Episode 14 - Flagging Attention

Show Notes

Flags in a fractured world.

• Trump Pence Flag
• Trump 2020 No More Bullshit flag
• Biden Harris flag
• Flags of the Confederate States of America
• History of Flags - 3,000 BCE
• Semiotics
• The "symbol"
• Religious symbols as elements of cognitive apparatus
• Roman Jakobson
• The "metonym"
• The flag of Maryland
• The United Kingdom's flag
• Early flags in China
• The Jolly Roger pirate flag
• The Pledge of Allegiance
• "The Star-Spangled Banner"
• Betsy Ross
• Roland Barthes on mythology
• Thin blue line flag
• Rainbow Oreos
• Blue Lives Matter - Punisher variation
• Black Lives Matter flag appropriation
• David Hammond's African-American flag

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Episode 13 - Cargo Cult

Show Notes

The ritualized practice of sympathetic magic in agencies and economics.

• Cargo Cults
• Sympathetic Magic
• Growth and GDP
• Externalities in production
• Will McDonough 2005 TED Talk
• Philosopher Georges Bataille
• HBR Article: GDP Is Not A Measure of Human Well-Being
• Origins of GDP as economic indicator
• "Ad Astra" Film
• Greta Thunberg at UN Climate Action Summit: "we are at the beginning of a mass extinction...and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth: how dare you?"
• David Attenborough's latest documentary: "A Life On Our Planet"
• RoboPsych Podcast interview with Dr. Scott Nowicki: "There's this funny relationship between those who are theoretically in charge and those who are actually preparing for the future."
• BlueOrigin.com
• Helena Norberg-Hodge NY Times article: "What if local and diverse is better than networked and global?"

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Episode 12 - Rituals

Show Notes

The role and functions of ritual in life and brands.

• Religious affiliation identification
• Kathleen McKee
• SoulCycle
• Baltimore Catechism
• Michel Foucault, "The Archaeology of Knowledge"
• Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation
• Imprimatur
• Cargo Cults
• "The Thing" by Martin Heidegger

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Episode 11 - QAnon: Brand Audit

Show Notes

The origins and properties of an influential political force.

• QAnon Wikipedia Page
• Google Trends, Searches for QAnon
• VP Pence With Sheriffs Wearing QAnon Patch
• Origin of the Twitter Hashtag
• Illuminati and Lizard People
• The Crusades
• Claude Levi-Strauss "The Raw and The Cooked"
• Walter Benjamin on Kitsch
• Michael Flynn QAnon video
• Origin of word, "kitsch"

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Episode 10 - A Sound Persona

Show Notes

Exploring sound in brands and culture.

• Alex Friedman - Comedian satirizes commercials on Twitter
• "Vlog Brothers"
• The Persona
• Judith Butler - "Gender Trouble"
• Egosyntonic and Egodystonic
• Neu! - "Hallogallo"
• "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" - 1949 Porsche Jay Leno episode
• "Noise: The Political Economy of Music" by Jacques Attali
• "If You Talked To People The Way Advertising Talked To People, They'd Punch You In The Face" by Hugh McLeod
• "Network" - Peter Finch scene
• AlexFriedman.com

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Ep. 9 - Meritocracy?

Show Notes

As the world struggles with inequality, how do we re-think the meaning of "merit"?

• Isabel Wilkerson - "Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents"
• Michael Sandel - "The Tyranny of Merit"
• Polls: Is America headed in the right direction? On the right track? 27% say "yes"
• Robert Putnam - "Bowling Alone"
• Michael Young - "The Rise of the Meritocracy," origin of term "meritocracy"
• A "K-shaped" economic recovery
• Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income proposal
• "The Golem" - 1915 Film
• Kenosha, WI Sheriff on "warehousing these people for the rest of their lives"
• Doc Rivers post-game news conference video
• The Beatles - "Penny Lane"
• Miles Davis - "Bitches Brew"
• Miles Davis - "On The Corner"
• Joan Baez - "There But For Fortune"

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Ep. 8 - Vinyl/Virtual

Show Notes

Cleverness, clothes, and fashion.

