“A German magazine has taken the ‘brave’ decision to use real women as models. … a ‘revolution’ going on in fashion. A ‘new era’ has dawned …”

This is so laughable and when compared to the other design sectors – it really shows how out of touch with reality many fashion “designers” are, and how the whole industry, including customers, participate in this grand denial.

Imagine these headlines:
“Architects specify …

This example of marketers and advertisers misappropriating a foreign culture for shallow ends greeted me when I was collecting my luggage at Copenhagen airport recently.

I find this rather distasteful: alcohol abuse is a significant social problem within the Australian aboriginal community.

In a conversation with Danish wayfinding expert Nicolai Okkels in the same airport a few days later, Häagen-Dazs and Nørdic Mist came up as …

The Art and Science of Pricing by Havi Brooks

Using resonance to set a price: “You feel it or you don’t. And your goal in setting your prices is that your right people — the people you really want to serve — feel it too. They get that “mmmmm, yeah, that’s exactly what it should cost” vibration.”

In other words, listen to your body when setting a price. …

Summarised from Working for Happiness by Alex Frankel.

Over two years, journalist Alex Frenkel worked a diverse range of jobs to explore the connection between corporate culture and happiness at work – UPS, Starbucks, Gap, Enterprise and an Apple Store. He discovered three secrets to a happy workplace:

Go for flow

Autonomy to manage one’s own tasks and timelines.
Measure on what was done (outcomes); not micro-managing the how.
Enable pride …

Would telemarketers do what they do if they were subject to their own practices?

Clearly not for at least one establishment:

Another example is the manufacture and use of recycled slop oil (with gross pictures).

A good test of ethical business must be: would you (the owner of the business) use your own services or products?

1. Solving their own needs –> 2. Asking others what they want –> 3. Tapping into a mission with wider relevance.

Many businesses start off doing something for themselves. Leveraging a talent to build a product, or create a service that satisfies their own needs. For example: Apple started because the two Steves had a need to build a computer. This is step 1.

As their product or service took …

Spotted in Wired magazine recently:

A particularly nice congruent ad I thought. Plus a great tagline that immediately repositions the competition and states a clearly understandable value proposition. Plus featuring one of their customers as the heroes of the ad. Very straightforward, no-nonsense, no overt marketing spin.

Now for the acid test: are there any Allybank customers …

“Greed is a game played with logic only and no morals.” Scarlett Thomas.

I spotted a few books in Borders recently that dealt with clinical techniques to achieve various ends without dealing with the moral aspects: How to get women, How to win wars, How to get power…

I can’t remember the author unfortunately. And subsequent visits to Border yielded no illumination. If you do please share it below.

Anyway, …

Another blatant example of shameless greenwashing and marketing fakery?

As Anonymous on 14 August 09 commented: “Natural has no legal definition. Whatsoever. Everything including man made materials can be labeled natural.” Good thought indeed. Plastics came from 100% all-natural ancient dinosaur and plant material. So therefore plastics are 100% natural.

Read the rest at 37signals. Thanks be to Stil.

Those in the know are saying customers want meaning, beyond the usual empty and shallow marketing. This just smacks of blatant inauthenticity – and totally deserves a resounding WTF?!!