Brand Subversion & Fierce Creatures

for Reshma Shah & Aaron Carnes.

Something exciting is about to happen.

My fiancé and I are about to make magic. We're running a play we call PROJECT eStoreOpoly.

Finally, some friends will be able to stop worrying me.

Like Fierce Creatures, the ending to Poker Without Cards was refilmed because early test audiences didn't care for scenes in which one of Liz Boswell's characters keeps getting killed off. This blog provides a brief chronology of the film's history and some never-before-seen information on the film's original ending.

My mystical friends call it a quickening, my rockstar friends talk about going through the fame turnstile, a gateway through which one never fully returns. I'm getting married 10/10/10.

My name is Howard W. Campbell, III. I was born with a longer name. I was born pronoid, it means that contrary to all the available evidence, I actually see how people like you. Your perception of life is that it's one long benefit dinner in *your* honor with everybody cheering *you* on and wanting *you* to win everything. I agree. You're simply temporarily miss-sorted. As you get each bit sorted-out, more and more falls inline, and everything gets easier. I'm an elephant too. I'm an artist. I'm a poet with a business plan. And, if I can keep my ego in check, I can come through this perturbation swimmingly, with a renewed ease of imperturbability.

Congratulations to Chris Zubryd who made it work... made a 1,000,000 viewed YouTube Video, now legendary of Howard W. Campbell interviewing Joel Bauer when he's staring at my boss' business card from CCEO and saying to him, "Your business card is crap!"

I recently gave-up my forray into professional media manipulation. I launched Super Ball Marketing. Here was the plan... I do parody ads, distribute them to local Tshirt shops and then pitch the big brands on being able to make their brand subversion problem go away, because I'd simply stop making the Tshirts. I had two problems. First, the big brands didn't care. Second, when I stopped making the shirts that teens liked, they became even more popular and Tshirt profiteers would keep making them. Turns out the gap in supply is what is required to really make a shirt in demand. There was that, plus, the one client who found out I rigged the whole thing didn't get pissed, they got excited and they wanted me to pull that off on their competitors. No good could come from that kind of escalating corporate crime. Most of my longtime readers are familiar with my handiwork in engineering kids to more effectively nag their parents. The PowerPoint i worked on at Lieber Research Worldwide. Well, I proudfully thought I had a more effective way to nag CEOs via Tshirts. I was wrong. My bad. Super Ball Marketing is no more.

Audrey & I started Like A Pro.

For those who were touched adversely by Super Ball Marketing. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Anybody who wasn't heard that before hasn't spent much time with Joe Vitale.

Allow me to begin today's lesson on branding. Branding is a deliberate act of increasing the value of an “owned entity” that is sold for a profit, and brand subversion is the deliberate perversion of a brand to mean something other than its original creator intended, regardless of the impact on the brand’s value.

Don't worry about that compadre, I'll be back. I should warn the intellectualy squeamish that now is the time to close this window and go about your merry way. There are live meme viruses in these hear fnords. That means their are fnords among us. This blog is outsider art, a discussion of the manipulation of meaning in commercial settings. Warning, ingesting these ideas is dangerous to your hegemonic stature. This guitar kills fascists.

While similar subversive tactics and methods may be found in political discourse, and while commercial brand subversion is often created through political motivations, this blog is not political, it's magickal. Fink, it's a jewish name, it means Poker Without Cards isn't a restricted club, it's an open source meme _ool. Notice there's no p in my ool. My detractors say I'm acting as if my poop don't stink. I ask how they know what somebody who's poop don't stink acts like. Everybody I know, when I ask them, we all agree our poop often stinks, except the raw food eaters. Crap, I do know people who say their poop don't stink. Some of them even brag about it. That doesn't bother me though. I certainly don't recall bragging about my poop to them. I send The Faster Webmaster my masterpieces occassionally, but that's because he once asked.

The intention of this blog is to include the widest variety of examples while excluding political subversive messaging, the term “owned entity” has been selected to include unnamed commercial products and exclude profitable ideas without a discrete owner. While owned entities almost always have names, exceptions can be seen in the artist formerly known as Prince and The Beatles’ White Album. An “owned entity” is not limited to a specific SKU, like The White Album on CD digitally re-mastered 2005, or theTravel-Sized Dove Bar. An “owned entity” may include a line of products, like all forms of The Beatles’ White Album or all Dove products. An “owned entity” may include a company like xxx, the owner of Dove products or a band like The Beatles.

Reshma, who is that? Quick question... may I speak to one of your classes about ARGs, Alternate Reality Games for fun and profits? I think it will be a real crowd pleaser.

For the purposes of this blog, I'm excluding governments and political initiatives from my discussion of branding and human engineering—while popularizing voting can be seen as productizing the election process in an age of consumerism, it can also be seen from a myriad of other perspectives and it is often difficult to parse who really benefits from the marketing of political ideas.

