Episode 9
All the Pretty Horseys (ep 09)
Why do Ferrari, Porsche, and Ducati all have black stallions emblazoned on their logos? The answer is probably more interesting than you think — from both a historical and sociological perspective!
Topher and Robert are firing on all cylinders as Strange Coordinates covers Ferrari’s identity and origins.
Links discussed in the episode:
Most Mentioned Vehicles in Rap and Hip-Hop Songs: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g26087850/cars-in-rap-hip-hop-songs-music/
These Are The 12 Most-Mentioned Cars In Hip-Hop: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/expensive-cars-rappers-favorite/
Ferrari Logo History: https://www.ferrarilakeforest.com/manufacturer-information/ferrari-logo-history
The tale of the domesticated horse: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2022/tale-domesticated-horse
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territorial is an advertising agency that helps brands find their place in the world. To see our work and learn more about what we do, visit weareterritorial.com and follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/weareterritorial
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Show art & design by Chris Allen
Editing by Steph George
Marketing by Billy Silverman
Episode music by Blue Dot Sessions
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Subscribe to our mailing list: https://forms.gle/YH9y99y1d9ZVKNm28
Transcript
Welcome to Strange Coordinates, the show where we use brands as roadmaps
Speaker:to arrive at surprising places.
Speaker:I am in a bright shaft of sunlight right now, which is unusual for Portland,
Speaker:and that makes me Topher burns.
Speaker:And Roberto Beog.
Speaker:Uh, I'm announcing myself as Robert Beog, uh, in the theme of today's episode.
Speaker:Uh, Topher and I founded.
Speaker:An ad agency called Territorial, after lifetimes of working with some
Speaker:of the best brands in the world,
Speaker:we help brands find their place in the world.
Speaker:And we do that by exploring how history and culture and desire and excitement
Speaker:bounce off each other to reveal insights about what's cool about being human.
Speaker:Indeed, every episode one of us gives the other a brand to explore.
Speaker:That person has to trek into the wilderness, come back with a story
Speaker:they find to be most compelling.
Speaker:Could be wild, could be wonderful.
Speaker:It is using brands as compass points to discover more about the world around us.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And so for this episode, it was, it was my job to give Topher the brand to pursue.
Speaker:and I hope he could keep up with it because it was a speedy one.
Speaker:Uh, this brand for this week uh, is Ferrari.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And you know, I think usually when we start these things off, you know,
Speaker:we're like, Oh, what did you think when I gave you the brand Ferrari?
Speaker:I would like to turn the tables and say, Robert, what were you thinking
Speaker:when you gave me the brand Ferrari?
Speaker:you know, it's funny cause I actually was the last, Second decision, right before
Speaker:we recorded last time, I had a few things floating in my mind about which one I
Speaker:wanted and there was just this vibe.
Speaker:Maybe it was, uh, maybe I was feeling a little sluggish and slow.
Speaker:Maybe I wanted a little flash and some just kind of something pure and
Speaker:simple, uh, and, and, uh, exciting.
Speaker:Um, and so Ferrari just kind of, you know, raced to the front of
Speaker:the pack and, uh, I decided that's, that's what I wanted to explore.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Well, you know, it was coming, the previous episode the previous
Speaker:assignment I had been given was Boeing.
Speaker:And then, you know, so we went Boeing, and then I kicked you back Crayola,
Speaker:and then you kicked me back another super engineering heavy, fairly
Speaker:heteronormative, uh, Like, machine brand.
Speaker:And I have to say, I was a little like, Hhhhhh And I, I didn't immediately,
Speaker:uh, Like, it was difficult to convince my brain to be like, Let's, let's
Speaker:tunnel around in here and find,
Speaker:Isn't there something kind of homoerotic about the, the, like the love and
Speaker:the fascination with some of the, the curves and the, when we give words
Speaker:like the body and like, there's a, there's a little bit of like safe space
Speaker:for men to be gushing about a thing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like there's something there.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:is so straight It's gay.
Speaker:usually I'm like, I'll do football like, you know, like that's I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know if that's like the frat boy in me or whatever.
