Is Marketing Mythology Running our Lives?

Source: CureTogether

CureTogether aggregates personal experiences of people dealing with a particular health condition or disease, for example Migraine in this chart. Interestingly, effective solutions are simple and usually imply lifestyle change or avoiding a bad habit. Even more intriguing is the lower right quadrant: popular things that don't work. Strikingly, that quadrant mostly includes highly advertised, commercial products: pharmaceuticals that are expensive and have a negative impact, many of them with addictive side-effects. Brands included in that quadrant are Advil, Tylenol, Topamax, also Naproxen, Acetaminophen, Exedrin which are not visualized in the chart. Looking beyond Pharma, it's an interesting example of what is probably going on in many areas of our lives right now - Marketing Mythology starts to lead large parts of the population to buy expensive stuff that actually damages their well-being. 

Escaping Mass Tourism

Photo: dungbeetletours.comAfter spending time in Orlando and Miami this week I couldn't help thinking about the migration of the Wildebeest in East Africa and the scene where the herds are jumping the Mara river greeted by Alligators. For Tourists in Florida, the equivalent of the river crossing are Disneyworld and Miami South Beach. Predictable streams of masses seem to be irresistible to take advantage of. Disney takes care of both sides of the equation: shepherding large crowds through the parks as well as the Alligator part, catching them with very steep prices, e.g. in restaurants or souvenir shops. Also Miami South Beach is a very crowded place for what it is. Yes, it is pretty but unfortunately it has become a traffic-jammed cliche well short of it's promise. Cliches attract huge crowds. I believe things are starting to change - for the first time after many visits to Florida I had a genuinely good time there thanks to using social tools like Yelp and Tripadvisor. I could confidently stay outside the beaten path, found wonderful neighborhoods, had great food and interesting conversations. 

Consuming our Independence away

Photo by Khalid Almasoud via FlickrA concept raised by former investment banker Gerald Hoerhan is the notion of "dumb" consumption. Consumer goods are losing most of their value the moment we purchase them. The most expensive drive of a lifetime is the very first trip in a new car, because it's going to be worth 30% less the moment you leave the dealership. A 30 year home mortgage basically takes away the freedom to say "no" to the boss. Many consumers are hardwired to spend just a little more than they can afford, the mortgage or the leased car that is slightly to big for the budget. Once falling into consumer debt they are basically ripe for all kinds of rip-offs because people consumed away their independence. An interesting argument in favor of a simpler life - or at least for buying used cars and renting a home. 

Stuff we eat

Ever wondered how packaged pastry from the nineties might look like today? Surprisingly tasty: a video of a 13 year old piece of ready-made cake by Coppenrath & Wiese found behind an office curtain and kept at room temperature during the entire time. Is it still a cake if it never contained any perishable materials, is it still food? The kind of stuff we are eating every day ... :)

Posting Reviews for Great Places

Photo by Cath001 on TripadvisorThe "Review Economy" is re-shaping the way we navigate cities or countries in a big way. Platforms like Yelp or Tripadvisor have become an enormously powerful tool for decentralization. Over the course of this year I noticed that travelers across the world are increasingly trusting Tripadvisor, now loaded with 45M reviews, for their choices. Local restaurants and hotels take note and some owners personally answer every single review. If an establishment is well ranked on Tripadvisor or Yelp it's usually a good choice. It allows travellers or locals to explore new, unknown destinations with a high degree of confidence. User reviews are based on merits, they reward quality and character. The "Best Westerns" and restaurant chains could generally rely on the "fear of the unknown" of their customers and that standards they guarantee would avoid the risk of a bad experience in an unfamiliar place. With reviews they are largely relegated to the bottom of the list because they lack character. Help shape your urban environment or your recent travel destination by writing (positive) reviews for locally owned places you liked.

AmEx & Small Business Saturday: When the Tumor promotes it's Host

American ExpressThe prize for the most backhanded campaign in 2011 may well go to the "Shop Small" / "Small Business Saturday" initiative by American Express patronizing local businesses (agencies: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Digitas). Credit cards are an increasing, added cost without added value for small businesses given that their customers have been mostly paying cash historically. Amex takes a staggering 5% cut out of merchant's revenues, being by far the most expensive mode of payment for merchants and a serious drain on proifit margins. Amex campaigns under the pretense of supporting small businesses while promoting credit card use among their customer base. Credit card proliferation weakens local businesses that almost have become an endagered species and ultimately damages our urban culture. The Amercian Express "Shop Small" initiative may even be well intended but credit cards make the patient sicker. Shop Small and Pay Cash.

Are we passing the Age of "Peak Stuff"?

Photo: robtm2010"Peak Stuff" is a discovery by Chris Goodall detailed in his blog and a recent Guardian article. Data indicates that the UK reached the peak of material consumption around 2001-2003, "stuff" being tangible things like biomass, minerals and fossil fuels. It suggests that some nations like the UK are indeed reducing the level of their physical belongings based on a national trend of owning less material and living more efficiently. Are some developed nations passing the peak of material consumption? 

Investments in the Real World

"Occupy Wallstreet" kept me wondering about a proper personal response for those who agree that the current banking sector extracts too much value from society. Peer to Peer Finance works (What is that?) and it may well be the way to invest or borrow without feeding the banks. Institutionalized investment products like managed funds demonstrated that they are unable to outperform the index, so further buying these, including their "management fees" is really pointless. In addition, our own savings are turned against us by the overwhelmingly speculative use of money in our bank accounts, e.g. on commodity bets that drove up our oil or real estate prices. On top of all that, the taxpayer is on the hook for bailouts. So how can we unchain financially? To disconnect effectively, money has to flow into relatively small organizations, for non-speculative use, based on a modest, transparent, performance-related fee. Peer to Peer Finance seems to deliver that. Directly connecting lenders and borrowers sounds old-fashioned but it's actually a sensible way to invest. Money goes directly to a real person or a real business and - surprise - investment returns are much higher without a bank in the middle. The most important bonus is the satisfaction of financing a small business or helping someone get rid of credit card debt. In the US there are Lendingclub and Prosper, or find a P2P Bank in your Country.

Appreciating Local Specialties

Chocolala Antigua. Photo by rworangeWorld class specialties from unexpected places. A recent trip to Central America reminded me that we are often not aware of local specialties or at least badly underestimate their quality because we think we know what is supposed to be "world class". For example, the common wisdom goes that the best chocolate must come from Belgium or Switzerland. In supermarkets we buy the branded, fancy packaged, industrialized version of what used to be a traditional specialty from these countries. The best chocolate I had this year comes from ... Guatemala. The city of Antigua has a rich variety of chocolatiers and their quality and creativity is stunning. Ever tried hand-made chocolate with a touch of chili, cumin, pepper, orange? It's from a different world, literally. How many places have we visited without looking or asking for local specialties?