#and gwen and the other jars enjoyers

[tjarry]

this is for me and me alone

[dyketectivecomics]

Randy’s iZombie Review, Or, How Reading as a TV Fan First, Comic Fan Second Can Paint Your Experience

(don’t think I spoiled anything for either, but keep in mind that this analysis does dive into my feelings for both TV & comic in tandem)

2015 saw a lot of major changes for me, but something that I took a lot of solace in, was trashy CW shows. And I use that ‘trashy’ descriptor with much affection in my heart for said shows. iZombie was... partially one of those shows.

And I say partially because unlike some other CW shows, the writers did seem at least moderately self-aware at times of the issues of writing crime procedurals, of the balance between escapism and social commentary, and kept character development linear and consistent. But having 5 seasons, and no more, tends to lend itself to wrapping up a story in a neat bow. As a not-inconsequential binge, I would recommend it on that basis. 

And the comic run, in that same vein, is thoroughly plotted, the characters gain some development as time goes on (though the emphasis is moreso placed on developing out the lore of this newish world and on reaching a world-ending apocalypse), but overall, wraps up nicely.

Many of you saw me making comparisons between the two at the beginning, and I can say more definitively now, that some of the spirit of the comic does seem to be there in the show as well, most importantly in how the respective protagonists Gwen and Liv interact and care for their friends, and how their self-sacrificial nature becomes the heart of the narratives. Though they abhor what they’ve become, they lean into how they can use their skills to help the people that have passed. And later on in their stories, they use those abilities to help others in need.

This is one of those cases, that while is saddens me that the basis was changed so drastically from the source material, it doesn’t negate the experience of enjoying either medium. The comic will always be a fun 28-issue escape about different monsters’ lives intersecting and interacting with one another. The show will always be a 5 season crime-of-the-week ZomRomComDram (their word, I swear haha). That doesn’t make one better or worse than the other. Just different. And can be enjoyed in equal measures.

And I think it’s something that I’ve been trying to reconcile with how I feel about shows like Titans or YJ, where one iteration of the characters (namely in the comics) is infinitely more enjoyable to me than the other. It can be harder to reconcile when one sees how the writers are trying to play closer or further to the characters that you’ve already fallen in love with, and there’s a disconnect when they behave or are written in a way that strays from that.

It’s jarring to see a character you love have a dynamic that you’re unfamiliar with or feels counter to how you’ve come to perceive them. And that is why direct adaptations are so contentious. Too many changes, not enough changes, not the Correct changes. 

Whereas something like this, where they give us two Similar Zombies, but they don’t bother trying to directly adapt. They instead wipe the slate clear and begin their own story, and they have it succeed.

Sometimes what an audience needs isn’t a one-to-one direction adaptation, or even a loose adaptation. Sometimes what we need, is something a tad more transformative that still respects what came before. Sometimes it truly is better to simply play with an idea, and reinterpret it, rather than try to repeat what’s done in one medium and translate it to another.

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics - 9/20/17

It’s a Sequel Trilogy heavy week as IDW and Marvel bring us the continued adventures of Rey, Poe Dameron, and Captain Phasma, but the best offering is a self-contained adventure starring everyone’s favorite smuggler/princess pairing.

Star Wars Adventures #2 written by Cavan Scott, Elsa Charretier and Pierrick Colinet and art by Derek Charm and Charretier

It’s hard not be charmed by Star Wars Adventures. Between its colorful and stylistically unique art by Derek Charm and Elssa Charretier and playful yet faithful characterization, “Star Wars Adventures #2″ continues all of what made the debut issue of this series such a treat. It’s fast paced and creative fun adventure that fits nicely into the Star Wars universe. While some fans may not find its decidedly simple and low-stakes action and plotting interesting or worth the $3.99 price tag, younger fans or those interested in a change of pace from some of the franchise’s darker fare are sure to find a lot to love.