Speaker:Um, but it's interesting that you did bring up homoeroticism because the
Speaker:very first thing that I googled when I could eventually get my brain to be
Speaker:like, okay, let's do something, I just punched in, gay Ferrari just to see,
Speaker:just to see what it would give me.
Speaker:Um, and that's when I found out that, do you know the only color
Speaker:that Ferrari will not make a car in?
Speaker:Pink.
Speaker:Pink.
Speaker:Pink is the only color.
Speaker:Only color.
Speaker:You cannot get a Ferrari from Ferrari.
Speaker:You can customize your own Ferrari, obviously, after you buy it.
Speaker:But, anybody who has a pink Ferrari, they had to make it on their own.
Speaker:Because Ferrari is like, nah, that's the queer color, or whatever.
Speaker:so that would set you off on a real good path, I would imagine.
Speaker:Yeah, so I was like, that's fun.
Speaker:But, you know what else was fun when I, uh, gay uh, when I gay-gled
Speaker:When when I gay-gled gay Ferrari,
Speaker:Um, the What do you think that the fourth search entry result
Speaker:was after I googled gay Ferrari?
Speaker:Guy Fieri.
Speaker:It was!
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:Guy Fieri's Wikipedia page!
Speaker:So good.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:that cheered me up a little bit.
Speaker:I was like, all right, we're having fun.
Speaker:We're
Speaker:Yeah, that's, that's great.
Speaker:I mean, listen, here's the thing.
Speaker:I don't, you know, you asked what I was thinking.
Speaker:Like, and, you know, Ferrari certainly is a car company, but
Speaker:like, it's also a design icon.
Speaker:And I thought that there's a, there's just something about that uhm...
Speaker:that that really interesting mix of, of, uh, you know, engineering
Speaker:and design that I thought was maybe interesting to explore.
Speaker:Yeah, so, you know, I'm at this point in my research, I'm just kind
Speaker:of like fumbling around, right?
Speaker:but I think your original question around like you're interested to
Speaker:see where things would go on kind of like design and that heritage.
Speaker:I really, I made a joke about it.
Speaker:I think when we were, when you handed me the brand and I was
Speaker:like, I know it has a horsey.
Speaker:Um, and, uh, I went back to that and I was like, you know what?
Speaker:Like, fuck it.
Speaker:I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at the logo, and
Speaker:we're
Speaker:at the logo.
Speaker:start from there.
Speaker:Um, and the lo like, that really gave me this entire, uh, like, to tease
Speaker:this out, basically, this took me on an Ouroboros journey, where I
Speaker:ended in the place where I began, and And, uh, it felt really satisfying.
Speaker:So, I'm gonna take you through this snail, the, I was gonna
Speaker:say snail eating its tail.
Speaker:I'm gonna stick with that.
Speaker:The, the, the Ouroboros I have is a really long, extended sort of snail, slowly
Speaker:suckling on, on its gummy end posterior.
Speaker:Um, alright, so, for those who are, uh, Maybe like me, potentially like
Speaker:need a little refresher on the, on what the Ferrari brand looks like.
Speaker:If you look at the sort of the classic lockup of it, you've
Speaker:got a rectangle and inside the rectangle, you've got a black horsey.
Speaker:rearing up, um, tossing its glorious mane.
Speaker:It's on a canary yellow background and underneath it says Ferrari and
Speaker:it's got that really cool stylized kind of like top bar that goes across.
Speaker:it's an exceptional logo.
Speaker:Like you, just gorgeous, super compelling.
Speaker:The right amount of like, it's not like we're a car, like this is where they're
Speaker:not going to hire Hulk Hogan to be there.
Speaker:There's like, cause it's just like really.
Speaker:It has like a strong classicness to it, um, but it still tells you
Speaker:like, this shit's gonna be fast.
Speaker:Like, so, I think it's, I think it's a super, super effective,
Speaker:gorgeous, really nice logo to look at.
Speaker:Let's, let's break it down, these little pieces.
Speaker:Um, Ferrari.
Speaker:As a name, Once I thought about it, I was like, Oh, duh.
Speaker:But, um, Ferrari is basically the Italian version of the last name Smith.
Speaker:It just means iron worker.
