Category Archives: archetypes

archetypes, artificial intelligence, cities, economics, ethics, global, government, politics, semiotics, social media, society, travel, virtual reality

In search of cultural truths

by Marie Lena Tupot and Tim Stock, scenarioDNA inc.

No one will think about Italy’s “Barbie Venus” campaign 6 months from now, but many will continue to make the same mistakes as the world flies beyond 20th-century marketing techniques. The Italy campaign serves as a marker of dismay and innovation washing. Yet, it’s not only Italy’s minister of tourism missing the mark, we in New York were way off base with recent New York City rebranding too. There are real issues in these cases beyond a misguided art director that set the stage for policy planning globally.

Cultural truths need to be examined.

The most obvious is the generative AI version of Botticelli’s Venus. With the trend of de-influencing gaining momentum, Botticelli’s Venus is identified as an influencer named Venere and looks like an ad for Botox. Further, the campaign places Venere at age 30+. If art history rumors are true, the model for Botticelli did not live beyond her 22nd year. Botticelli’s paintings were an expression of love for a woman coming of age and otherworldliness regarding her absence. The knowing gaze of Venere is not evocative of the unreachable gaze of Venus.

So…where is the love, Italy? Venere begins her tour of Italy clothed while the marvel of Michelangelo’s David is being censored in the US states so much so that the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, and the director of Florence’s Accademia Gallery, Cecilie Hollberg, invited former principal Hope Carrasquilla for a personal tour after she was asked to resign for exposing students to the David. (Carrasquilla also showed her students The Birth of Venus in her natural state.)

Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè said in a press conference unveiling the campaign, “We are the most beautiful nation in the world but we are not the best at promoting ourselves. We need to regain our pride in being Italian, in our identity.” She missed the point. Modern pride lives within Italy’s contemporary makers, creators and innovators. None of which were included in the conception of the campaign.

A representative from Armando Testa, the agency that executed the Venere campaign, explained the need to use the Venus as “an easy, direct and immediately recognizable way to promote Italy abroad.” Marketers lose who they are when they resort to such shortcuts. It’s the same way with executive briefs. Richness and research get lost.

Marketers need to see the human beings in front of them.

Also, consider that when Italy blocked ChatGPT regarding data privacy concerns and generative AI, VPN activity in Italy rose 400%. At the time, there were Youtube instructions on how to circumvent the ban through VPN access. One might consequently assume that Italy certainly is not at a loss for inspired generative AI creators. Where were those creative technologists when Italy needed them? Italy’s National Innovation Fund supports such up-and-comer types through venture capital. Instead, they were having their wrists slapped because no one quite knows how to handle AI.

The allegory of rebirth and renewal makes perfect sense for Italy. A sophomoric generative AI version of Botticelli’s Venus does not make sense.

Recent tourism has boomed for Italy this spring without the guidance of Venere. That said, Italy cannot sustain itself on tourism alone. Its newly found post-Covid vitality must be driven from within its modern-day maker culture. This culture already exists. It holds the narrative red threads back to Botticelli. According to Frieze Magazine, “spontaneous, informal networks are transforming the art scene of the eternal city [Rome].” Why aren’t they being reached out to?

We can’t be creating media for the lowest common denominators. If we do, then media is simply chasing after phenomena that have already happened. Moving forward, campaigns should bring us to where our imaginations want to go. Gone is the world where campaigns start and end.

Campaigns are now living breathing records reflecting our own existence.

Does anyone want to be Venus Barbie? Doubtful. Do people want to feel the love of Botticelli that can only be found in Italy? Yes. 

Recovery is critical for Italy, a country seriously impacted by COVID-19. But these lessons should be learned by all of us involved in messaging anywhere. Campaigns everywhere should be able to consistently evolve from informed ideas.

archetypes, economics, generations, society, the home

Half of Millennials Own Homes. The Rest Fear They Never Will

Millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, are falling behind other generations when it comes to wealth, hit by the 2008 economic crisis, stagnating wages, skyrocketing house prices during the pandemic, and now rising interest rates and inflation. Nearly half are living paycheck to paycheck, according to 2022 data, and few own stocks or are free of student debt.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/half-of-millennials-own-homes-the-rest-fear-they-ll-never-buy-one
archetypes, culture mapping, ethics, fashion, politics, semiotics, sustainability

