Cartoonist and marketing theorist Hugh MacLeod has been developing his concept of “social objects,” now reified in the form of his “cube grenade” series of illustrations, which he believes are representative of the future of both brands and marketing as a whole. Though it may sound opaque at first, the concept of social objects can be summed up by MacLeod’s thesis that people socialize around objects in meaningful ways, and these peripheral interactions are far more important than the objects themselves.

Such conversations, MacLeod claims, can be induced by introducing objects into peoples environments in such a way that provokes them [...]

Illustrator and marketing guru Hugh MacLeod was recently interviewed by the Lateral Action blog about his work on both sides of his ego. There’s an interesting comment that he made about art and marketing in the Q&A:
LA: A lot of artists and creative types see marketing as an evil necessity – or just plain evil. What would you say to them?
HMc: “Artists cannot market” is complete crap. Warhol was GREAT at marketing. As was Picasso and countless other “Blue Chips”. Of course, they’d often take the “anti-marketing” stance as a form of marketing themselves. And their patrons lapped it up.
The [...]