Speaker:So
Speaker:it's actually an incredibly common last name in Italy.
Speaker:And the same way that we have the last name Smith being that, like, it's just
Speaker:the word that the like last name that all the blacksmiths and the villages
Speaker:took so that you know what they did.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:You're right.
Speaker:The Latin root for iron.
Speaker:Yeah, Ferris, um, and F.
Speaker:E.
Speaker:being the kind of like, um, periodic table abbreviation.
Speaker:mean, I already learned something new.
Speaker:I love this.
Speaker:We could end the podcast right now.
Speaker:I'd be like, Well, that was a great trip through the world of Ferrari.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Topher.
Speaker:uh, snail, snail journey done.
Speaker:Uh, so then, like, so we got the word, uh, interesting.
Speaker:Then we've got, you know, our horsey, uh, the, uh, Yellow, that
Speaker:the horsey is rearing against, is a tribute to Enzo Ferrari, the founder
Speaker:of Ferrari's hometown of Modena.
Speaker:So, uh, Modena's color is canary yellow, and so he put the horsey on there.
Speaker:But, um, once you start digging into where the horsey comes from, that's where stuff
Speaker:starts to get really, really interesting.
Speaker:cool.
Speaker:Do you know anything about that derivation of why the horse is, on the Ferrari
Speaker:I have no, no clue why there's a horse there.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:you might, and so I was interested to see where we would need to pick it up.
Speaker:But alright, so, um, where Enzo Ferrari attributes the Uh, sort of inspiration for
Speaker:and taking of the horse as kind of like the, the mascot for Ferrari is he traces
Speaker:it back to a World War Italian, like ace pilot named Count Francesco Baracca,
Speaker:mean, yes.
Speaker:obviously, um, Francesco Baracca was a national hero.
Speaker:He won 34 consecutive air duels.
Speaker:Dog fights.
Speaker:Yeah, um, so he was really, really renowned, um, and a
Speaker:very popular figure in society.
Speaker:And he had, a black horse on his plane.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:And so he was actually, eventually shot down, um, and died.
Speaker:And a few years after he died, Enzo Ferrari was somehow brought
Speaker:to have the opportunity to sit down with the mother and father,
Speaker:the Count and Countess Baracca.
Speaker:Um, and the mother said, you should take the black horse as
Speaker:your emblem for your company.
Speaker:It will bring you luck.
Speaker:And so, he sort of like, You know, uh, expressed his gratitude and used that.
Speaker:interestingly, you know, Enzo wasn't the only person who, as a younger
Speaker:child, admired Count Francesco Baracca.
Speaker:So Ducati actually took the black stallion as their mascot
Speaker:and used that until the 1960s.
Speaker:Um, and it's the same, for the same reason.
Speaker:The engineer of Ducati, was a huge fan of Count, Baraka during World War II.
Speaker:And so, also sought the patronage of Count and Countess Baraka and
Speaker:Countess Baraka said, yes, pop it on your motorcycles as well.
Speaker:There's enough horses to go around.
Speaker:Do you everybody get one?
Speaker:Um, the mystery though, goes deeper when you ask the question, what brought
Speaker:Count Baraka the uh, the pilot ace to put the horse on his own plane.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:I can't I'm guessing is it I don't know what it's from.
Speaker:I can't guess horsepower.
Speaker:there's, there's a, there's an apocryphal story and then there's an epistemological
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:I'm going to take you down the apocryphal story first because
Speaker:it's kind of an interesting one.
Speaker:So, Ducati's not the only engineering vehicle company that
Speaker:uses a black horsey on their logo.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you've already mentioned this brand before, but you know another, car
Speaker:Oh, Portia.
Speaker:black horsey.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Portia uses a black horse on their, emblem because the Portia emblem is the coat of
Speaker:arms of the city of Stuttgart in Germany.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, uh, that's where Portia was founded.
Speaker:And Stuttgart is also kind of like the Detroit of Germany,
Speaker:like it's the, the car place.
Speaker:Um, so Portia puts, just like popped that right on there
Speaker:as like a sign of provenance.
