Ratlinks: Animals and Brands
February 2020 featuring two long-form stories on topical stories with a focus on global and environmental issues told through two themes animals and brands.
Welcome back!
This month’s edition features two stories
Animals: Friend, Foe or Food
Brands A Make Em Dance
As always, you can return to this issue and find all previous issues at ratlinks.com
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FRIEND, FOE OR FOOD?
Animals.
What can’t they do?
Animals can be your best friend, a source of food, provide warmth or fashion. In theory, some animals can serve all of these purposes, but likely not at the same time.
TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE
Animals can also be predictive.
On February 2nd, in Gobblers Knob, PA (a real place) Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog, will emerge from his home. If Phil sees his shadow and returns below ground, he has predicted six more weeks of winter. If Phil does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring.
The calendar may read 2020, but we are out here predicting weather like its 1841.
EARTH … SO HOT RIGHT NOW
Australia has been blanketed in wildfires since early December.
At present, almost 18 million acres have been burned across Australia's six states, an area larger than the countries of Belgium and Denmark combined. The worst-affected state is New South Wales, with more than 12.1 million acres burned.
If you feel like we are always putting out fires its because we are. The 2019 Amazon fires burned 17.5 million acres. In California, just over 247,000 acres burned in 2019, and about 1 million acres burned in 2018.
The ecological damage in Australia is very bad with scientists estimating that almost one billion animals have died in the fires.
We know that Australian biodiversity has been going down over the last several decades, and it's probably fairly well known that Australia's got the world's highest rate of extinction for mammals. It's events like this that may well hasten the extinction process for a range of other species. So, it's a very sad time.
"What we're seeing are the effects of climate change. Sometimes, it's said that Australia is the canary in the coal mine with the effects of climate change being seen here most severely and earliest… We're probably looking at what climate change may look like for other parts of the world in the first stages in Australia at the moment,"
- Professor Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Science.
HOW CAN I BE HELPFUL
Don’t just scroll past
Stop here for one second and
Click to donate to help the victims of Australia’s wildfires
WUHAN FOREVER
Earlier this month, a new global health pandemic emerged out of from Wuhan, China in the form of coronavirus.
Wuhan with a population of 11 million people, is the sprawling capital of Central China’s Hubei province. Known as “China’s Chicago.” Wuhan is a commercial center, divided by the Yangtze and Han rivers, with attractions like the Yellow Crane Tower.
Prior to last month, Wuhan was a city very few outside of China knew much about. Even though the population of Wuhan is more than New York City and LA combined.
Wuhan went “viral” for being ground zero of a new rapidly spreading disease. While unconfirmed there is much speculation of the official cause of the Wuhan coronavirus. It is thought that bats could be the origin of the virus itself, and it got from bats to people in the wildlife wet market.
China is a hot spot for viral outbreaks “because it combines large bat populations with densely populated rural areas who have a long tradition of eating wildlife, especially in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.”
Please note: I am not an epidemiologist and my opinion on viral outbreaks should be taken with a grain of salt.
HAVE IT YEWEI
Wuhan like many cities in China is home to a “wet market.” Wet markets are marketplaces that sell living animals along with meat and produce, and often feature Ye Wei, a Chinese word that means bushmeat or game including exotic animals and wild animals used in Chinese cuisine.
One of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese culinary history was Manchu–Han Imperial Feast. The venerable Wikipedia highlights the menu from the banquet. A feast served over three days, six meals and 108 courses. Consisting of 134 hot dishes and 48 cold dishes with many Ye Wei dishes made of exotic animals of which many are now endangered species.
The original banquet reportedly consisted of “Thirty-Two Delicacies" of which at least twenty-four are known:
Eight Mountain Delicacies including such dishes as camel's hump, bear's paws, monkey's brains, ape's lips, leopard fetuses, rhinoceros tails, and deer tendons.
Eight Land Delicacies featuring several precious fowls and mushrooms and a dish that is known as Golden Eyes and Burning Brain - bean curd simmered in chicken, duck and cuckoo brains.
Eight Sea Delicacies like dried sea cucumbers, shark's fin, bird's nest.
It is worth noting that modern versions of this feast exist and can cost up to $54,000.
After the 2003 outbreak of SARS, a disease also first transmitted to humans via a wet market, Chinese scientists attempted to stop the practice of eating wild animals. Warning that if human consumption of wildlife is not curbed. Large populations will continue to face heightened risks of viral disease.
