Today’s post comes from idea man Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.
I was sitting in The Meeting yesterday considering the disappointing retail numbers from the fourth quarter of 2012 when I finally understood the source of all our problems.
Not enough marketing.
You heard me. People who hate marketing because it’s artificial will argue with me on this, but I believe marketing is the only thing that can revive our sluggish economy. If consumers aren’t consuming and spenders aren’t spending, you have to do something to make them WANT things. Ideally they will want things that can be manufactured cheaply and sold at an enormous profit. And all you have to do is convince them this cheaply made thing will turn them into the people they long to be.
Simple, right?
Not so. Our recovery is being held back by an absence of role models. We’re finding out that athletes, movie stars, and even politicians are not the sterling examples we wanted them to be. Why buy an actor’s name-brand body wash or a football star’s replica jersey when the chances are so good that they will be in disgrace before the week is out?
With constant surveillance and the 24 hour news cycle contributing to overexposure for everyone, it is simply too risky to identify yourself with anyone known. That’s why this idea struck me as pure genius.
Letter Carrier by Dolarz via Flickr
The US Postal Service is about to launch a line of branded clothing. Soon you will be able to buy garments that resonate with the Postal Service motto about persevering through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. The idea is not to look like the mailman, but to carry the mailman’s determined reputation through to your everyday outerwear.
Brilliant!
Here at T.M.T.N.E., we want to solicit other public servants to license clothing brands of their own, just in case the postal idea takes off!
I’m thinking selfishness is going out of fashion. Today’s buyers want to identify with people who work to serve the common good. All we need to do is list some of those noble individuals, figure out how they dress, and get the to sign before it’s too late!
Any suggestions?
I happen to think garbage haulers are heroes, but I’m not sure I want to dress like one. Not head-to-toe, anyway. Ankle-to-toe? Maybe. Could a line of hypo-allergenic steel-toed boots have some appeal?
Today’s marketers want to sell you on the idea of dressing in someone else’s clothes. But whose?
Superheroes would be fun superman and wolverine for starters , tv personalities I want to be Larry king and Ricky Ricardo, sports officials (athletes already covered) nursing assistants and firefighters (gotta love that helmet) my garbage man never gets out of his truck just make the claw pick up the can dump it an puts it down again I don’t know what he wears. How about McDonald’s?
We had a kid, tim, who walked the streets of Ames in the 1950s dressed as TV stars. His favorite outfit was a cowboy suit with a gun slung on his hip and cowboy hat up top, but he had a Joe Friday outfit (from “Dragnet”) and a Captain Video suit.
Exterminators, deer hunting, adapted from highway safety vests, uninflated life vests, Downton Abbey, Sponge Bob, Mario, standard cheap dinner wait staff, butcher with “blood” stains artfully arranged on the front, the Onslow Line, The What Not to Wear Before Line, The MRI paper line dress line, from great paintings such as Monet or Rembrandt.
Nice list, I like paintings especially, how about pope or priest. Nun of course Buddhist monk , rabbi , Elmer fudd from your deer hunter list has appeal, MRI could be scary
Clyde, these are great, as are your other collections. Thanks for posting the link. Love the chess set. 2004-2008 a friend and I did a similar thing with polymer clay and a chess set. We did Republicans and Democrats. The pawns, elephants and donkeys, were way too much fun. Instead of bishops we posted the 4th? amendment requiring seperation of church and state. My friend sold it on ebay to a Chess Museum in NYC.
Thanks Clyde
Wonderful!
Particularly like Santa with beard hanging over front of shelf and beret, the chess set ( green pawn is in reindeers spot) and is that st Benedict? Wonderful wonderful wonderful
Thanks
Santa uniforms would make the world a better place for sure
My first thought upon reading this was to introduce a line of leprochaun-wear with St. Patrick’s Day upcoming, and all. But then I had another inspiration:
The National Geographic Indigenous People line of clothing and personal embellishment!
Think of it–many indigenous people wear very little at all, which means LOW OVERHEAD for the manufacturer. Indigenous Hawaiians wore grass skirts requiring some assembly, but the cost of raw materials would just require mowing the lawn. The concept implies so much more than clothing with the traditional personal embellishments featured in NG Magazine–piercings, tattoos (ala Maori’s of New Zealand), neck stretchers.
Yesterday in a meeting we had to discuss marketing our therapy. This line of clothing is way more fun.