Speaker:Um, The apocryphal story is that Count Baraka shot down a pilot that was from
Speaker:Stuttgart and took his emblem and put it on his plane as a symbol of kind of like,
Speaker:you know, another notch in the lipstick
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Um, which apparently was common at the time is like to take the emblems of your
Speaker:slain foes, and put them on your own
Speaker:So if we had any hopes of this story getting kind of less
Speaker:toxic masculinity laced, I think those hopes are out the window.
Speaker:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker:It was, it began and ended with me Googling gay Ferrari, kind of.
Speaker:But this is one where, this is a place where we could potentially have,
Speaker:kind of like, looped back around.
Speaker:Because there is a world where if that story is true, then Porsche and Ferrari
Speaker:have the same horse on their logo.
Speaker:Because it's the horse that is the emblem of Stuttgart.
Speaker:uh
Speaker:fortunately, making this interesting, we have the, um, epistle, piece of evidence,
Speaker:um, that takes us in another direction.
Speaker:And that is that Count Baraka wrote to his mom and told her that he, took the horse
Speaker:as his emblem because it was a tribute to a cavalry regiment that he belonged
Speaker:to earlier in his military career.
Speaker:That cavalry regiment was formed by the Duke of Savoy in 1692 and they
Speaker:had a horse on their coat of arms.
Speaker:mean, that's not, that's not very imaginative to have, you know, to
Speaker:be in the cavalry and be like, what should we take as our coat of arms?
Speaker:I don't know, maybe a horse?
Speaker:Just spitballing here, guys.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, so that actually took me down a whole nother like sub wormhole.
Speaker:Um, cause I asked the same question at first.
Speaker:I was like, well, like, huh.
Speaker:but it made me start to think about heraldry
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:and heraldic codes.
Speaker:We're seeing that in Porsche.
Speaker:We're seeing that now expressed here.
Speaker:in, you know, the, uh, the coat of arms that inspired
Speaker:Baraka to pull a piece of it.
Speaker:Uh, but so I, I was like, all right, well, let's dive into that.
Speaker:so if you permit me, we'll kind of like transition into the world of heraldry now.
Speaker:I mean absolutely this this like medieval nerd is it could not be happier
Speaker:So, I did a little bit, I'm not an expert, but I did a little bit of
Speaker:research into the world of heraldry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But
Speaker:I would love maybe, just to, you know, as somebody who has lived in this space
Speaker:and spent a lot of time culturally in it, take a stab at just kind of like
Speaker:describing how you think of like, heraldry and heraldric, heraldic code.
Speaker:well, you know, it's a collection of objects and symbols that say
Speaker:something about either your family or the place you're from and, and want
Speaker:to, and purport, convey a message about that place or that family.
Speaker:Pretty solid.
Speaker:And like, if you were to describe it, uh, and say like, what does it look like?
Speaker:Um, oftentimes on a, collected on a, on a form like a shield.
Speaker:With, different quadrants representing different parts of that story.
Speaker:Color is important.
Speaker:there's a fairly limited set of references.
Speaker:It's not, it's not, um, It's not like everything in the world shows up.
Speaker:There's a, there's, you know, Water things, there's fire
Speaker:things, there's beast things.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:And it's like, you know, pretty, pretty basic.
Speaker:You know, blocks of color and really, you know, yeah.
Speaker:Um, all right, so I kind of asked myself the question, like,
Speaker:where did heraldry come from?
Speaker:Like, what, what really is it?
Speaker:Um, and like any, you know, scholastic or historic ball of twine, once you
Speaker:start pulling on it, like, you can look at things in a few different ways.
Speaker:But at its most basic, heraldry, as we understand it, like you're talking about,
Speaker:like the shields and the symbols and the.
Speaker:Big blocks of color and stuff like that kind of started in the 12th century and
Speaker:not for one reason But there are three major reasons that kind of started like
Speaker:it from Something that was before in many different cultures across a wide
Speaker:range of times like the Romans would, you know, the, um, Constantine famously
Speaker:telling all his soldiers to paint the sign of the cross on their, uh,
Speaker:shields before they went into battle.
Speaker:And that kind of cemented Christianity as like the next religion of, of Europe.