While it’s main story is the clear standout and is sure to charm fans of Rey and may even make you a fan of Simon Pegg’s Unkar Plutt (who knew that could happen), if Star Wars Adventures could improve in any way it would be in its “Tales from Wild Space” back-up stories. While it is nice to see a variety of stories from all walks of Star Wars life, the framing of these tales hasn’t really congealed as of yet. We have a recurring cast of narrators, but their personalities have yet to shine through outside of providing a window into the anthology at hand or offering fortune cookie like goals. It would be great to see more of these characters and let them blossom into their own people with stories of their own.

Score: B Star Wars Annual #3 written by Jason Latour and art by Michael Walsh

There are few fictional couples more iconic than Han Solo and Leia Organa. Part of the fun of Marvel’s exploration of the time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back in its various ongoings and miniseries has been exploring how this unlikely pairing fell for one another. We see Leia’s frustrations with Han’s shady profession and past begin to melt and Han’s devil-may-care, aloof demeanor begins to slip, revealing a heart of gold. Jason Latour, of Southern Bastards and Spider-Gwen fame, and Michael Walsh double down on this concept to deliver a stellar annual for the main Star Wars series.

A scouting trip to find a new hidden base for the rebel alliance turns into a fight for survival when ghosts from Han’s criminal past come back to haunt him. Together him and Leia must team up and fight off their attackers and the deadly elements of their environment to reunite with the Alliance. Latour has a smart eye for dialogue and manages to not only nail the comedic and romantic bickering between the central couple, but also find character and personality in unexpected places. Han and Leia take turn playing the hero, each playing to and against their individual strengths and not only reinforces their growing bond but adds to the understanding of both characters as human beings and the special qualities that will ultimately make them heroic legends. On the moral flipside, Latour has created an intriguing and sympathetically flawed villain in the hapless Nikto, Frax. Frax in some ways plays out like a spiteful dark mirror of Han, not only born out of the smuggler’s past sins but giving into the grudges and base emotions that he regularly manages to overcome.

Walsh’s pencils and colors are uniquely suited to the narrative that Latour has crafted. He manages to simultaneously capture expressive characters and faces while keeping the landscapes sparse and desolate. Clayton Cowles’s lettering also adds to the visual and aural landscape of the comic in a manner that is suitably humorous but also manages to be intense and appropriately visceral. It culminates into a sort of creative synergy that it is unfortunately rare in much of Marvel’s Star Wars line and the result makes for an enjoyable and unique one-shot. Pick this comic up. It’s pretty damn great.

Score: A

Star Wars Captain Phasma #2 written by Kelly Thompson and art by Marco Checchetto

Star Wars comics rarely have as strong a debut as Kelly Thompson and Marco Checchetto’s Captain Phasma. With the backdrop of an exploding planet and a singular focus, Phasma set out on a focused mission for in and out of universe redemption and the result was stellar. While this issue may not prove as strong as the first, Phasma continues to be one of the better Star Wars comics Marvel currently has on the market.

With First Order pilot, TN-3465, at her side, Phasma continues her hunt for her would be scapegoat, Lieutenant Sol Rivas, to the ravaged planet of Luprora. Thompson finds ample opportunity for intriguing characterization in Phasma’s confrontation with a world that reminds her or her shadowy past. In this aspect, readers who doubled down on their chrome trooper reading and read Delilah S. Dawson’s Phasma novel are bound to find a deeper meaning in the narrative as the series’ protagonist is forced to face a familiar past.

Checchetto keeps his strong eye for the larger than life and cinematic, employing colorful and exquisitely laid splash pages that offer both the character work, design, and Andrews Mossa’s coloring shine. It’s without a doubt the best-looking series under the Star Wars banner at the moment and it’s worth picking up for the stellar visuals alone.

Score: B+

Star Wars Poe Dameron #19 written by Charles Soule and art by Angel Unzueta

Charles Soule ends his “War Stories” arc in surprisingly uneven and even frustrating fashion. While it has become increasingly clear that Poe Dameron may have peaked with its second arc where Soule and then artist Phil Noto were at their creative zenith, Angel Unzueta has proven a mostly dependable successor. However, it feels in many ways that the conclusion to “War Stories” finds both writer and artist eager to move onto other things.