In order to broaden the discussion of media studies, we need some common ground of intellectual territory, a taxonomy must be born and codified. May I present to you Liz Boswell's Taxonony of Brand Subversion, circa 2005. These rubrics are based on then recent observations and will likely need to be reshaped and reformed to the ends of those who can repurpose them, be my guest.

You don't even need to cite us ;-)

[PAUSE]
For although in a certain sense and for light-minded persons, non-existent things can be more easily and irresponsibly represented in words than existing things, for the serious and conscientious historian it is just the reverse. Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things, brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
Who said that?
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Hesse wrote it. Don’t know if he ever said it.


I. Brand Subversion

Definition and a Few Examples What is Brand Subversion – and what is it not? It is not simply a rant against corporations, big business or globalization…

(Such as Naomi Klein’s [blithering book] no Logo) The subversion of a brand – is the deliberate perversion of a brand to mean something other than its original creator intended.
Brands create meaning, mint language in a social and cultural context, responding to social cues and also manipulating them to shape perceptions and wants. Mega-Brands ultimately liberate themselves from mere logos, and become personae, living celebrity titans in the culture they help create. Examples –Observable Phenomena

Mindbomb.tv – TV Ads twisted into political messages (protest, consciousness raising) The Yes Men – World Trade Organization Imposters (Saboteurs)Martha Stewart Living Magazine – Spoof (Entertainment and profit)


II. The Taxonomy of Brand Subversion – Rogue Brand Subversions

Brand Parody and Brand VandalizingFor entertainment purposes – the spoof is comic relief making light of “serious” things, talking about things that are sacred for profit & entertainment. (Martha Stewart Living Spoof Magazine) Brand Vandalizing can be categorized together with the Parody or Spoof – the motive is sheer joy of iconoclasm and desecration. This is another form of entertainment. (Disney Vandalism)
Stakeholders: Consumers, Cultural Critics, Politically or Artistically Motivated Outsiders, profit-motivated entertainers

Brand Satire – For protest purposes and/or bringing things to light about the subject, conscious-raising and political messaging. This is slightly darker than the lighter-hearted parody or vandalism. (Ad Busters Magazine, MindBomb.tv)
Stakeholders: Cultural Critics, Politically or Artistically Motivated Insiders

Brand Hijacking - The Willful Imposter – The purpose of hijacking a brand is to interact with the natural audience of the brand – to provoke a different response to the brand. (The Yes Men)
Stakeholders: Politically or Artistically Motivated Outsiders

Brand Appropriation -
Artists and others appropriate brands for aesthetic reasons. (Warhol, Dali)
Stakeholders: Consumers, Cultural Critics, Politically or Artistically Motivated Outsiders, profit-motivated entertainers

Commercial Counter-Branding

Parasitic Branding - The creation of deliberate brand confusion, usually for the purposes of attaching to that brand’s profit stream. (Seattle’s Best)
Stakeholders: Competitors, Vendors, other industry stakeholders, (Manufacturers, Retailers or Ad Agencies)

Brand Plagiarizing – Simple copycat of any brand equity elements for profit. (The Yellow Pages; when ALL of the competitors plagiarized the brand cues, they became category generic cues. Fashion Knock-offs)
Stakeholders: Competitors, Vendors, other industry stakeholder, (Manufacturers, Retailers or Ad Agencies)

Controlled Parallel Branding (Counter Cultural)Companies try to generate news and end-run the subversion by creating “parallel brands” and hosting the “means of production” for its consumers:
Subservient chicken – Burger King (show website & discuss uses)Whassup – Budweiser (show website & discuss uses)
The company creates a brand that lives separately,which can do things that the regular brand “can’t. This is the “idiotes” position in literature. Discuss the usefulness of this to a company.
Stakeholder: The Original Brand Maker (Manufacturer, Retailer or Ad Agency)

That's it. It's well articulated. This will forward the discussion around gatekeeping and temporary autonomous zones. There is a difference between what can be done to you and what you must do for yourself if it should happen. You can’t force somebody to see culture as matrix, or make somebody see a Zen koan. In fact, applying force or stress probably slows the process. Just like you can’t make somebody relax, you can only help them.
But back to your point, I know I’m an elitist, which helps me not always be scum. Agnosia makes us slaves to an unseen master. I call this discussion an inquiry into memetics.

Humans studying memetics is like a fish studying water, we’re inquiring into the invisible currents surrounding us.

“The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Age’s prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by disorientation and built from misinformation. Caught up in a plethora of conditioned reflexes and driven by the human ego, both warden and prisoner attempt meagerly to compete with God. All are intractably skeptical of what they do not understand. We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think.”
~ Cosmography, R. Buckminster Fuller’s final book

Of course it would be a really smart fish that was studying water. Most of the fish I know spend way too much time watching TV and playing poker.