My birthday is celebrated on St. Patrick’s Day each year and I do indeed wear a little green leprechaun outfit everywhere I may go that day. Likewise, I wear a Mrs. Santa outfit for Xmas shopping. A while back I decided that life’s too short not to make use out of my many Halloween costumes for more than one Halloween party and infuse the spirit of the day!
Good morning. There are already many options available for anyone who wants to dress in someone else’s cloths – carpenter pants, farmer bib overhauls, sports jerseys, etc., etc. How about a line of normal people clothing. I guess it would be sort of like L. L. Bean clothes, but only their basic stuff. This could be well made and attractive clothes, but with no attention paid to the latest trends and no reference to “someone else’s clothes”. You wouldn’t have to wear these clothes all of the time and they could even be just a small part of your wardrobe that you wear as a non-fashion fashion statement on certain occasions.
Seuss-wear. Bright colors, outrageous and silly designs. You, too, could look like a Who Down in Whoville. The red and white hat work by The Cat was widely available a few years back, why not his red tie?…it could look quite dashing in the right context. Or perhaps you’d prefer a Thneed? That would be toasty-warm on cold days like today.
Yes, yes,yes to suesswear yes
I’d wear it every day I guess
I’d we’re it driving in my car
With a hat and a cigar
I’d wear it typing on the blog
Is the an outfit for my dog
I love this Anna yes I do
I want to see it soon from you
To market it on the Internet
It would sell real good ill bet
Best buy may not be best placement
But still much better than the alamos basement
On many TV shows I see the Amish have their faces blurred by pixelation. Now, there’s a fashion statement! A lot of us older Baboons would look better if our time-ravaged faces were obscured by pixelation.
I think everyone should dress up like fly fishermen. You know . . . with those vests that have 43 little pockets and hidden storage compartments. If you wore a trout vest like that you’d always have quarters for the pop machine. With your cell phone and wallet and checkbook stuck in little pockets, nobody would hold you up because it would take too long to find the pockets holding something valuable. Men who carry purses of any sort have that girlyman look, but if they wear wicker creels they look masculine. And of course it would be cool to dress in ways to suggest you have an active outdoor life, even if they only fishing you do is sitting on your sofa fishing for salty treats in a bowl in front of the TV. Plus, we all know that most trout fishermen have a college degree, or maybe three or four. I could go on.
I know from personal experience that it takes many weeks of wearing these things to memorize where stuff is. And then you never want to empty the pockets to run the vest through the laundry.
Oh, you’re all in rare form this morning! How about Medical Wear (Medi-wear for short)
The white medical coat would be one – you might get more respect wearing it than usual. I’m not sure if scrubs or current nursing outfits would garner you a lot of respect, but if you could find the old fashioned nurses’ uniforms, esp. with the headgear…
You’d probably command a lot of respect in a white coat like docs wear, especially if you wear a stethoscope slung over your shoulders instead of a tie.
The set of white clothes I wore for working in food processing at Hormel was somewhat similar to Medical Wear, but you would need to add a hard hat and ear protection to the uniform.
If you wear a rectal thermometer in your vest pocket and have an expression that indicates you are ready to use it, you’ll get less backtalk static from waiters and clerks.
I want the crazy ‘old man’ eyebrows. Can that be considered part of the costume? I’ve got a good start on the ‘old man’ part and I’ve got one crazy eyebrow hair….
I would have a good start on the crazy “old man” eyebrows if some people, including the woman that cuts my hair, would not keep suggesting they should be trimmed and talk me into getting them trimmed. Most of you may not have any memory of John L. Lewis, head of The United Mine Workers. He had really crazy eyebrows and apparently he didn’t let anyone trim his.
Trail Baboon 
Superheroes would be fun superman and wolverine for starters , tv personalities I want to be Larry king and Ricky Ricardo, sports officials (athletes already covered) nursing assistants and firefighters (gotta love that helmet) my garbage man never gets out of his truck just make the claw pick up the can dump it an puts it down again I don’t know what he wears. How about McDonald’s?
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We had a kid, tim, who walked the streets of Ames in the 1950s dressed as TV stars. His favorite outfit was a cowboy suit with a gun slung on his hip and cowboy hat up top, but he had a Joe Friday outfit (from “Dragnet”) and a Captain Video suit.
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Eras are fun too. I do bogart and Bacall often and how about pioneers, or futuristic garb?