With every living current and former member of Black Squadron captured by the First Order and the clutches of Malarus and Terex closing in, the team is forced to result to drastic measures to stay alive and sacrifices may have to be made. Soule crafts an exciting narrative and in many ways, “Poe Dameron #19″ is bursting with moments that have been building in the series narrative for quite some time, but there is something about the execution that often feels confusing and jarring. There’s piecemeal and almost slipshod way in the manner that the narrative is constructed that often leaves what may be major plot points or details dropped. Characters escape from capture or confinement off panel with little or no explanation of how this is accomplished and then travel long distances startlingly long distances between pages. There are even a few changes in motivation that are handwaved away through dialogue but only feel like a late editorial fix to prevent confusion. It could be argued that this was in the service of a tighter, faster-paced narrative, but the result is often jarring. This is unfortunate because there is great material here and some genuinely emotional moments that get lost in the shuffle.

Angel Unzueta’s pencils are as detailed and realistic as ever and this, as usual, proves to be a boon and a distraction. While Unzueta excels at some of the vehicular combat sequences at the issue’s close, his facial work continues to be distracting. Malarus in particular is just strange to look at. Between her bizarre angular eye brows and exaggerated facial expressions, it is hard to take the character seriously as a threat. (She also weirdly reminds me of one of those weird Germanic acapella singers from the second Pitch Perfect movie.)

“Ware Stories” is a frustrating mixed bag of an issue. Loyal readers may find some strong character beats here that will likely shine through despite the flaws, but it’s hard not to prove disappointed when both creative leads have proven to be much better than this.

Score: C+

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 14 August 2017

It’s been a bit of a rough year, and through various personal, professional, and international roadblocks, I’ve neglected a lot of the writing in areas not directly associated to work. 

While time has certainly been a problem, it’s also kind of hard to write as a hobby or writing for analysis of critical entertainment when there are so many problems going on in the world right now. It’s hard to write about something like comics when Rome is burning around you, even if you’re the barbarian at the gate who is being denied entry. Sorry, that’s a bit of a mixed metaphor, but I don’t really want to go into further details at the moment.

Anyway, after this week, I need a sort of distraction and I’ve decided this is going to be it. With all of the hell that’s been going on, I want to contribute at least a little something constructive, a little something positive, before we’re all forced to go outside and melt.

My two favourite books of the week were Divinity #0 by Matt Kindt & Renato Guedes and Spy Seal #1 by Rich Tommaso. 

For a while now, I can safely say that the relaunched Valiant Comics has been my favourite publisher of a shared universe within the superhero genre. You can argue that they branch out more into pulp-themed territory, with tinges of other adventure, horror, and sci-fi genres, but at the core I still consider it to be a superhero universe. 

There’s something about the way that they approach their story construction, events, universe, and individual issue storytelling that reminds me of some of the more inventive pushes into the comics medium during the ‘80s, including works like Matt Wagner’s Grendel, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, the Daredevil and Batman work from Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli, many of the ‘80s DC “new format” series, and the stuff published by companies like Comico and Eclipse.

Divinity #0 reminds me off all of that greatness that has been being published by Valiant since Robert Venditti & Cary Nord launched X-O Manowar #1 back in 2012.

More specifically, it recaps the last three Divinity series as well as checking in on the current situation for some of Valiant’s prime movers like Aric, Bloodshot, Ninjak and Toyo Harada as it propels the universe forward to the next step of Eternity. It’s a nice palette cleanser before we move on to the next big thing at Valiant.

It also helps greatly that the painted art through the issue by Renato Guedes is gorgeous.

And then there’s Rich Tommaso’s Spy Seal #1 which is just a fun, well-written, funny animal thriller.