But back to your point, I know I’m an elitist, which helps me not always be scum. Your agnosia makes you a slave to an unseen master. I try to serve myself. That makes me more human than you.
The Matrix is a great way to popularize the story of Socrates and his contemplative perspective. How do you know reality? How do you know you exist?
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
Cogito ergo sum. Descartes.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Thinking proves you exist, it doesn’t prove external reality. The Matrix suggests that the mass of humanity does not live in reality, but in a virtual space. You are already in the looking glass, and have always lived in the looking glass, so the looking glass appears normal to you. The Matrix explores the impact of culture on individuals.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
The matrix isn’t real.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Culture is real. The matrix is Culture.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
The matrix is a construct to get some philosophy into a teenage movie.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
No metaphor. The matrix is real. Matrix equals culture.
[PAUSE]
The compacting of technological advancement has compacted our visible event horizon. Fuller talks about this. His point is that since technology is advancing so quickly now, we can’t see the change. It is like the frog in the boiling water I mentioned the other day.
[PAUSE]
When most people think of the word “culture,” they think of festivals, pageants, and languages they don’t understand. Or, they have a vague image of Third World poverty. Or, something else equally limited.
[PAUSE]
Culture equals ideology. An ideology is a meme-plex, a complex organism of memes. Think of meme-plex as a group of people connected by their traveling as a tribe, or as Kurt Vonnegut termed “karass” in Cat’s Cradle. Now, stop looking at the people, and just look at the idea that’s the glue that holds them together.
[PAUSE]
Weapons are an integral part of an ideology, meme-plex, or karass. However, weapons are not permanently tied to specific ideologies. Memetics allows for mini-memes within a meme-plex to be adopted by a competitive meme-plex. So, weapons created by one meme-plex can be adopted by another. The predominate culture has historically been the ideology with the baddest bad-ass weapons. This idea has been made popular to the literati through Guns, Germs and Steal.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
Where are you going? This feels like you are just spouting your philosophy. What does any of this have to do with Richard?
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Richard had spent some time with The Peace Corps or some other heal-the-Earth non-profit, right?
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
Mr. Wilson spent time with The American Friends Service Committee about a year ago.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Richard might have realized what Neo does not.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
Which is what exactly?
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Zion was created for Neo, and everybody else who rejected the Matrix. But, Zion is also a construct; it is a matrix by another name. Did you know that Republicans run the Peace Corps?
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
What?
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Yes, I’ve worked on their ad campaign. I felt funny when I learned that The Peace Corps is run by a director that is appointed by the current president. The Peace Corps exists for people who reject the system, and yet it’s run by the same heads of state that run the system.
When Richard learned that, it could’ve freaked him out.
[PAUSE]
One of the main points I get from The Matrix is that Zionists want to make you aware of where you are. They call this knowledge, “freeing the mind.” But the mind doesn’t become free; it just knows where it is. So, freedom as defined in The Matrix is clearly seeing where you are within the larger system. There is only one matrix. Zion exists within the matrix, it’s just the subset of matrix citizens who comprehend the matrix and wish to substantively alter its course.
War is show business, part of the props, pomp and circumstance of competing cultures.
More and more people are seeing this. I think Microsoft Windows helps to this end.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
How can a software program help us see culture differently?
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Windows demonstrates reality within a reality—people are learning fractal structure. Computer users are getting better at distinguishing realities, and meshing realities, because they are learning the distinction and interconnectedness of universes through Microsoft Windows. I hold that culture is on the brink of comprehending what Lucas stated in Star Wars, that corporations have become The Empire—Corporations are the new empire. Like the British Empire, same structure.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
But you are co-mingling things that are real with ideas. And, treating ideas as if they are real, just because we have a word for something.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Gravity is real without a word. Packs of animals have culture without a word for their group dynamics. The Matrix is the contrivance of the culture. It’s the structure that exists beyond any individual. It’s where to hide secret knowledge if your audience isn’t contemporary. The trick is to get commerce to perpetuate your secret knowledge. Either that or find a university or museum to preserve the ideas, which probably won’t happen unless they have some commercial value. In The Matrix, the oracle is a program, the sentinels and Smiths are programs, but they have tangible impacts on the humans they encounter. Publishing is how we play in The Matrix. Publishing a contrarian’s perspective lets future Neos know they are not alone. By publishing, one creates their own Oracle, embedded in The Matrix.
DR. WILLIAM FINK:
You are insane.
HOWARD CAMPBELL:
Certifiably. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am better at what you do than you are. You don’t even know what you do. What do you do? I build crowds for a living, guaranteed. What do you do guaranteed?