Speaker:You know, those, um, those are recorded frequently, but they are,
Speaker:never kind of like, Consistencies, like identity consistencies where
Speaker:a person always has the same symbol and that represents themself.
Speaker:that doesn't start until the 12th century.
Speaker:And so, one of the first things that is happening is that tournaments
Speaker:and jousting are becoming a cultural norm across medieval Europe.
Speaker:So, um, society has, an economy has gotten to the point where they
Speaker:have like the ability to funnel resources into these types of like
Speaker:medieval pageantry and leisure time.
Speaker:Mm-hmm
Speaker:And, technology is advanced, so people are wearing more armor.
Speaker:So you can't see who the person is when they're out on the, the
Speaker:field competing against each other.
Speaker:Crowds need to be to tell those people apart.
Speaker:Um, and they need to be able to do that from a distance.
Speaker:And that needs to be consistent, because you'll have many different, you know,
Speaker:Bouts during one day so a person's gonna go from a fight earlier in the day to
Speaker:then like Moving their way up in the ranks and fighting another person so they
Speaker:can't have been red before and then blue now It's gonna make everything confusing
Speaker:so like each person needs to have their own Distinct visual identity in order
Speaker:for you to follow them through this whole
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So because cavalry is becoming more and more important, um, the shield isn't
Speaker:a massive shield that you're carrying, but the person fighting is carrying a
Speaker:shield that is made to be on a horse.
Speaker:So it's smaller and the dimensions of it are different.
Speaker:So when you mentioned that, like one of the things you think about is like,
Speaker:Heraldry being on a shield shape.
Speaker:That's intentional, but that shield shape didn't exist before that.
Speaker:So we think of the heraldic thing as happening on a shield shape that is that
Speaker:sort of like standard square at the top, kind of square ish curve to the bottom,
Speaker:and that's for jousting, specifically.
Speaker:The second is the crusades are starting to really, uh, get real in the 12th century.
Speaker:And the crusades mean that you're mixing a ton of people from a
Speaker:wide variety of places who don't necessarily speak the same language.
Speaker:and so being able to like track who's with who is really, really important.
Speaker:And to be able to be like, understandable to people who might
Speaker:not speak your language, just saying like, this is what I'm about.
Speaker:Um, you need to be speaking in symbols.
Speaker:And, it's also really, really important politically, religiously, culturally,
Speaker:to be seen as participating in the
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So carrying a symbol of, you know, you being there, and that being obvious on any
Speaker:battlefield, obvious from tense moments.
Speaker:being surveyed from far away.
Speaker:That's really important for God himself to be able to see your
Speaker:symbol being foisted above Jerusalem.
Speaker:That's really, really important.
Speaker:So the Crusades kind of like accelerate the need to communicate
Speaker:in these types of symbols.
Speaker:And then the last one is there're increasingly complicated inherited
Speaker:lines of power at this point.
Speaker:So we're not just kind of like single chief clan ruled by one person, but
Speaker:we're starting to create little, little dynasties and fiefdoms where power
Speaker:is being passed down and passed down.
Speaker:And being able to lay claim to that is important because it's not you yourself.
Speaker:Maybe that like had the achievements of a really famous battle, that's
Speaker:your grandfather, but like you need, you need also to like claim that.
Speaker:So, You can't use yourself as the like, my name carries all the,
Speaker:the deeds and all the power and all the economic impact and all the holiness.
Speaker:Um, you need to have like a, a symbol that encapsulates all of that accrued
Speaker:wealth, accrued cultural power.
Speaker:And so you need stuff that can kind of say that really quickly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then also it would reflect your relationship to the large,
Speaker:like the larger power, too.
Speaker:So if you were like a duke in France, you'd use like the fleur de lis to
Speaker:indicate your proximity to the king.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah, and so basically everything that I've listed off in terms of like
Speaker:appreciability, Um, really quickly across long distances to the eye,
Speaker:um, communicating an enormous amount of complicated, um, information,
Speaker:um, quickly and without the need to necessarily understand words and
Speaker:like containing, an enormous amount of like, historical heritage all
Speaker:wrapped into like some symbols like, gosh, what does that sound like?
Speaker:it's a brand.