Quick Bits: 

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #8 gives us a taste of the art from the artist who will be taking over as regular ANGOG artist when the series joins the Marvel Legacy initiative, Marcus To. I think there’s some more Greg Smallwood and Rod Reis between now and then, but it’s nice to see To here. He does a great Rocket Raccoon and the level of emotion and concern conveyed in his portrayal of Groot towards his friend is incredible. Gerry Duggan’s script is no slouch either. 

| Published by Marvel

Astonishing X-Men #2 is indeed the jarring shift in artwork from last issue’s Jim Cheung to this issue’s Mike Deodato Jr., but I can’t deny that the art still works for the story. I’m not sure how well this experiment will work overall, but as single issue episodic comics, it’s not much of a detriment at the moment. It helps that Deodato is providing an evolution of his style similar to what he used on Thanos. It’s dark, moody, evocative, and uses an impressive mix of regular hatching for shading and Zipatone dots. His recent output is probably the best artwork of his career. 

The story from Charles Soule also deepens, with this rag-tag group of X-Men entering the Astral Plane to confront the Shadow King. Unbeknownst to them he’s using them as puppets to play a game with a familiar face. There’s an interesting meta-narrative presented by Soule on nostalgia and repeating familiar tropes and situations that feels like a commentary on not only current movie practices, but also the call to doing the safe, samey thing in comics. It takes Astonishing X-Men beyond just being a well-written X-comic. 

| Published by Marvel

Genius: Cartel #1 is a nice return to Destiny Ajaye from Marc Bernadin and Adam Freeman with newcomer on art, Rosi Kampe. This first issue sets up a different scenario and situation, putting Ajaye into what amounts to be what looks like a black ops training site for her new “owners”, The Madrasa Institute. It’s an interesting counterpoint to something like Think Tank and Bernadin & Freeman continue to write Ajaye as a compelling, complex character. I’m interested to see where it goes from here. 

| Published by Image Comics/Top Cow.

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #19 does something wonderful that bucks a trend. Sure, it’s a good comic from Christopher Hastings and Gurihiru, but this issue transcends that. This issue gives a future villainous version of Gwen pants. I love that. It completely upends the notion that when female heroes “go bad”, they tend to wear less and less clothes.

| Published by Marvel

Kill the Minotaur #3. Just look at that art. Just look at it. Lukas Ketner is a beast.

| Published by Image Comics/Skybound

Mage: The Hero Denied #1 reminds me that I should go back and read the earlier volumes. Not because of any confusion, but because this first issue is just that good and I want to be reminded of some of the previous heights. Newcomers and old readers alike should find enjoyment here in Matt Wagner’s other epic.

| Published by Image Comics

The Mighty Thor #22 ratchets up the growing tensions, featuring a battle between the Thors (Jane & Volstagg) and Sindr. It feels like we’re finally coming to a head with several of the narrative threads since Jason Aaron started Thor: God of Thunder, but then a large portion of this volume of The Mighty Thor has felt that way. The artwork from Valerio Schiti is also stunning.

| Published by Marvel

Regression #4 is one of four of the books by Cullen Bunn this week and it’s easily the best of the bunch. Not to say that there isn’t fun to be had in the other three, but the artwork of Danny Luckert and Marie Enger elevates this to a different plane.

| Published by Image Comics

Revolutionaries #7 is still the glue that holds together IDW’s Hasbro-verse. It’s also a reminder that Ron Joseph should get more exposure. And that last page reveal is one of the best I’ve seen in comics for a very long time.

| Published by IDW

Sheena - Queen of the Jungle #0 continues Dynamite’s current trend of relaunching their licensed characters by embracing a legacy presentation at first and then giving it a new wrinkle. As such, we’ll have to really wait and see where Marguerite Bennett and Christina Trujillo are taking the story, but there’s still a lot to like here in the zero issue. Especially Moritat’s art.

| Published by Dynamite

Silver Surfer #13 is going to dropkick you in the heart. Dan Slott & The Allreds deliver up an emotional penultimate issue of the series.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Black Cloud #5, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #8, Curse Words #7, Descender #23, Luke Cage #4, Magnus #3, Motor Girl #8, Rockstars #6, ROM #12, Royals #6, Secret Weapons #3, Southern Bastards #17, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Mirror Broken #3, TMNT: Dimension X #3, Ultimates 2 #100, US Avengers #9, Winnebago Graveyard #3

Recommended Collections: Dead Inside, Night Owl Society & Namesake

d. emerson eddy realises that despite all his rage, he is still just a rat in a cage.