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Exterminators, deer hunting, adapted from highway safety vests, uninflated life vests, Downton Abbey, Sponge Bob, Mario, standard cheap dinner wait staff, butcher with “blood” stains artfully arranged on the front, the Onslow Line, The What Not to Wear Before Line, The MRI paper line dress line, from great paintings such as Monet or Rembrandt.
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Nice list, I like paintings especially, how about pope or priest. Nun of course Buddhist monk , rabbi , Elmer fudd from your deer hunter list has appeal, MRI could be scary
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Perfect
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tim, you asked fro photos of my Santrs on my blog. So here they are. Is there a line of clothing in this?
http://birchwoodhill.wordpress.com/
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Clyde, these are great, as are your other collections. Thanks for posting the link. Love the chess set. 2004-2008 a friend and I did a similar thing with polymer clay and a chess set. We did Republicans and Democrats. The pawns, elephants and donkeys, were way too much fun. Instead of bishops we posted the 4th? amendment requiring seperation of church and state. My friend sold it on ebay to a Chess Museum in NYC.
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Wow. Too cleaver.
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These are wonderful Clyde. I love the faces. You possess both skill and talent (and a darn good eye for design).
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Thanks Clyde
Wonderful!
Particularly like Santa with beard hanging over front of shelf and beret, the chess set ( green pawn is in reindeers spot) and is that st Benedict? Wonderful wonderful wonderful
Thanks
Santa uniforms would make the world a better place for sure
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If we all wore Santa suits, wouldn’t that cut down on road rage?
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
My first thought upon reading this was to introduce a line of leprochaun-wear with St. Patrick’s Day upcoming, and all. But then I had another inspiration:
The National Geographic Indigenous People line of clothing and personal embellishment!
Think of it–many indigenous people wear very little at all, which means LOW OVERHEAD for the manufacturer. Indigenous Hawaiians wore grass skirts requiring some assembly, but the cost of raw materials would just require mowing the lawn. The concept implies so much more than clothing with the traditional personal embellishments featured in NG Magazine–piercings, tattoos (ala Maori’s of New Zealand), neck stretchers.
Yesterday in a meeting we had to discuss marketing our therapy. This line of clothing is way more fun.
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Whack job , addiction, depressions , 50% off with groupon
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Actually, we were discussing the Electronic Medical Record and the need for being part of a medical “team” for referrals. No Groupons there!
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Scooter store method of referrals worked well
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My birthday is celebrated on St. Patrick’s Day each year and I do indeed wear a little green leprechaun outfit everywhere I may go that day. Likewise, I wear a Mrs. Santa outfit for Xmas shopping. A while back I decided that life’s too short not to make use out of my many Halloween costumes for more than one Halloween party and infuse the spirit of the day!
LikeLike
I always wear my wizard cape everywhere on Halloween…
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Good morning. There are already many options available for anyone who wants to dress in someone else’s cloths – carpenter pants, farmer bib overhauls, sports jerseys, etc., etc. How about a line of normal people clothing. I guess it would be sort of like L. L. Bean clothes, but only their basic stuff. This could be well made and attractive clothes, but with no attention paid to the latest trends and no reference to “someone else’s clothes”. You wouldn’t have to wear these clothes all of the time and they could even be just a small part of your wardrobe that you wear as a non-fashion fashion statement on certain occasions.
LikeLike
Seuss-wear. Bright colors, outrageous and silly designs. You, too, could look like a Who Down in Whoville. The red and white hat work by The Cat was widely available a few years back, why not his red tie?…it could look quite dashing in the right context. Or perhaps you’d prefer a Thneed? That would be toasty-warm on cold days like today.
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Excellent–very theatrical.
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Yes, yes,yes to suesswear yes
I’d wear it every day I guess
I’d we’re it driving in my car
With a hat and a cigar
I’d wear it typing on the blog
Is the an outfit for my dog
I love this Anna yes I do
I want to see it soon from you
To market it on the Internet
It would sell real good ill bet
Best buy may not be best placement
But still much better than the alamos basement
LikeLike
Yes, but when wearing Suesswear you would have to talk in rhyme all day, and how would you then ask for an orange at the grocery store?
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Just put it by the door hinge
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It’s Seuss – make up a word to rhyme with orange – or hide it in the middle:
Oh grocerywhosells
Please tell me – oh do tell
Where a gal with a thneed
An orange she does need
Could find such a fruit
For her barbaloot suit?