Speaker:It's a brand.
Speaker:So I was like, that was really fun just to kind of like go into this
Speaker:and be like, Oh, that's kind of cool.
Speaker:Like they organically discovered the needs to like create their own personal brands.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:heraldry is kind of, you know, personal branding.
Speaker:Um, born out of needs.
Speaker:Um, not born out of like, style, but it's really like, really making some
Speaker:like, really important economic and cultural impacts, um, at this time.
Speaker:saying that this childhood obsession with knights and medieval times
Speaker:has actually prepared me for the very job that I have now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, so, so we're, like I said, this is kind of starting off
Speaker:in the, in the 12th century.
Speaker:Um, it's evolved over hundreds of years so that cities have coats of arms, churches
Speaker:have them, military regiments have them.
Speaker:And so the Piedmont Royal Regiment maybe didn't necessarily go as imaginative
Speaker:and chose like a griffin, but They did what heraldic code is supposed to do,
Speaker:which is really quickly communicate core values of what they are.
Speaker:And so, like you said, the Piedmont Riot Regiment, they had a horse.
Speaker:And they also had little cues that, um, like said, like, where they were from.
Speaker:Like, it connected them to different people that put it together.
Speaker:Um, so it was really kind of like, a little bit of like a hieroglyph,
Speaker:um, or a brand mark of like what they are, what they're about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's like, I mean, it's very reminiscent of, you know, uh, the Boeing
Speaker:conversation we had when, when Boeing kind of use their logo to indicate the
Speaker:kind of confluence of the different companies that they brought together.
Speaker:And it was telling this, this story maybe a little bit ham fistedly, but
Speaker:still in ways that were kind of clear, clearly, clearly able to delineate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like you're like, I get what that means.
Speaker:Like that's the missile, you know?
Speaker:Um, and so It had me think I was looking into what are horses used for in heraldic
Speaker:code and speed, um, you know, the, uh, I started thinking about Well, you know, to
Speaker:have a horse isn't something that, like, necessarily everybody could even have.
Speaker:So there's a little bit of, like, a power flex to it.
Speaker:Um, in Ferrari, you know, the, and you will be better at pronouncing this,
Speaker:but, Scuderia Ferrari, or whatever.
Speaker:you did a great job.
Speaker:Okay, did that do, that was okay.
Speaker:Um, the first, like sometimes the logo is marked up in a shield
Speaker:and the horse is rearing up or prancing as they call it, um, on the
Speaker:said it's prancing?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And I don't think that's true, right?
Speaker:Like the, the horse is rearing, um, and you can call it in heraldic code,
Speaker:you would call that posture rampant.
Speaker:And they used rampant a lot because if you want to have one beast on a shield,
Speaker:having it be bipedal kind of cuts.
Speaker:It's a bad design
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:So every beast is rearing up because it means that you can put them into this
Speaker:vertical.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, so Scuderia Ferrari has a shield with a horse rampant.
Speaker:Um, and it says SF underneath for Scuderia.
Speaker:And Scuderia is, it means stables.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So the Ferrari stables haven't ever literally been stables from
Speaker:the beginning of the founding.
Speaker:They took the horse as the mascot and then just called their like,
Speaker:um, racing team, the stables.
Speaker:That's pretty cool.
Speaker:So there's like this connection to the power of horses.
Speaker:Um, and it's got me thinking just like, well, shit, like, let me
Speaker:learn a little bit more about horses and our relationship with them.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Are you ready to move onto the final sort of like, little, uh, Mario pipe warp?
Speaker:So this, the snail is maybe three quarters eat has three
Speaker:quarters eat in its own body.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:do do do do do do do do do do do do do.
Speaker:I always liked how the rhythm kinda like, Peters out intentionally, like they
Speaker:really beat, they break the thing and you can tell that they're like, and then
Speaker:you have to wait a little bit for the whole thing to, yeah, it's a good one.
Speaker:Uh, okay.
Speaker:So I started wondering when did we domesticate horses?
Speaker:huh.
Speaker:Like what's the, how, how palsies with horses?
Speaker:What do horses really mean for us?
Speaker:Um, and so I'll say it again.