[oliviagordonwrites]

A World Without You (Review)

I got mail from @bethrevis thanking me for my commitment to getting her book reviewed. Honestly, I have absolutely no memory of what I committed to, and I’m pretty sure I said yes because of the swag that was most likely promised. Coincidentally, this mail came the very day I read the book I apparently promised to review. I was amazed. I’ve also been meaning to review some books here.

Spoilers ahead.

The first thing I must say is wow. A World Without You is a really interesting read. The layering of different themes was elegant and graceful - somehow it was equally about family, love, mental illness, time, and life. No element was overshadowed by another and no part seemed shoved in. Just a beautiful, natural unfolding of interlocking themes.

Secondly, my enjoyment of the book was enhanced by the dual perspective. And, no, I don’t mean the double first person of the siblings, Phoebe and Bo. I mean the omniscient dual perspective that the reader has. I could be fully invested in Bo’s delusions, cheering him on as he tries to reach his goals, and fully aware that these were delusions. If I may invent a new term, I would call it Golden Unreliability. We all know that narrators -especially first person- give only one viewpoint, and as a result, they can’t always be “trusted.” But in this book, it’s explicit that Bo is an unreliable narrator - that his story, while true to him, isn’t the way the events unfolded in “reality.” That aspect is very unique and I loved it! I think that special viewpoint is what made this story so memorable and full.

Of course, I appreciated the double first person as well! There were a lot of people that could have told the other side of Bo’s story - the side that keeps the readers anchored in reality - but I’m really glad it was Phoebe. Phoebe made this story so much deeper by showing us what it’s like to live so close mental illness. Not only that, but she showed us truths about sibling life - the unspoken competition, the struggle for identity, the strange need to make up for the others’ weaknesses. Phoebe was the perfect choice because she made the story bigger without making it too wide. She anchors the story’s events and the themes, making the book so much more readable. Without her, Bo’s story definitely would have been lost.

My admiration of Phoebe leads to an excellent transition into character. Another wow for that! Each and every character - major and minor alike - was so real they were practically tangible. Each had their struggles, even though not every character’s struggles were exhaustively looked into. Gwen’s grief, the Doctor’s simultaneous helplessness and hopefulness, Harold’s loneliness. I loved that those were all present, even though they weren’t crucial to the story. These people could have been mere plot devices, but instead, they were humans with their own stories to tell. Fabulous. Another thing I liked was Bo himself. His desperation to hang on to Sofía, his confusion when his delusions brush reality and the two don’t match, everything about him. He’s lovable and easy to root for. Strangely, even when he’s not doing the right thing, you still kind of want him to win. That’s not easy to accomplish, but Ms. Revis makes it seem easy!

Now my review comes to plot. This book was really fun to read. Part of that was, of course, the time travel and constant forward motion of the events, but the other part of the fun was trying to look past Bo’s delusions to find out what really happened. Peeling away the layers of paranoia, never knowing for sure if it was Bo’s disease or a real event that occurred, and jumping between views of reality right along with the characters. This book is a wild ride that all comes together to a conclusion you’d never see coming but still kind of expect (in the best, foreshadowed way). Those moments when reality and delusion come together and you’re forced to wonder if that could possibly be coincidence, or if those futures Bo saw (fire, earring) had some truth to them after all, and what that means. You know the truth, but you want the nontruths to be true, too. The only thing I didn’t like was the sudden change at the end. The entire story up to that penultimate chapter was Bo searching for Sofía. To think that he was finally so close to her and gave her up in a single moment, though a happy ending because it promises hope for Bo’s future health, was a little jarring. Throughout the novel, Bo is faced with the truth many times and shoves it away, so we at least see him getting closer to acceptance - yet it still seemed like I blinked and suddenly Bo was a different person.

To conclude - this is a beautiful story that has real meaning. It’s fresh and exciting, it has new perspectives, powerful themes, and will definitely leave a lasting impact. Beth Revis - I will always be a fan.

