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Making ads speak
Yesterday, I talked about the reinvention of the photograph. A couple of days ago, I found myself reading a charming essay on how we might reinvent the Google ad. Hal Roberts points out in the early days of advertising, it...
Grant McCracken
Advertising Watch
Categories: , strategy
Photos
I was reading Danielle Sacks' article on Alex Bogusky the other day, and I was reminded of how much I liked one of the companion photos. This is Andrew Keller (on the left) and Rob Reilly, co-executive creative directors at...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
Comfort food for everyone
???Idiosyncratic volatility is the signature of our economic age.???Harris Collingwood said this five years ago, but I am beginning to see what he means. Our economy and our culture is now awash with conflicting signals and wildly alternative alternatives.There are...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
MIT Futures of Entertainment
The MIT Futures of Entertainment is meeting in Cambridge, November 21 and 22. This is year 3. You can get all the details here. Hope to see you there. Please do say hi. Here's how the MIT website describes the...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
What's on? (giving TV the Talmudic treatment)
Pam and I amuse ourselves while watching TV by spotting small details and supplying the attribution. It's an innocent connoisseurship and quite good fun on these dark wintery nights.Pam is aces when it comes to identifying the person supplying the...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
McCain Obama
A European friend taunted me (and other bloggers) today for having nothing to say about the Obama victory. And of course I do have something to say. It's my job. (And in any case, I'm a chatter box.) Both Obama...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
homeyness triumphant
A couple of days ago, I argued consumers would respond to the present economic downturn by "dwelling" instead of "surging." I argued that this change would be governed by cultural subroutine called "homeyness." (Both Virginia Postrel and Tyler Cowen were...
Grant McCracken
Anthropology of Contemporary Culture
Categories: , strategy
Jameson wins the Holberg?
I just saw the announcement for the Holberg International Memorial Prize. This year the award goes to Fredric R. Jameson. In addition to this great honor, Dr. Jameness will receive 4.5 m NOK (roughy, $775,000 USD).I have one question: Jameson?...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
Small talk, Ziva and art: more thoughts on 'culture above' and 'culture below'
When I was in Charlotte last week, I noticed my taxi driver had a copy of Common American Phrases in Everyday Contexts: a detailed guide to real-life conversation and small talk. I paged through it on the way to the...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
Noise in the signal
Last night on The Mentalist, the police were interviewing a suspect and the suspect was complaining. He says (something like), "When you weigh what I do, women don't even notice you. I'm just not a good looking guy." One of...
Grant McCracken
Anthropology of Contemporary Culture
Categories: , strategy
A new blog compendium
There's a new blog compendium here at THIS BLOG. You can see it's "cover" to the right of this post. This compendium collects about 45 posts on being anthropologist for hire. It's intended for those who might like to make...
Grant McCracken
Categories: , strategy
click here
This blog compendium is meant to show you how to be an anthropologist for hire. Anthropology can be your vocation and avocation . You can do it by day...for clients. And you can do it by night...for yourself. At night,...
Grant McCracken
how to be a self-funding anthropologist
Categories: , strategy
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