Speaker:The moment you start digging into what feel like clear cut questions,
Speaker:you get science and history involved.
Speaker:It just starts to get a little bit woolier.
Speaker:But, horses, as I found in one of my articles, and I loved this phrase,
Speaker:are a new addition to the barnyard.
Speaker:Um, so, the first animals we domesticated,
Speaker:Dogs.
Speaker:Yep, dogs.
Speaker:Um, and that's a long time ago.
Speaker:Like, 18, 000 years ago.
Speaker:Like, really, really long ago.
Speaker:Um, we didn't have homes when we domesticated dogs.
Speaker:We're like, you wanna sleep by this fire with me?
Speaker:Um, and dogs were like, that's cool.
Speaker:Then, after that, sheep and goats and pigs all, um, started being domesticated.
Speaker:Um, I think it was like, 8, 000 years ago?
Speaker:Horses, more like five, five and a half, maybe six thousand years ago,
Speaker:Before cows?
Speaker:Uh, cows weren't presented on that list and I forgot to cross check it
Speaker:think, that makes sense because I think that cows are related
Speaker:to a pretty ferocious animal.
Speaker:That like,
Speaker:Right, yeah, like, like bison and buffalo and like aurochs and muskox
Speaker:those were, I think they were probably pretty like, Let's give them a little time
Speaker:Yeah, like, we didn't domesticate mammoths.
Speaker:We just exterminated
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:And it could have been a similar situation, maybe, with the cows, that
Speaker:we just, like, ate all the scary ones.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:basically.
Speaker:um, So the horses, um, they start getting domesticated in a few
Speaker:different places, um, which kind of, a lot of people point out, shows
Speaker:how, how much there was to be gained,
Speaker:um, because all, all these domestication events are kind of happening in Europe.
Speaker:And so, um, the, the, even though they're like a North American
Speaker:creature, technically, they made their way over to Eurasia and
Speaker:kind of thrived over, over there.
Speaker:So all of the domestication events are kind of happening
Speaker:in those parts of the world.
Speaker:and there are different species of horses.
Speaker:but all of those lines of horses actually die out and we see those like genetic.
Speaker:lines, kind of like stop being part of like what constitutes a horse, and
Speaker:there is one genetic line that ends up being what all horses now that are
Speaker:domestic horses are, are based from.
Speaker:And that is from this culture in the Northern Eurasian steppes
Speaker:called the Sintashta culture.
Speaker:huh.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Uh
Speaker:some like functional differences between these horses and other horses
Speaker:that, um, uh, biologists and historians think may have contributed to like
Speaker:why these horses became the horses.
Speaker:It's related, there's some like some mutations related to like, um,
Speaker:gentleness, like less excitability.
Speaker:Um, there are mutations, connected to stronger backs because
Speaker:bear more weight,
Speaker:Yeah, you can put more on the horse and, um, you know, if your horse has
Speaker:like a weaker back, like maybe your horse is fine running on its own, but
Speaker:like, if it isn't fine also running, carrying another beast on the back of
Speaker:it, you're not going to kind of like get what you need from that horse.
Speaker:So they bred, bred these horses very successfully or lucked into some
Speaker:good mutations and benefited them.
Speaker:But I want to tell you a little bit about the culture that did this, because They
Speaker:cracked the code maybe on like a better horse, but like why did this culture
Speaker:then Why did why did the horse that they made become the horse that is today's
Speaker:just so I know where we are geographically, so Eurasian
Speaker:steppes, what's that kind of like southern Russia y kind of northern
Speaker:western Mongolia kind of, what are
Speaker:Yeah, yeah those those regions and part of the reason that the can't
Speaker:be like, it was this exact city, is, they weren't really as much, as much
Speaker:like a, a city building culture.
Speaker:this was really long time ago.
Speaker:We're talking mid bronze
Speaker:right, uh huh,
Speaker:and we actually don't have like, Recorded records, like, as far as we
Speaker:know, they did not have writing systems.
Speaker:So, we don't have anything that can tell us, like, directly about them.
Speaker:And, in fact, what we have mostly is, like, some artifacts from them,
Speaker:and then also, like, the impressions that other cultures have of them.