[theconservativebrief]

On Thanksgiving dinner tables across America, chances are there’ll be platters of perfect, glistening garnet rounds, the ridges from the can still visible along their perfect, glistening garnet sides.

This is jellied cranberry sauce. It is an American tradition. Like so many American traditions, including Thanksgiving itself, its existence is controversial. It is a feat of engineering. It is a culinary wonder. It is an abomination, some say, slandering the cranberry’s good name.

It is also confusing, a substance that defies easy categorization. What is this gelatinous, artificially sweetened tube, jiggling out of the can, still can-shaped? And why, given its relative triviality — it is eaten a handful of times a year, at most, and costs less than $1.50 — does it inspire such strong feelings, uniting enemies and dividing friends?

No. Also yes. By any standard definition of the category, jellied cranberry sauce would not qualify as “sauce.” A sauce, according to What’s Cooking America, the nation’s “most trusted culinary resource since 1997” (according to itself), is a “liquid or semi-liquid [food] devised to make other foods look, smell, and taste better, and hence be more easily digested and more beneficial.” Wikipedia, my personal most trusted culinary resource, agrees that “sauces are not normally consumed by themselves,” and that a liquid component is essential.

Jellied cranberry sauce — that majestic, jiggling store-bought log — does not meet these criteria: Clearly, it is a solid. In fact, one of its primary features is that it does not bleed, unwanted, into other elements of a meal. This is because it is a solid, which, by crowdsourced definition, disqualifies it from true sauce-hood, while also differentiating it from its purer sibling: whole cranberry sauce.

Whole cranberry sauce is what you’d most likely make, were you to follow the recipe on the back of a bag of whole cranberries, though it can also be purchased in a can. Unlike the jiggling cranberry towers, the whole-berry version can be spooned out, sauce-like, over other elements of the meal. It is the whole-berry version that is “cranberry sauce.” The jellied cylinder qualifies as sauce only by relation, like a legacy applicant at Yale.

Yet it is beloved — not as a sauce, exactly, but as a food group of its own. Indeed, it is so different from the whole-berry version that many Thanksgiving hosts serve both, in two separate dishes, side by side. And deep down, they are not so different after all: Whole cranberry sauce indeed involves whole berries. Jellied cranberry sauce goes through much the same process, but it is heavily strained, removing elements of nature — skin, seeds — that would impede its perfect silken texture.

The history of cranberry sauce — in general, not jellied — goes back to indigenous people, who gathered the wild berries, using them for all sorts of things: textile dyes, medicines, cooking. According to the Washington Post, a report from the colonies, circa 1672, reported that “Indians and English use it much, boyling them with Sugar for a Sauce to eat with their Meat,” though it did not come into fashion as a turkey-specific accompaniment until more than 100 years later.

In Amelia Simmons’s 1796 tome, American Cookery, she suggests serving roast turkey with “boiled onions and cranberry sauce.” (As an alternative, the Post notes, she proposed pickled mangoes.) But it did not become a requirement of Thanksgiving dinners until General Ulysses S. Grant served it, alongside designated Thanksgiving turkey, to Union soldiers during the siege of Petersburg in 1864.

“That sort of solidifies its place as part of Thanksgiving nationally,” Kellyanne Dignan, director of global affairs for Ocean Spray, tells me. Cranberries themselves, she points out, only grow in five states, even now: Wisconsin grows the most, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington state. (Also, British Columbia and Quebec.)

All of that is only context for what happened less than 50 years later: the introduction of canned jellied cranberry sauce, a testament to the possibilities of American ingenuity.

Cranberries are delicate fruits. They are “picky when it comes to growing conditions,” explains K. Annabelle Smith at Smithsonian.com. “Because they are traditionally grown in natural wetlands, they need a lot of water. During the long, cold winter months, they also require a period of dormancy which rules out any southern region of the US as an option for cranberry farming.” This reality put a cap on possibilities of the cranberry market: There are only so many cold-weather bogs to go around.

