murketing

What is this site? Murketing.com is a project of R. Walker. That’s me. It is descended from an earlier project called the Journal of Murketing (the term “murketing” is a merger of “murky” and “marketing,” and has been one of my primary themes for a while now), an email newsletter that I discontinued partly because too many people signed up for it. Also because I was busy: “Consumed,” a weekly column I write for The New York Times Magazine, made its first appearance in January 2004, and it takes up a lot of my time. Also I was writing a book.

Well would you like to say anything more about that book? Of course I would, thanks for asking. It’s called Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. It’s out now. You can find out more about it (and of course a variety of online bookstore links) here. I keep a running set of links related to the book (reviews, Q&As, riffs) here. And I include various updates and related observations of my own on Murketing.com.

Do you like hearing from readers? Yes. You can contact me here. You are also welcome to use the comments on this site if you want to make a point that you think other people would be interested in. And if you want to make a point about Consumed that you think readers of The Times Magazine would be interested in, I encourage you to write a Letter to the Editor: “Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 229 West 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”

What is Consumed? Consumed has always been described as “part business report, part cultural anthropology.” I’ve been interviewed about Consumed (and other projects) several times, and have collected those interviews here. Those may be worth perusing if you want a longer explanation.

<– Hey who drew that? Via Flickr by kate*

What is Consumed not? I’m not a design critic in any traditional sense, I don’t test products to see if they “really work,” I don’t offer even an implied endorsement of anything I write about, I’m not offering advice to marketers about successful tactics, and I’m not a trend-hunter giving consumers tips on What To Buy Now or What Will Be Hot Soon. There are plenty of other places to find that sort of material.

Who are the column’s readers? The ones that I hear from tend to be design and marketing professionals, academics, college students, entrepreneurs, people who are interested in various aspects of “ethical” consumption, and people whose backgrounds are unknown to me but who think that consumption is a topic worth thinking about. The column is regularly used in college design and marketing classes.

Beyond that, if there’s been any formal research about the readership, I’m not aware of it.

Will there be a book collection of Consumed columns? At the moment there are no specific plans for that. But I have recently finished a book that explores themes similar to those that come up in the column.

Is there an RSS feed for Consumed? While I of course think everyone should just buy the Times every Sunday, this site provides a (no-registration-required) link to the column every week, for RSS enthusiasts.

Is this site proudly powered by Wordpress? Well, I don’t know how proud I am about it, but it seems only fair to acknowledge the use of WordPress, as well as a theme called “Contempt,” designed by Vault9. However, I have altered the color scheme to one inspired by generic products, old newspapers, black and white movies, and Andy Warhol’s eternal advice: “The best look is a good plain look.”

When can I expect your next radio or television appearance? Come on, nobody asks me that.

Want to speak to my class or group or at my event? I’ve spoken to students at Yale, The University of Texas, Cooper Hewitt, The Savannah College of Art & Design, Louisiana State University, and other fine institutions, and to marketing and design professionals at various conferences. However, I’m not always available. These requests are now handled by Alec J. Melman at Greater Talent Network. Please contact him — AlecM@greatertalent.com — and mention that you got his contact information here. He’s a nice guy.

Can I publish one of your columns in my newspaper, magazine, or Web site etc? Consumed is syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate, and has appeared in many publications all over the world. Here is the contact page for the Times Syndicate.

Yeah but I’m just some guy, I just want to put it on my Web site, I don’t want to pay for it. Yeah, well, you’re really not supposed to do that. I would prefer it if you would simply link to the column on the Times site. Murketing regularly includes registration-free links to Consumed columns on the Times site.

Can I order reprints of a particular past column? This too is handled by another entity, and here’s the information on that: “High quality custom reprints of Times articles in quantities of 250 or more may be ordered through PARS International at 212/221-9595, extension 210, or please visit www.nytreprints.com to view samples and to order online.”

How did you get this gig? The short answer is: luck. You many now skip ahead. The long answer goes like this. In the latter half of the 1990s I was working as an editor for business/money/personal finance magazines. In 1999 I got a job as an editor at The Times Magazine, where I passed myself off as the guy who “knew about about business.” I had a nice time. After a year I quit and moved to New Orleans with E (now my wife), and started freelancing. Slate happened to need a writer who “knew about business,” so I played that card again. Slate’s editor at the time, Michael Kinsley, suggested that I write about advertising, so I started The Ad Report Card. Later I stopped doing the non-advertising-related business stuff for Slate, and started a second column called Number One. This led to stories about marketing and consumption and so on for Outside Magazine, Fortune, GQ, and The Times Magazine. E and I moved north again in late 2003, and around that time Gerald Marzorati had become the editor of The Times Magazine, and it was basically his idea to have me take the same approach I’d used in stories for The Times Magazine about Pabst Blue Ribbon and the iPod, but tweaked and redirected into a weekly column format. “Consumed” was the name he had come up with. I did a few trial columns, and we were all happy enough to proceed, and here we are.

Is there anything else to say about “Rob Walker”? Maybe this.

How do you come up with all those ideas? The one fear I had about doing this column on a weekly basis was that there wouldn’t be enough to write about. There is plenty to write about. Specific columns come about in a wide variety of ways, it really depends.

Can I send you my product so you can try it out and see for yourself how great it is? Please don’t. It doesn’t matter what I personally think of your product. I write about things that some segment of the consumer population is buying, for reasons that I believe readers will find interesting.

Can I send it to you anyway? I’d rather you didn’t. The Times has very stringent – and smart and wise – rules that strongly discourage people like me from accepting anything that might possibly be construed as a gift.

What makes a good Consumed? I’m looking for relationships between consumers and brands or products (or other consumable things) that I think will surprise or educate or entertain the readers.

Would you like to come to our press conference? No.

Do you know someone else at The New York Times who might want to write about my product? No.

But aren’t you an employee of The New York Times? No.

Beatles or Stones? Kinks.

What are your favorite blogs? All of them.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Requests? Cheap shots? Reach me here.