing away all their books.

John is on fire today.

Hey Anne-- I added a "links" tag to this, and split "marketing" from "independent culture" just to make the categories make more sense in the future.