Then in the very early 1910s, Marcus Urann, a lawyer who abandoned his first career to buy a cranberry bog — and would go on to become one of the founders of what would become Ocean Spray — began canning the stuff as a way to sell the seasonal berry year-round. The cranberry harvest lasts six weeks, Robert Cox, a co-author of Massachusetts Cranberry Culture: A History from Bog to Table, told Smithsonian. “Before canning technology, the product had to be consumed immediately and the rest of the year there was almost no market.” Then suddenly, there was.

The jellied log became available nationwide in 1941. Thanksgiving history was forever changed. Ocean Spray, currently the world’s largest grower of cranberries, sells roughly 80 percent of its jellied sauce for the year Thanksgiving week. (There are also miniature peaks around Christmas, Easter, and the Super Bowl, thanks to a cult recipe for “Ultimate Party Meatballs.”)

Ocean Spray makes 70 million cans of jellied cranberry sauce, which Dignan observes amounts to one for every American family. It is wildly more popular than canned whole-berry sauce; three cans of jellied are sold for every one can of whole-berry. Every jellied can requires 220 cranberries.

“What’s interesting about cranberry sauce is that three-quarters of Americans use store-bought sauce for their Thanksgiving,” Dignan muses. “It really is the only thing on the table that the majority of people don’t just buy but want to buy.”

Making your own cranberry sauce is much easier than roasting your own turkey, or making your own stuffing, or baking your own pie. It is arguably even easier than throwing together your own salad, which is apparently how people celebrate, healthfully, on the West Coast. It takes 15 minutes, some sugar, and a saucepan. Yet it is our favorite thing to buy.

Here is Chris Cillizza of CNN, weighing in with passion:

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post agrees, as does, apparently, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

See, this is what I mean. You think you know somebody & then they come at you with crazy talk. Canned cranberry blob is a @SenSherrodBrown thing, too, and he should have told me that way before we said, “I do.” Some things a woman needs to know early. https://t.co/BIsgK1ckTX

— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) November 20, 2018

Nowhere is this is truer than in the southeastern United States, where they grow no cranberries at all. The biggest state for canned cranberry sauce consumption is Georgia, and while she cannot exactly explain this, it has, Dignan says, always been true.

In an age where processed food is in decline, one might imagine that canned cranberry sauce would be struggling. But according to Dignan, it is not. Seventy-six percent of people buy the stuff. “I wouldn’t say cranberry sauce is something that’s expanding in terms of our portfolio — we’re not seeing tons of year over year growth,” she says, but sales are “amazingly steady.”

“I think there’s a nostalgia to it,” she suggests. “There’s something about taking it out of the can and sort of that noise it makes and slicing it and it’s very uniquely American.” They don’t even sell canned cranberry sauce overseas, she says; they package it like a spread, in glass jars.

The appeal is in its timelessness. “There’s something about the fact that it hasn’t changed much. Even if someone doesn’t eat anything out of a can the whole rest of the year, I think, for some reason, cranberry sauce really speaks to them,” she says. She is not alone in her assessment of the non-sauce sauce’s appeal.

“How can you beat the tangy, sweet flavor of store-bought cranberry sauce,” said one taste tester at Bon Appétit. At Fortune, Clifton Leaf vigorously defended the “jiggly, wiggly mold of tartness.” The jellied slices, he wrote, go “down easy, like a slippery jam, potent with berry flavor and a whiff of history.”

Are there dissenters? Of course. As there should be. This is America. “The wobbly crimson substance added nothing to my Thanksgiving enjoyment, unlike my mother’s lemon-zested, multi-spiced version,” lamented Gwen Ihnat at the Takeout. “Once you take the time to make a fresh cranberry or lingonberry jam in its place, you’ll never go back,” Jim Stein, executive chef at McCrady’s, told Food & Wine, proposing instead a version with “fresh lingonberries cooked down in a little bit of sugar, cinnamon, star anise, and orange juice/zest.” (Dissenters love to zest.)

The exquisite beauty of the great jellied cranberry debate is that unlike many divisions — between families, between nations — it does not matter. Celebrate your freedom. Dance like no one’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt; eat your cranberries in the gelatinous form of your choice.

