Three Cheers for David Pogue

David Pogue, the outstanding New York Times technology columnist, has begin a "Squash the Bug" campaign, an effort to eliminate those annoying little identifying logos on television screens. More power to him. I'm signing on.

Blatant Logos on Subway Stations

I've talked before about the renaming of athletic stadiums after commercial firms. Now, New York City has sold naming rights to a major subway station in Brooklyn to Barclays. The price: $4,000,000, spread over twenty years. Barclays has already bought naming rights to a a new stadium in the area. The spread of logos in public spaces continues.

A Logo I Don't Mind

I don't mind temporarily visible logos, such as DuPont's Tyvek, an exterior vapor barrier used in construction. It disappears after a week or so as the siding is put on. A house under construction is something of a mess anyway, so the logo doesn't make it any worse.

The Recession is Bad News for Logos

The New York Times has an article on April 23, 2009 titled "Losing Its Cool at the Mall" that suggests people are less willing to pay a premium for logo-decorated clothing as a result of the financial crisis. The article notes that higher-priced clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch, for example, is "similar to those at the company's Hollister or Ruehl stores, except for the prices and logos." Its sales have dropped significantly. One 17-year-old is quoted as saying "Labels are becoming less and less of a priority for people throughout my school."

David Bordwell on Bugs

Film scholar David Bordwell has an illuminating essay on the history of bugs, those obnoxious logos in the corners of your television screen.

Satellite Dish Logos

I have DishNetwork satellite service, which requires two dishes (one to get local high definition). Now, satellite dishes are not the most attractive things to begin with, but both major satellite systems add their logos to the dish surface, which forces me to advertise them to passers by. Even worse, my two dishes face in different directions, so people coming down the street either way get a good view of one of them.

DirecTV is no better:

And there is no inexpensive way to deal with the annoyance. The dishes are coated to repel snow, so spray-painting the logo could cause problems. There are companies that sell dish covers — at about $30 each — but nearly all of them have a logo of some sort as well. Some are remarkably ugly. One company even sells a light fixture to illuminate its cover so your neighbors can view your favorite university logo at night.

I could go back to Comcast, but given miserable experiences with their customer service, that isn't an attractive option. I'm waiting for ATT to extend their U-Verse capacity to my neighborhood so that I can dump both dishes.

Logos and Luxury Don't Go Together?

The November 16, 2008 issue of the New York Times Magazine has an interesting piece titled "The Brand-ness of Strangers."

It reports some research on the effects brands have on us. Among other findings, people who saw photos that included a bottle of Dasani were more likely to choose that brand when given a choice of four brands, even though they didn't consciously notice the bottle when looking at the photograph (they were asked to focus on the expressions of the people, not other things in the photo).

The article concludes with a discussion of Ralph Lauren's many lines. The Polo logo is widespread, but the logo "is completely absent from Lauren's high-end subbrands, presumably on the theory that the discerning self-identities of such status-conscious consumers clash with flashing an emblem worn by the masses."