Yet, the practice may be more difficult to stop than expected.
“Why do I eat it? It is delicious,” said Terry Gao, a 30-year-old businessman from Guangxi, where he usually eats wild meat. He said he had a particular taste for civets.
“It is really hard to describe. Like how lamb has that special taste, civets are the same. Just the flavor of the meat itself. You don’t need to cook it in any special way: Once you taste it, you’ll know it’s civet.”
Wuhan’s Yellow Crane Tower at night
Brands Will Make Em Dance
David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” defined a brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.
In reality, brands are used to signal a product’s attributes or features versus a competitor. A brand creates a willingness to pay even if that price is disconnected from economic reality. With the ultimate goal of becoming a “name-brand” synonymous with an entire category think Kleenex, Xerox or Google. To do this a brand’s image must be cultivated by brand managers who are ever vigilant in the quest to win “mind-share”.
Today, brands can no longer be one-dimensional. Interacting and influencing consumers in non-traditional manners in order to elicit a response, reaction and create “engagement”. Engagement’s singular goal is to generate more sales.
This sometimes backfires, if an intern posts something questionable, confusing or just forgets to log out of their personal twitter.
Brands hope to remain relevant across generations. Resurfacing deep-seated memories or forgotten tastes and flavors.
Making the simple decision of deciding which fruit-flavored cereal to buy all the more important.
Which do you prefer?
Fruit Loops
Fruity Pebbles
Trix
There is a right answer.
YOU CAN RELY ON THE OLD MAN’S MONEY
Last month’s edition of RatLinks “20/20 Vision” discussed that most people would rather be rich rather than famous.
It seems:
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars
That was then. This is now.
At the present moment, billionaires appear to no longer be worthy of our envy.
Take the Gotham social scene, where currently few now whisper: “Is that Bruce Wayne? Who is he wearing? Could he be the Batman?” Instead, wondering does Wayne Industries have a humanely sourced supply chain.
Bruno Mars sang about how much he wanted to be a billionaire. Leading me to wonder does he “so freaking bad.” (Representatives for Mr. Mars confirmed his stance has not changed)
The ultra-rich now face vilification from wealthy presidential candidates that have attempted to brand wealth as a negative in order to promote socialist agendas.
Rather than focus on wealth redistribution, politicians should instead help others rise out of poverty.
If you want to emulate the ultrawealthy you must not just think rich, but eat rich.
Start your day with a diet full of expensive inflation-adjusted foods, such as Faberge omelets or a
RICH IN PROTEIN
The most emblematic brand of the upper crust, the one that most reeks of well-to-do-rich-guy is obviously Mr. Peanut, the Planters Nuts mascot.
Mr. Peanut had all the trappings:
Top hat ✔️
Monocle ✔️
Locker at the country club next to Mr. Monopoly. ✔️
Fancy driving gloves ✔️✔️
Chorus line number ✔️✔️✔️
(credit: @scullmandible)
In terms of identifiable mascots and brands with no first name, Mr. Peanut was arguably in the top 5 ranked somewhere between The Pillsbury Doughboy and The Michelin Man.
I continue to use the past tense when referring to Mr. Peanut because, on January 22nd, the beloved spokesman-billionaire-capitalist with no first name, fell to his death in a Superbowl ad where he attempts to save none other than former tax evader and demolition man, Wesley Snipes.
It is worth noting that the future of the Superbowl ad campaign around Mr. Peanut’s death feels a bit tasteless and might be shelved after the tragic loss of NBA Legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven others.
It is worth further noting, corporations have infinite lives and portfolios of brands can span generations. Like stars brands end either by flaming out or collapsing in on itself in a blaze of infamy. The loss of Mr. Peanut appears totally unrelated to the $8.3 billion impairment charge that Kraft, Planters parent company, took in February 2019.
Instead, Mr. Peanut’s untimely demise at the age of 104 was cooked up by ad agency VaynerMedia, modeling the campaign on the death of Iron Man.
Most impacted were fellow brands, who shared their condolences via a newly converted twitter page now known as The Estate of Mr. Peanut.
Others poured one out for their lost homie.
Forget milk or the purple stuff, focus returned to SUNNY D and old tweet that happened to resurface.