Original Source -> Canned cranberry sauce, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[lorraineromaine]

Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

[markjsousa]

Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

[davisgordonc]

Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

[lorraineromaine]

Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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[lorraineromaine]

Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience

Target is focused on creating a unique, relevant and enjoyable in-store customer experience to hold on to its brick-and-mortar clientele as more shoppers migrate to online and mobile shopping — including its own customers on Target.com and its mobile app. So it’s little wonder that the chain now is experimenting with something it’s never done generally in its stores: play background music in its first entree into audio or sonic branding.

While by no means the only store to play background music to (even subconsciously) help shoppers relax and linger longer in a store (and more willingly part with their money), it’s a new area for Target, even though its commercials are known for lively music—witness the remake of “It Takes Two” by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lil Yachty for the Grammys telecast—and it has partnered with artists such as Taylor Swift on exclusive releases.

It’s betting that programming background music in 180 of its stores by the end of this year will become an effective part of its in-store experience in those location, which represent about 10 percent of Target’s total of 1,800 stores across the US. In fact, 65 Target stores are already playing DJ for its shoppers.

Target traditionally eschewed in-store music as distraction from keeping customers focused on the task at hand: shopping and browsing, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. But according to a spokesperson, the chain now is introducing a music playlist “that is upbeat, positive and has a playful personality.”

“Everybody is looking for a way to make the customer experience more enjoyable because it’s becoming less and less about the products and more about the experience,” Matt Hazelton, an investment analyst in Minneapolis, told the publication.

Soundscaping, when used appropriately, has proven results in dramatically increased sales, stronger customer dynamics, and improved satisfaction results. Studies have shown that music has a profound impact on consumer behavior and shopping habits, Joel Beckerman, a sonic branding expert and founder of New York-based Man Made Music, told brandchannel. 

As NPR has noted, it’s good for retail brands and artists in addition to creating an emotional intangible benefit for customers: “A good retail playlist can bring home the culture of a business and psychologically affect a customer in a way that doesn’t feel pushy. And it’s positive for the featured artists. In today’s flooded climate, where new songs are published at a crazy rate on the Internet, having your song play in a Victoria’s Secret, for instance, can help cut through the noise.”

On the down side, it can be off-brand or jarring, especially if it veers into the dreaded, soulless Muzak associated with shopping malls and dentist offices. As the Guardian warns,

Don’t be lulled into thinking you can put on any old tracks: “Your music choice is a statement and it needs to show who you are as a business, individual and company. If you get it right, people don’t even realise it’s happening but they’ll get the culture. It’s the psychology of business and retail.” But not all retail spaces get it right. Shopping malls and hotel foyers normally have dreadful music.”

Even mainstream retailers like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx stores play backgroundmusic, so it’s not revolutionary for Target to liven its in-store audioscape. If anything, it’s finally catching up with the persona it projects in its advertising and exclusive music partnerships.

Target, in its marketing, has always sought to align itself with innovative musical experiences. Take music’s biggest night—the Grammys—which was the inspiration for the Carly Rae Jepsen/Lil Yachty collaboration. Last year the Grammys inspired Target’s historic music first: producing a live four-minute real-time music video (at a reported cost of $12 million) for Gwen Stefani during the Grammy Awards telecast. The feat followed the previous year’s Imagine Dragons Grammys commercial performance as advertising and the year before that, the Justin Timberlake promo campaign.

There are plenty of successful retail brands for whom on-brand background music is a staple. (In fact, remember when stores used to routinely sell CD soundtracks of the type of music you’d hear in their stores, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware’s jazzy mixes to the world music played in Putumayo stores from its own label?)

To name just a few, Whole Foods Markets often plays tracks from the Eighties, which pleases its huge baby boomer clientele. Gap, Old Navy and other Gap Inc. stores play music, as do Urban Outfitters and other retailers where teens and the young at heart might be found.

Gap, in fact, was known for its many music-driven TV commercials over the years, and it’s been returning to form. A few standouts show how music can reflect a brand’s DNA:

The post Audio Branding: Target Tunes Up Its In-Store Experience appeared first on brandchannel:.

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