Category: Consuming

AdAge has some videos of recent ads including a really cute one for UPS, in which a UPS truck zips down a NASCAR track. Apparently, the agency got a team of hot-rodders to build a custom UPS truck that really goes 150 MPH. Or at least, that’s what the supplemental online-only video sugests. Could just be clever fictionalization. At any rate, straightforward, fun advertising and cross-branding.

In contrast, read this story of how Kit-Kat chocolates became popular in Japan. It begins with the name sounding something like an expression meaning, roughly, “I hope you succeed!” But because young people (in Japan and elsewhere) don’t tend to pay much attention to advertising, they went the long way around. They started by targeting students at exam-time, giving the candies away as good-luck gifts, then getting human-interest stories about the giveaways into the news. The news stories, followed by a soft-launch ad campaign, seeded what eventually became a legitimate trend. Now giving someone a Kit-Kat bar is an expression of wishing them well, and no child’s exam-day lunch is complete without the candy.

The original poster seems pretty impressed with the patience and cleverness of the marketing firm. So was I. But a commenter points out that it’s also ethically murky: “This is an example of everything that is wrong with the infotainment industry today… Japanese youth are suspicious and scornful of advertising? Then let’s corrupt news stories, hotel experiences, and family traditions.”

Ethics and marketing don’t always go hand-in-hand, especially when you try to create a grassroots phenomenon. Some would argue that the very idea of manipulating culture for commercial gain is abhorrent, but I’m not entirely opposed to it. Nor do I take the opposite viewpoint, that all culture is inherently artificial and created to benefit one group or another, so it’s totally acceptable to treat it as just another manufactured product.

Still, culture seems to be bound for manipulation, and if that’s going to happen, I’d like to be the one shaping culture for my own ends — one of those captains of consciousness you hear about in your fancy college media studies classes — rather than a passive absorber.

My father told me he was worried about me buying a bike, especially something with a giant 650cc engine. I said, 650 is small these days. He said, mine was 500cc, and I imagine they’ve got a lot more power out of them in the intervening fifty years or so. I said, sure, but they also have emissions controls and better handling and brakes.

So I finally got around to looking up the stats to see if my bike is dangerously overpowered compared to the one my dad used to ride. The best equivalent I could find for his 1958 Matchless competition single was the a 1988 replica, which pulls about 34 HP. Megan’s bike, the LS 650 (“Savage” or “Boulevard S40” depending on the year) does about the same, although at lower RPM, which I think means it has more of the “low-end torque” everyone goes on about.

My Suzuki SV650 is indeed comparatively overpowered, at 70 HP. That sounds about right– it’s certainly perky when I want to zip around something. But I can still feel comfortable saying that it’s not completely insane, compared to others. After all, Annete’s friend Erick just got a Yamaha YZF-R1, which has a liter engine and a breathtaking 172 horsepower.

It helps to have a sense of humor about marketing writing. For example, Lagunitas Brewing Company has the following written on their promotional beer coasters: “This unique lovely and dlightful adult style beverage can be used directly from the glass to remove stubborn grease stains and it also dobules as a refreshing dessert topping! Any intentional misuse of this product or concentratino and inhaling (“huffing”) of its vapors is dangerous and can lead to permanent health effects.”

I can’t seem to find video of the classic Saturday Night Live commercial about Shimmer, the floor wax/dessert topping, but you get the idea. Brilliant marketing aimed at people staring into their beers in bars.

It’s a shame I don’t actually like India Pale Ale.

The crotch-rocketeer.

There are many, many reasons to buy used motorcycles, but the most relevant one today is that I’m neither skilled nor experienced as a rider. I dropped the bike within fifteen minutes. Not crashed, mind you: I was practicing with the clutch in a parking lot, and stalled and dropped it on its side from a standstill. The end of the front brake lever snapped off, which would have been heartbreaking if it were a new bike. As it was, I figure this has to be at least the fourth or fifth brake lever it’s been through. You can see the broken bit in the picture– still plenty left to break off next time.

The SV650 is heavier than Megan’s Suzuki Savage, which has the same size engine. It also carries its weight a little higher, which could be a more significant problem. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. I certainly am going to have to get used to the amount of power it has– it gets to 70 in 4th gear with almost no effort, never getting even a third of the way to redline.

The only other significant issue is the sound. Because the previous owner put on an aftermarket exhaust, it’s loud. Not criminally loud, but certainly not something I’d want my neighbor to be firing up every morning on his way to work. In the word of the sales-dude, “that v-twin with the yosh exhaust sounds like the balls, dood.”

PS, if you buy a bike at Cycles 128 or Greater Boston Motorsports, tell them we sent you. We get $25 in accessories if you do.

I am now the proud titleholder of a used Suzuki SV-650. Paperwork should take a couple days but I may be riding it as soon as next week.

Now, to finish selling my Ruckus.

Foreclosures are rising in Boston. And they’re rising in all the neighborhoods you’d have guessed: places where people have less money and more melanin in their skin.

I’d like to see coverage and stats on my neighborhood and the rest of the Boston metro area, but hey, this is the Globe, so nothing outside of Suffolk County is worthy of real analysis.

I’d heard a few recommendations to check out New Enough, a new (not used) motorcycle gear store, so when I decided to get a jacket, I had a look. At first, I was a little put off: the site design is clunky at best, there’s no real search, and for some items you have to email them for a price quote.

But look at the product descriptions. In addition to the basic description and photo from the manufacturer, New Enough provides sizing comments and a paragraph or so about the item. Each item is carefully photographed on a staff member, with key details highlighted and commented on. Relevant accessories that work with the product are hand-selected. They do this for every product.

I bought the jacket using the sizing information they provided, and ordered a size different from what I usually wear. It fits perfectly. It’s exactly what I thought it would be. Excellent, excellent store.

Also, note that they have a fuel economy program for their employees. How cool is that?

A couple years ago I bought a scooter as an around-town starter bike. 50ccs, but because it can go faster than 25 mph (tops out at 35), it was technically a motorcycle.

The dealer pointed out that by law (in MA) you have to handle it like any other motorcycle, but that most people register them as mopeds: that way they don’t need a motorcycle license or insurance, just a registration sticker. Well, I had the license, so I followed the law and insured it. Insuring a scooter is cheap anyway.

Sadly, a scooter is something like a stem cell: while it is protean at birth, once it is registered it is nearly impossible for it to change again. Now the dealership is reluctant to take it as a trade-in, because it’s a 50-cc motorcycle, and hell if anyone but an idiot like me will follow the damn law and register their 50-cc motorcycle as such. I’m checking with another dealership to see if they want it, and trying to get the RMV to allow me to change the registration, and we’ll see tomorrow if I’m able to trade up to something that definitely demands proper insurance and licensing.

And then, I’ll try and find somewhere to park it.

I was looking for a place that delivered Indian food and having no luck. Fortunately, I found something at least as good: a Bangladeshi restaurant, Bengal Cafe. Delicious, reasonably priced, and they deliver to my neighborhood. The dal was of the soup variety, which I didn’t like much, but the korma was excellent, as was the rice-pudding dessert and the bread.

Someone in Bookdwarf’s cabal has given us several boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. This is a disaster for freedom, by which I mean my nutritional peace of mind.

This blow against my rock-hard abs is somewhat mitigated by adequate information about the farming practices used by the chocolate farmers whose chocolates go into their cookies and of course delicious special recipes made with those cookies.

But still, that half box (OK, quarter-box, as of this afternoon) of Thin Mints on top of the fridge is posing a dangerous threat, and must be destroyed. A targeted strike force is at the ready, and I anticipate that the destruction will be delicious.