• Independent Article on £500 "Digital Shirt"
• Fast Company Article: "Who's Wearing Vinyl Pants In Quarantine?"
• Tribute brand virtual fashion line
• Joseph Kosuth MOMA Piece: "Art As Idea As Idea"
• Banksy $1.4 Million Painting Shredding
• $120,000 Duct Taped Banana
• Roland Barthes - "The Fashion System" - From clothes to fashion
• "The Emperor's New Clothes"
• Fiorucci vinyl pants
• Franco "Bifo" Berardi: "semio-inflation"
• "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man" Mary L. Trump, Ph.D.
• Diana Vreeland: "Elegance is refusal"
• "Anthropocene"
• Yves St. Laurent
• Paco Rabanne: 12 Experimental Dresses
• William Klein, "Qui est vous, Polly Maggoo?"
• Li Edelkoort "Anti-Fashion Manifesto"
• Yves St. Laurent Film
• Rei Kawakubo's impact on women's fashion
• MILFDAD Brand
• SUPREME
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• Li Edelkoort's separation: from fashion back to clothes

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Ep. 7 - PlayTime

Play is a primary condition for culture and creativity, and key to personal development and well-being. So why is it overlooked by brands?

Show Notes

• Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
• Roger Caillois Model of Games
• Csikszentmihalyi Flow Model
• Donald Winnicott
• "The Last Dance" Michael Jordan Documentary on Netflix
• Johan Huizinga - "Homo Ludens"
• Iambic Pentameter
• Sturgis Spitting Contest
• How is COVID-19 an opportunity for brands to enable playfulness?
• Erwin Singer - "Key Concepts In Psychotherapy"
• CX - Customer Experience Maps
• Walter Benjamin - "Arcades Project"
• School of Visual Arts Class of 2020 Thesis Presentations

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Ep. 6 - Standards

Brand standards in a dynamic world.

Show Notes

• Don Pullen Tone Cluster Example
• Leonard Bernstein Videos
• Standards.site
• The NASA "Worm"
• McWhorter Trader Joe's article
• Trader Joe's response to criticism
• Alfred Hitchcock on improvisation
• Personal Identity/Brand Identity
• Milgram Experiment
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Patty Hearst Symbionese Liberation Army Kidnapping
• Jürgen Habermas
• Hannah Arendt - "The Human Condition"
• Ship of Theseus
• Shareholder and Stakeholder Value
• Marilyn Chambers
• Cognitive Dissonance
• The "Harper's Letter"
• Platonic Ideal
• School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program

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SVA Masters in Branding program.

Music courtesy of Mikel Rouse.

Dr. Tom Guarriello.

Mark Kingsley.

Thanks for your support!

Ep. 5 - Runaway American Dream

Tracing the American myths of open space, freedom, and control.

Show Notes

• Polaris Slingshot
• Revel Mopeds
• Mad Max
• Cannonball Run (NOT the film!)
• El Dorado and Utopia
• Arthur Guiterman - Poem "Daniel Boone"
• "They Live By Night"
• Freud's Personality Theory
• "Manifest Destiny"
• YouGov Flat Earth Survey
• Atlantic Magazine - Cognitive Dissonance article
• Leon Festinger on Cognitive Dissonance
• Confirmation Bias
• Julian Rotter - Internal and External Locus of Control
• New York Times Science Times Mars Jars article
• Victim, Villain, Hero Story Structure
• Wotan/Odin Myth
• Progressive Insurance - Motaur/Herd ad
• Appollonian/Dionysian Order/Chaos conflict
• Jean-Francoise Lyotard - The Post-Modern Condition
• The Motaur
• BrandBox.Show

Please subscribe and review The BrandBox on Apple Podcasts and consider hitting the Donate button on BrandBox.show!

SVA Masters in Branding program.

Music courtesy of Mikel Rouse.

Dr. Tom Guarriello.

Mark Kingsley.

Thanks for your support!