Q&A: shopaholic gives up shopping for year

"Spend less money" is probably a close second to "Lose weight" on the list of most-common New Year's resolutions. But when California blogger Elizabeth Jayne Liu says she's giving up shopping altogether for a year, you tend to believe her. After all, she's already been at it for four months. Since September, Liu has been chronicling her self-imposed exile from retail on her blog, Flourish in Progress. While she still allows herself occasional splurges like gifts, haircuts and a gym membership, Liu refuses to buy clothes, books, movies, fast food, furniture or most anything else, beyond the bare essentials. It's not a story of financial hardship or a crusade against consumerism. So, what is motivating her to swear off spending? We caught up with Liu for a chat about self-denial, good parenting and her impending knife fight with the U.S. treasury secretary.

   AdFreak: You've said on your blog that you're not in debt, facing foreclosure or otherwise struggling to stay afloat. So, why the one-year shopping ban?
   Liu: I spent seven years as a single mom before suddenly getting married (in Vegas, after dating just 18 days … I like to keep things classy) three and a half years ago. During those seven years, I was always on a tight budget and lived without a lot of material luxuries. After getting married, I had the opportunity to stay at home with my daughter, and I starting buying, buying, buying to make up for lost time.
   This past summer, just before my 30th birthday, I realized two important things: First, my shopping habit consumed most of my free time. Second, it wasn't achieving the deeper satisfaction I always imagined it would bring. So, I decided to give it up and focus my time on goals I've been putting off for months ... or a decade.
   I originally thought about doing the project for a shorter length of time, maybe a month, but I knew that I would end up just marking the days off my calendar and wait for the month to be over so that I could start shopping again. I picked a year because, well, a year is a damn long time, and I would be forced to find something else to do besides stare at the calendar.

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Q&A: Tron Guy on being snubbed by Disney

Every once in a while, it's interesting to focus on missed opportunities in advertising. A perfect example is the disturbing absence of Jay Maynard, aka the Tron Guy, from Disney's insanely expensive three-and-a-half-year marketing bonanza for Tron: Legacy.
  If you don't remember when Tron Guy went viral, you should know your memes better. Since appearing in his homemade spandex light suit in 2004, Maynard, a computer programmer and sys admin by trade, has appeared 16 times on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and had cameos on South Park, the "We Are the Web" net-neutrality PSA and, most recently, Tosh.0. He's been remixed and parodied and relinked to the point where you've probably seen his likeness even if you don't know his name.
  In 2004, when Maynard's attire went viral, no one had really been talking about Tron. Disney had left the property virtually untouched since 1982, when the original movie flopped. (In fact, Disney didn't make another live action film for 10 years.) Less than a year after Maynard's debut, Variety reported that Disney had hired Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal to write the Tron sequel. While Maynard may not have been the sole reason for raising Tron from the dead, it's hard to ignore the coincidence. And furthermore, even if he didn't have much to do with it, as Tron's biggest and most recognizable fan, what's wrong with tossing the guy a T-shirt?
  AdFreak chatted with Maynard over e-mail to see why he hasn't been included in any of the Tron: Legacy fuss.

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Q&A: Pete Hottelet on the art of bringing fake brands from TV and movies to real life

In 2006, Pete Hottelet founded Omni Consumer Products. Named after the mega-corporation in RoboCop, the company dedicated itself to the serious business of defictionalizing fictional brands—from Brawndo (the energy drink from Idiocracy) to Sex Panther cologne (from Anchorman) to Tru Blood (the blood replacement beverage from True Blood) to, shortly, Stay Puft marshmallows (from Ghostbusters). Hottelet took a moment to e-mail with AdFreak and explain how he got into defictionalization and how to do it right. Read the interview here.

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Cannes shares Zuckerberg and other Q&As

The Cannes organizers have finally gotten around to sharing the last batch of videos from last month's festival (footage that was previously marooned inside the CannesLions.com site). A backstage interview with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is posted below. Jump over to our RealTimeCannes site for interviews with Chuck Porter, Martin Sorrell, Mark Tutssel, David Droga, Craig Davis and many others.

