🧴✨The Nexialist #0195

toxic influence | stop listening to the customer | victoria’s secret | 7 levels of brand engagement | latexfauna | winter baby / new jersey blue

Oct 17, 2024

welcome to your weekly dollop of some-sorts-of-culture, the nexialist

hey you! i hope this message finds you well. this week, we talk about branding, greenwashing, woke-washing, entertainment and some nice tunes to listen to. that is simplifying it quite a lot, so please make sure to at least take a look.

last week, we had the ai world summit close to amsterdam (i’ll not comment because i didn’t see many talks and the ones i saw were not so good), the first amsterdam meet-up of

Artificial Insights

, a nice family dinner with my siblings and all our partners, a cute polycule dinner, a visit to ikea and lot of crying at the movies watching the thai movie ‘how to make millions before grandma dies.’ i watched it with dutch subtitles due to my lack of attention and i was actually surprised i got 60-70% of the movie.

now, i’ll leave you to it! enjoy! 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

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🧴toxic influence

Thomas Klaffke

shared this in his

Creative Destruction

newsletter and it’s popcorn worthy: greenpeace busting dove’s real beauty campaign, as unilever is one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world. with footage from landfills and oceans filled with plastic

while watching it, i was thinking how the ‘human-centric’ approach has been drilled into our heads as the ultimate goal for brands/services/etc, but this campaign shows exactly where this argument backfires. corporations get so focused on the human to the detriment of the environment, which is why anything human-centric has been leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. shouldn’t shift to nature-centric, planet-centric or life-centric strategies (or whatever you wanna call it)?

brainsparks: shitthropocene (tn#170), occlupanida (tn#155), plastic visualization (tn#23)

🤫stop listening to the customer

this title really got me, because it is quite radical but also refreshing in a time where human-centered or customer-centered are almost obligatory in brand guides.

Stef Hamerlinck

from

Let's talk branding

interviewed adam ferrier, founder of thinkerbell, about his book and he is a master at thought-provoking statements.

stop listening to the customer talks about how there is a correlation with customer-obsessed brands and this mass blanding, and it makes sense: if all brands aim to please their customers, they will just reflect what is already out there, losing their identity. it’s another cause of the moodboard effect (tn#66) and the age of average (tn#115).

he also said something that blew my mind: ikea and apple might say they are customer-centric but they’re not really. apple has confusing payment processes and doesn’t make it easy for interoperability, and ikea makes you literally go through a maze to find things for your house and you have to lose your mind assembling your new furniture (i love doing it btw). so these frictions which are very much on purpose do help build a strong brand, i guess…

brainsparks: aa frictionless world is boring as f*ck (tn#163), moodboard effect (tn#66), age of average (tn#115), enshittification lifecycle (tn#106), life after lifestyle (tn#91), channel drift (tn#60)

🪽victoria’s secret

after a 6 year hiatus, the victoria's secret show is back. i have to talk about it because my timeline was consumed by it (and also i couldn’t help myself but to see what the fuss was all about). wait, but weren't they cancelled for a series of controversies—making transphobic comments, getting caught in the #metoo and in the epstein network, and just in general perpetuating the expectations on women’s bodies?— yes, they were. and their audience had decreased greatly, along with their profits.

but here they are, after a global pandemic, and rihanna’s savage fenty’s radical diversity disruption on the category (which might have been the real blow— showing a brand can make lingerie for all body types). vc claimed they heard the customers (and society), and are probably hoping we forgot all about their slips. the timing is a bit off though, as the internet just got served some the substance, a direct criticism on the industry and society’s harsh expectations on women’s bodies.

the show is euphoric indeed, and you can see them trying to punch the zeitgeist straight through the chest. the musical numbers are women-only and global: k-pop idol lisa from blackpink, the timeless cher and grammy-winner tyla. chappell roan and charli xcx were central in the soundtrack. there was also a y2k nostalgic appeal with some of the original angels there, and other big names. there were two trans models, alex consani and valentina sampaio, as well as plus-size and 50+ models.

but it did feel like tokenized diversity and woke-washing, as the majority of the models are size zero and there is a clear and narrow femininity archetype that they couldn’t free themselves from. at times, the synchronized catwalks felt like an oppressive army. and as i was watching the models with their iconic wings, a symbol of freedom and power, i could notice for the first time how they’re are actually held by harnesses— this paradox of the emprisoning restraining ties of the absurd beauty ideals. but you know, in an era of bubblegum mysogyny (tn#22) and barbie’s success with authentic artificiality (tn#130), i wouldn’t be surprised if this comeback actually works. or not.

brainsparks: žižek vs woke-ism (tn#141), the roots of anti-woke (tn#171), the perpetual infantilization of millenial women (tn#139), let us be ugly & dumb (tn#134), the substance (tn#192), barbie’s authentic artificiality (tn#130), bubblegum mysogyny (tn#22)

🥤7 levels of brand engagement

another link from

Let's talk branding

which is quite interesting for brand managers: 7 levels of brand engagement. you know i love a good framework, so since we are talking branding today, i couldn’t leave this out. i know these things are not so linear, but having these distinctions might help understand where your brand is and where you want to go. on their substack you can find more specifically what each level entails.

brainsparks: post-branding (tn#178), creative effectiveness (tn#28), community building (tn#64)

🔥latexfauna

my algorithm was kind this week and showed me this indie pop band from ukraine and i love it. even their name causes brainsparks. i swear it’s not because the vocalist has a handsome moustache (maybe i was hypnotized). but seriously, the video is beautiful, the dancers are amazing, the song is longer than 6 minutes and i’ve been listening to it quite a lot. it reminded me of my favorite dutch band, goldband, and the video that made me fall in love with them, alles kapot.

brainsparks: affordable romance (tn#33)

🪩winter baby / new jersey blue

070 shake is releasing a new album next month with the title petrichor (if you read tn#192 you know how obsessed i am with this word.) the video is delicious, and the 50s style music is quite refreshing. the lyrics did it for me

New Jersey Blues
My baby gets me through
Cherry syrup medicine cures nightmares too
Toxic fumes, processed foods
I paid my dues, I did my time
Now I'm comin' home to you

brainsparks: petrichor (tn#192), neo-surf (tn#43), dyke camp (tn#24)

see you next week,

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