A lot of people enjoy camping, being outdoors and getting back in touch with nature. I don’t. I like my civilization with its big buildings, noisy cars and dirty sidewalks — the squirrels rummaging our trash is as close as I get to nature. Marian’s A Different Logoscape also reminded me that I’d rather be in a sensory-overload concrete jungle than in a town where the main road is unpaved and the sidewalk unbranded. I’m a bona fide city slicker… and I’m not sure if I’m bragging. Nonetheless, there are times when living in a rusty old cottage and having lunch at Hazel’s Coffee Shop doesn’t seem like such a crazy way to live.
Last week, with relatives in town, we headed to one of Chicago’s Neighborhood Street Festivals. Most of these events involve large crowds, high temperatures, drunken frat boys and consist of local restaurants and stores setting up tents on the street and perhaps a band or two playing to a crowd of twenty. It’s a decent affair. This specific street festival, in the shadows of Wrigley Field, seemed particularly over-branded.
In less than a (long) block — the length of the festival — there were plenty of brand experiences to be lived.
Were it not for the cover band playing at the entrance of the festival one would be subjected to Meow Mix’s jingle (you know: meow meow meow meow meow meow…) from start to finish. As we got closer to Meow Mix’s stand the jingle got louder. The reason for the hubbub was The Meow Mix Gold Medal Games Events where adults throw hairballs, clean kitty litters and drink from cat bowls to win prizes. Luckily, for every participant in the Gold Medal Games, Meow Mix donates one bag of cat food to a local shelter, making the spectacle more digestible. And, to make the scene complete, parked behind the tent was the Meow Mobile, wagging tongue and all.
As if a kitty-themed Olympiad and a whisker-laden vehicle were not enough, Meow Mix was also promoting Meow TV — the first programming targeted for cats. Richard Thompson, CEO of Meow Mix, in a 2002 radio interview described the programming of Meow TV as “Things that cats might be interested in watching — it could be fish swimming by or chasing squirrels or, you know, watching dogs do something, you know maybe music that cats might like.” More importantly he billed Meow TV as “something that will help us extend the brand and get people into the brand earlier and keep people in the brand longer”.
I had certainly underestimated the breadth of Meow Mix’s brand.
A few tents down, there was more action to be found next to the “tricked-out ride” of the Nintendo Street Team. Nintendo’s SUV, not to be outdone by Meow Mix’s wheels, is supped up with five Nintendo GameCubes so that dads and sons can play either inside or off the SUV’s trunk.
If the van’s-a-rockin’ you can still get some Nintendo action from a handful of “Street Teamers” walking the streets and sporting Gameboy Advanced systems like body armor. Billed as the “Ultimate Summer Job” teams of cool and avid youngsters represent the Nintendo brand across the country. If this sounds too easy, think about having to go to Nintendo Boot Camp and be lectured by the Apprentice’s Troy McClain.
I was pretty much raised with the first iteration of Nintendo, that clunky gray box with big cartridges. It was not “cool” to play Nintendo then. I had a hard time seeing the Nintendo brand as it was being portrayed at this event. This is probably the first sign that I am getting old.
At the end of the block was a recruiting post for the Marines. Their brand experience more subdued but still represented by five really buff guys wearing tight black shirts and dark sunglasses. Other than their adrenaline-pumping web site, the Marines are not as heavily branded as their bellic counterparts: the US Army and the US Air Force. The five Marines — I’m assuming they were official Marines — were nowhere near as excited as Nintendo’s Street Team nor Meow Mix’s hairball-retrieving ladies.
Not surprisingly, their tent was empty. Leaving me to think that in a battle of the brands, the Marines stand no chance against Meow Mix — much less Purina. This brandscape is disturbing. Should the Marines break out the big guns, literally? Parade across the street sporting M-16s and night vision goggles? Detonate some hand grenades on the street? It seems like nothing short of that will get people’s attention. Perhaps the Marine’s tent, in all its simplicity, would successfully draw all the population of Saskatchewan.
But not here, not in this logoscape.
I saw that Meow Mix mobile at the Licensing Show and it really made me think of the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro
On Jul.18.2004 at 06:59 PM