Zara, lies and Fashion’s big new row

There’s an unholy row going on in the fashion world this week, and it’s gripping stuff. It began last Thursday when the Financial Times published an interview with Marta Ortega Perez. Not a household name, but as the non executive chair of Inditex, the Spanish holding company for fashion brand Zara, she is one of, if not the most powerful people in fashion. Her father’s company, which she took over last year, produces 450m garments a year, driving sales of €32.6billion. In the last year, under Marta’s new watch, sales have risen 17%. The Ortegas are the Murdochs of the fashion world – just as powerful, possibly even richer and likely a lot less venal. 

https://tiffaniedarke.substack.com/p/zara-lies-and-fashions-big-new-row
archetypes, dystopia, economics, farming, food, forecasting, kitchen, manufacturing, retail, society, sustainability

The Problem of Abundance

“I’ve become obsessed,” Thompson wrote, “with a policy agenda that is focused on solving our national problem of scarcity.” His solution boiled down to abundance—increasing the supply of doctors, nurses, homes, infrastructure, nuclear energy, and so forth. Thompson, who as a moderate liberal is a scarce commodity all by himself, proposed a number of policy fixes he felt certain would lead us to abundance and thus repair all that is broken with the country.

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-problem-of-abundance?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
archetypes, dystopia, economics, gender, generations, government, health, social media, society, video games, work

South Korea to give $490 allowance to reclusive youths to help them leave the house

South Korea is to offer reclusive youths a monthly living allowance of 650,000 won ($490) in order to encourage them out of their homes, as part of a new measure passed by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The measure also offers education, job and health support.

The condition is known as “hikikomori”, a Japanese term that roughly translated means, “to pull back”. The government wants to try to make it easier for those experiencing it to leave the house to go to school, university or work.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/13/south-korea-to-give-490-allowance-to-reclusive-youths-to-help-them-leave-the-house
archetypes, beauty, dating, dystopia, ethics, generations, health, social media, society, virtual reality

They left social media for good. Are they happier?

Plenty of Americans claim social media is a scourge, but few cut the cord. Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say social media has a mostly negative impact on life in this country, but 72 percent maintain at least one social media account, according to data from Pew Research Center. Headlines point at social apps to explain upward trends in anxiety, depression and loneliness among Americans, but people of all ages continue turning to social media to build communities. Amid our gripes and widespread distrust, social media serves as a new public square, where news develops, leaders debate and users form potentially lifesaving connections.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/11/social-media-quit-loneliness/
archetypes, culture mapping, language, semiotics

It’s a Bouba, Not a Kiki: The Relationship Between Sound, Form, and Meaning

People are consistently more likely to decide that the rounded shape is a bouba and the jagged, spiky shape is a kiki. This finding holds for college students, older adults, and very young children, and for speakers of not only English but other languages as well.

https://behavioralscientist.org/its-a-bouba-not-a-kiki-the-relationship-between-sound-form-and-meaning/
archetypes, couture, culture mapping, fashion, language, luxury, retail, social media

How Brands Are Selling Quiet Luxury to the Masses

Call it “quiet luxury,” “stealth wealth,” or the most blunt, “low-key rich bitch,” the trend is perhaps best encapsulated by the phrase “if you know, you know.” It’s a pair of navy trousers, a white button-down or a cashmere coat, but made from the finest fabrics, in carefully-crafted cuts, sold at an eye-popping price. It’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s sleek, unfussy courtroom outfits, like a simple black skirt and sweater that just happens to be Prada, or the head-to-toe neutral ensembles from The Row that Cate Blanchett wore in the film Tàr.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/marketing-pr/how-brands-are-selling-quiet-luxury-to-the-masses/?utm_source=newsletter_dailydigest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Digest_060423&utm_content=intro
archetypes, art, artificial intelligence, beauty, ethics, facial recognition, language, semiotics, social media, society, surveillance, technology

AI and the American Smile

Why do you smile the way you do? A silly question, of course, since it’s only “natural” to smile the way you do, isn’t it? It’s common sense. How else would someone smile?

As a person who was not born in the U.S., who immigrated here from the former Soviet Union, as I did, this question is not so simple. In 2006, as part of her Ph.D. dissertation, “The Phenomenon of the Smile in Russian, British and American Cultures,” Maria Arapova, a professor of Russian language and cross-cultural studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, asked 130 university students from the U.S., Europe, and Russia to imagine they had just made eye contact with a stranger in a public place — at the bus stop, near an elevator, on the subway, etc.

https://medium.com/@socialcreature/ai-and-the-american-smile-76d23a0fbfaf