<nettime> logos love digest [tillett, jaeger]

[authentic_nettime <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

"wade tillett" <super89@bigfoot.com>
     Re: <nettime> The Logos Fight Back
"tim jaeger" <tim_in_flux@hotmail.com>
     Companies and Love, or why i ditched my girlfriend for GAP.COM

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From: "wade tillett" <super89@bigfoot.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> The Logos Fight Back
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 13:25:15 -0500


>From: geert lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>
>To: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
>Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 5:05 PM
>Subject: <nettime> The Logos Fight Back
>
<http://www.consider.net/forum_new.php3?newTemplate=OpenObject&newTop=
200106
> 180018&newDisplayURN=200106180018>
> by James Harkin
> Monday 18th June 2001

> The most promising way for companies to adapt is to reinvent themselves as
> ethical brands - concerned spokespersons within civil society, rather than
> companies that exist simply to maximise profit. Faced with setbacks in its
> European operation and the perception of "cultural imperialism" in its
> brand identity, Coca-Cola has already decided to reinvent itself as a
> corporate citizen. Last year, its chief executive, Douglas Daft, told the
> Financial Times that Coke's new pitch will be to "lead as model citizens"....

In other words, the 'second bottom line' has (at least) the following
goals:

1. To legitimize and extend self-regulation through a perceived
'market-controlled' morality.
Morality is always the camouflage of exploitation. Do we really want
companies pitching morals? Does this not sound like a corporate
manifest destiny? 'We must conquer them to save them from themselves.'

2. To create more subtle and direct forms of PR.
What percentage of news stories and videos are the direct result of
corporate 'news' releases? By crossing the 'line' of product and
politic, the line between advertising and news is also crossed. This
is nothing new of course, just a further implementation. When Coke
changed their formula, the whole media got in on the spin. Everyone
talked about it. It was a genius PR move... Take away the product and
the gap will fill with media about the product.

3. To discredit, not silence, opposition.
A certain amount of opposition is necessary to create the discourse
after all. So that news magazines/programs can run 'features' on
Monsanto and present 'both sides of the story' wherby the villager
comes on and says how great it is that he is being exploited by said
seed company, and the 'seattle - wto' protester types are really just
(implied to be) uninformed. The death throes of Coca-Cola and Monsanto
will not be massive protests and news features, whereby the companies
eventually just have to spend so much investing in the community that
they won't be able to make a profit. No, it will not result from
media-spin and anti-ads. It can only result from an abandonment of the
product and the privileged position that product offers relative to
it.... be it 'anti-'advertiser or consumer. Only then can one escape
the discourse of 'anti' which places the product (and, not
accidentally, the 'anti'-product) at the focus.

>...As politics has become the stuff of
> focus groups, PR spin and endless rebranding of institutions (such as
> schools), personalities and parties, marketing itself takes on the
> techniques and values of politics. Traditional modes of solidarity, through
> trade unions, churches and political parties, are in steep decline. So
> people search for new forms of politics and new sources of belief.  At the
> same time, the modern corporation, uncertain about the future direction of
> its business and determined to hold on to its consumers, is finding that
> ethical branding is an ideal strategy with which to promote customer
> loyalty. In the hands of the brand managers, a political vacuum becomes a
> gap in the market.

After all, what is best is if you can buy your M&M's and feel good
about it too. Instead of just giving to a cause directly, the giving
is associated with a product, and a certain percentage is given to
help a cause. What is even further down this line of thought is that
THE MORALS ARE THE PRODUCT.

AIDS Rides and cancer walks and what not allow the consumer to aquire
not only an experience of the ride/walk, of much more importance than
that is the public cloak of morality. The image/position of self which
is offered by the product IS the product.
(See http://www.pallottateamworks.com 'Pallotta TeamWorks is
headquartered in Los Angeles, is a California for-profit corporation,
and has over 250 full-time employees in 15 offices around the United
States.')

> What this suggests is that the war against brands has already been won,
> that the brand activists have been kicking against an open door....

And why is this door already open?
(And the media industry and the finance industry and the product
industy and the culture and social industry all smirk, 'Whatever you
do, don't throw me in the briar patch...')

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From: "tim jaeger" <tim_in_flux@hotmail.com>
Subject: Companies and Love, or why i ditched my girlfriend for GAP.COM
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 15:54:27 -0400

re: THE LOGOS FIGHT BACK!!!

>KL Yes, not consciously. I'm basically trying to be a spontaneous,
>authentic human being who is talking to another human being.
>The exchange highlights one of the dilemmas facing the movement against
>brands.

COMPANIES AND LOVE..or why i ditched my girlfriend for GAP.COM

This live about being a "spontaneous, authentic human being" cracks me up. I 
see a definite parallel emerging between companies' marketing/advertising 
tactics and relationships, specifically "love"...

As companies try to take on human faces as much as possible rather than 
sending out bland (or exciting!!!!) messages to reach the populus, they'll 
have to address new data-formations in P2P networks, and, quite possibly, 
actually vie for relationship-space amongst the various people we have 
running on our network-organizers (whether it's a palm pilot, cell phone, 
e-book, whatever..). As they become more and more "human", like the article 
mentioned, they'll use more and diverse tactics like traces, gestures, 
colors, etc....reminding me of the various strategies we use to seduce 
lovers!

(thinking of the [CONTROL SPACE] section in the MUTATIONS book (rem 
koolhaas)).....if all the strategies companies are using so far resemble 
flirting, what will happen once they are able to communicate with us almost 
indistinguishably from "real people"? Leaving SMS messages that coincide 
with love letters, they'll move from the flirtation point of the 
relationship to the point where it'll become a full-out tryst. What will 
happen once a company has our contact info, stats, hours we shop, where we 
shop, with whom we shop, and they exploit this using the same tactics that 
we use in real relationships? How will we respond to companies using 
passive-aggressive behavior to win our attention, slightly antagonistic 
personal messages to throw us off balance, or even offers that are more 
appealing than those that our current lovers make? I can imagine a future 
where we have to tell our significant other that URBANOUTFITTERS.COM has 
done more research and investment into ourselves than they have, and they're 
more willing to adapt to our personal lives, offering the after-sex bedside 
chat (in whatever form), the sunday in the park, etc. all to keep us as part 
of their constituency.

Put simply, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping these types, and 
more, mutant types of formations from happening. I can't wait until the day 
when we have ".hum" as an extension to prove to the world that behind the 1s 
and 0s, behind the positioning, advertising, promotion, and expectations for 
others to "invest" in us, there is a living, breathing human being. Although 
at that point we won't be so sure..

quoting Guattari from CHAOSMOSIS, companies and humans will both have to 
"recompose their existential corporeality, to get our their repetitive 
impasses and, in a certain way, to resingularise themselves" in order to win 
our love, to keep the relationship going...

speculative nonfiction - tim jaeger



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