welcome to mod house media watch

Modern houses and residential interiors often appear in the popular media as a prop to sell other products. Consumer products are often shown in the context of a cool modern house or a hip modern interior to cast them in a desirable light. This represents a great disconnect in our culture. The marketers clearly understand that the Modern House carries positive capital in the pitch of their product. But the housing industry lags way behind, conservative, the last to follow a trend, the first to ignore one. But it is useful to realize that the Modern House has cultural value, that it represents desirability, mainly through its exclusivity, an exclusivity that is primarily derived from its unavailability. Because it is unavailable the Modern House more often than not emerges through a singular custom commission, an expensive endeavor which brings us full circle to its exclusivity and desirability. Astute observers will realize that this represents a window of opportunity. Developers and Builders willing to offer the Modern House will enjoy a virtually untapped market. This Mod House Media Watch is intended as a wake-up call, a location to collect media placements of the Modern House in order to evidence the cultural value of the Modern House to would be Developers and Builders. This is a tool for those trying to move the market, one more piece of evidence to put before those you are trying to sway. We are primarily interested in tracking advertising, however placements of the Modern House in film, tv programing, and other entertainment media is still of great interest, particularly when the placement is meant to influence the context of the program, ie using the Modern House to inject cool factor into a scene or build the aura of a character. We can include programs on home improvement as well when they have a modern focus. Advertising for modern furniture, high end modern kitchens, and other products already inclusive of the Modern House will not have the same significance and we likely will not include them. You can help. If you see a placement post a comment or send us an email, and see if you can track down or capture an image. We will enter it into the blog. Hopefully we can track down the back story about some of the houses in these placements. Who was the designer, where is the house, how did the placement in the ad come about. Some of you may remember this blog was started sometime ago on LiveModern. If you wish to read those older posts you can still find them there.