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Q&A: A copywriter's quest to cross America

There's a very real chance that you will never ride a bicycle as far in your entire life as Janeen McCrae is about to travel in one ride. A freelance writer who spent time at both Agency.com and Poke New York, McCrae is preparing to set out on a 4,262-mile bike trek from Virginia to Oregon. Why? As an Australian who's spent almost all her stateside time in New York City, McCrae wanted an epic challenge that would test her limits and help her experience more of America. She's also hoping to land a book deal and raise $1 per mile for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The plan is to set off in late May, filing video and blog updates all along the way. (She's already started an impressive video collection at her cycling blog, No Direction Known.) Before she begins her journey, AdFreak wanted to learn a little more about what she's doing to prepare, what she expects to accomplish, and most of all, what the hell she was thinking. Below is our e-mail conversation, with photos by Adweek's Manuela Oprea.

—Posted by David Griner

  Q. Last time we saw you, you were the blogging voice of Poke New York. What have you been up to since then?
  A. I left Poke in early 2008 so I could take the idea of writing a book a bit more seriously. People who know me are rolling their eyes right now as they read that because I've been talking about this damn book for years, but I've been working on that.
  Then there's the economic reality that goes along with writing a book—it's called rent. So I've been freelancing on and off to keep my nerd core juiced and the gas connected.
  It doesn't help that I'm easily distracted by travel, personal projects and, for past the 17 months, cycling. If you follow me on Twitter, first of all, I'm sorry, and second, you can probably tell that my life has been completely consumed by all things bike.

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Q&A: Rob Walker on the value of a narrative

Three Wolf Moon is an ugly T-shirt. Yet somehow it became Amazon's top-selling item of apparel for months. It all started with a single fictional review on the site, attributing magical powers of feminine attraction to the shirt. Hundreds of similarly bogus reviews soon poured in, along with the orders. Ultimately, the Three Wolf Moon factory had to work overtime to fill the orders, and New Hampshire designated it the official T-shirt of the state's economic development.
  It's an idea that writers adore: the notion that a good story can impart value to an insignificant object. Already desirable or at least useful objects—booze, coffee, everything ever written up in the J. Peterman catalog—can obviously have their value increased through a robust back story. (It's called advertising.) But what about objects that are undesirable? That are poorly made, useless or ugly? Can they ever become valuable or sellable? To those who don't believe in the transcendent power of a good story to elevate even a T-shirt with three wolves on it, behold: the Significant Objects project.
  Joshua Glenn, author of Taking Things Seriously, and Rob Walker, author of Buying In, as well as the "Consumed" column in The New York Times, created the Significant Objects project with a simple hypothesis that "narrative is a key x-factor influencing an object's exchange value." To prove their theory, they bought insignificant objects from thrift stores and garage sales, each costing no more than a few bucks, and had writers like William Gibson, Charles Baxter and Jennifer Weiner create fictional short stories about them. Then they posted the items and the stories on eBay, with a disclaimer emphasizing that the tales were fiction, and waited for the bids. They sold the first round of 100 objects, originally bought for $128.74, for $3,612.51. Not too shabby.
  Now, they're into the third round of their experiment, and all the first-round data numbers have been crunched. Rob Walker recently took a moment to answer my questions over e-mail about the experiment and the takeaway for advertisers. Check out our conversation after the jump.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

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Brief interviews with commercial actors: Jack Ferver on being Starburst's Little Lad

We're attempting a new (and probably infrequent) feature where we interview actors from popular TV ads past and present. For the first installment, we tracked down Jack Ferver, who delivered a memorably unnerving performance as the berries-and-cream-loving Little Lad in last year's notorious bus-station Starburst spot from TBWA\Chiat\Day. When he's not shooting ads, Ferver works in experimental dance and theater in New York, and has created several evening-length pieces, including When We Were Young And Filled With Fear and MEAT. He also played Jimmy Tickles in Strangers With Candy. After the jump, he talks about the weirdness of bus stations, whether the Little Lad is evil, and why it's important to be shocked.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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