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like
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The Amish could inspire a very drab line of clothing and beards. But then there are the horses to go with it all and they are high maintenance.
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On many TV shows I see the Amish have their faces blurred by pixelation. Now, there’s a fashion statement! A lot of us older Baboons would look better if our time-ravaged faces were obscured by pixelation.
LikeLike
I think everyone should dress up like fly fishermen. You know . . . with those vests that have 43 little pockets and hidden storage compartments. If you wore a trout vest like that you’d always have quarters for the pop machine. With your cell phone and wallet and checkbook stuck in little pockets, nobody would hold you up because it would take too long to find the pockets holding something valuable. Men who carry purses of any sort have that girlyman look, but if they wear wicker creels they look masculine. And of course it would be cool to dress in ways to suggest you have an active outdoor life, even if they only fishing you do is sitting on your sofa fishing for salty treats in a bowl in front of the TV. Plus, we all know that most trout fishermen have a college degree, or maybe three or four. I could go on.
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Yea, but when I wear so many pockets I LOSE stuff.
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I know from personal experience that it takes many weeks of wearing these things to memorize where stuff is. And then you never want to empty the pockets to run the vest through the laundry.
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You can wash it?
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I wear a vest like that all the time. Good for carrying art stuff.
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They make variants of those vests for various professions. Photography, for example.
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I wear the he does-not-knowing-what-he’s-doing-but-likes-to-pretend-he-is-up-to-something version..
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I’m lost without my sports coat for that reason
Summer shorts and Hawaiian shirt can be challanging
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Cirque du Soleil costumes would be really fun to wear.
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If you have a Cirque du Soleil body!
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I believe there are costumes for all shapes and sizes.
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They’re stretchy
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Every outfit is stretchy on me. Doesn’t mean they look good!
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Think of the great shoes and hats!
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I happen to look good in long streams of bright-colored silken cloth. (My wife is now laughing very hard.)
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Sounds medieval to me. You seem to have missed your century (by quite a bit).
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I think I still have some hippie clothing I could wear which some of those who made fun of hippies said was their uniform that they wore.
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Oh, you’re all in rare form this morning! How about Medical Wear (Medi-wear for short)
The white medical coat would be one – you might get more respect wearing it than usual. I’m not sure if scrubs or current nursing outfits would garner you a lot of respect, but if you could find the old fashioned nurses’ uniforms, esp. with the headgear…
LikeLike
You’d probably command a lot of respect in a white coat like docs wear, especially if you wear a stethoscope slung over your shoulders instead of a tie.
LikeLike
The set of white clothes I wore for working in food processing at Hormel was somewhat similar to Medical Wear, but you would need to add a hard hat and ear protection to the uniform.
LikeLike
Yes! Props could be sold with the outfit – stethoscope, maybe a little microscope, blood pressure cuff…
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If you wear a rectal thermometer in your vest pocket and have an expression that indicates you are ready to use it, you’ll get less backtalk static from waiters and clerks.
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What about Yeoman Beefeaters? They have really nifty outfits.
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Although it might be good to market them in a variety of colors – not everyone looks their best in that bright red.
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I want mauve..
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You know about the postal clothing: Cliffy Clavin would be indignant.
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I want the crazy ‘old man’ eyebrows. Can that be considered part of the costume? I’ve got a good start on the ‘old man’ part and I’ve got one crazy eyebrow hair….
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I would have a good start on the crazy “old man” eyebrows if some people, including the woman that cuts my hair, would not keep suggesting they should be trimmed and talk me into getting them trimmed. Most of you may not have any memory of John L. Lewis, head of The United Mine Workers. He had really crazy eyebrows and apparently he didn’t let anyone trim his.
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tell them you want to look like Carson in Downton Abbey. he has the best eyebrows for showing disapproval that i’ve ever seen.
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I looked up John L. Lewis. Yeah, like that. Or this image of Mr. Magorium:
http://tinyurl.com/bxyt756
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And that led me to this:
http://thefw.com/more-celebrities-with-mustache-eyebrows/
Hey, it’s Freddie Mercury!
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All right! I think I should tell the person who cuts my hair to stop trimming my eyebrows.
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🙂
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eyebrows
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There’s some eyebrows…
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The advertising slogan for the line of clothing: Go Postal.
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Of course!
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I like the color of the UPS drivers’ uniforms. I think everybody looks good in brown.
2nd choice: lederhosen.
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