Speaker:But this Sintashta culture is super warlike.
Speaker:And very successful at it.
Speaker:So, they cracked the code on acquiring a number of important technologies and
Speaker:then, uh, deploying them to be able to be very, very effective at conquering,
Speaker:raiding, and extending their, power across a huge swath of that area.
Speaker:and so it's not like they're just, like, just constrained to that little
Speaker:part of, like, Eurasia, but they are roving around and kind of, you know,
Speaker:in some ways kind of like soaking up all the best of the other cultures
Speaker:as they conquer them, They're kind of like picking these things up.
Speaker:So it might not actually have even been the Sintasa culture
Speaker:that domesticated the horse.
Speaker:They might have just conquered a people who had and been
Speaker:like, oh, this is pretty great.
Speaker:Like let's let's get this in the
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:another thing that they were really renowned for was metalworking.
Speaker:So very effective at mining and then, um, putting these materials into
Speaker:weapons that they took now on horseback.
Speaker:And they also, created the spoked wheel.
Speaker:So they created chariots that, um, the, um, horses could pull.
Speaker:And so that's one of the things that we have from this Sintasta culture
Speaker:is like these massive bronze age chair, war chariots, with wheels
Speaker:that they used to subdue and, you know, decimate other, other armies.
Speaker:Um, so I was kind of just like thinking about.
Speaker:the technologies that they've put together.
Speaker:And like, if you really think about it, the horse is this just like massive
Speaker:advantage because until 200, we're talking about like way, way in the 6, 000
Speaker:years in the past, but until 200 years ago, a horse was the fastest way to get
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And the Sintashta were obviously really, really affected at it.
Speaker:Um, so they became so, oh, sorry, am I repausing?
Speaker:No, no, I'm just actually curious.
Speaker:I was thinking to myself, Bye bye.
Speaker:Why have I never heard this name of this culture before?
Speaker:Well, so we're getting to something that you may actually, is a term
Speaker:you will be familiar with, I think.
Speaker:the Sintasa culture was so prolific and, influential that they actually are the
Speaker:source of what we call in linguistic terms the Proto Indo European Language, or PIE.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I took some linguistics classes and like anthropolo linguistic
Speaker:anthropology classes and stuff like that.
Speaker:So I was familiar with it.
Speaker:I don't expect most people would be like, oh sure, the Proto Indo European language.
Speaker:But that is basically the mother of all European and even
Speaker:some non European languages.
Speaker:So everything that is related to Greek, ancient Greek through modern,
Speaker:everything that is related to Latin.
Speaker:Uh, Latin, uh, so Romance languages, any Slavic language, any Baltic language, any
Speaker:Germanic language, any Iranian language, Celtic language, all of those, their roots
Speaker:are in the Proto Indo European language, which is what the Sintashta culture spoke.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Like, uh, absences there though.
Speaker:Like Turkish is not part of that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Cause Turkish comes from a different root.
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:And like, I think Hungarian maybe is
Speaker:they're related.
Speaker:Yeah, that's super interesting.
Speaker:So, they, uh, I was looking through some of the roots and
Speaker:like trying to figure stuff out.
Speaker:Because we don't have any written languages, written records, we don't
Speaker:actually, we have had to do, what they call, um, linguistic reconstruction.
Speaker:Where they just like keep going back further and further and further.
Speaker:And so, they're creating, like in sort of like, in intuiting the derivations
Speaker:of all of the different words and things like that, but they've been therefore
Speaker:able to put together a dictionary of Proto Indo European language.
Speaker:And the word for horse is something that you will absolutely recognize, Equo.
Speaker:course, yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like Equus in Latin, but equine, equestrian,
Speaker:That's, that's super interesting.
Speaker:I mean, like.
Speaker:And we're talking this, this is a voice from six, 6, 000,
Speaker:uh, BC or 6, 000 years ago.
Speaker:000 years
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:this, once I like took a beat, because I had kind of gone pretty far into this
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and then I was like, wait, shit.
Speaker:And this is where the snail
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:realizes that he's been, he's been nibbling on his own tail.
Speaker:He's like gotten to the shell now.
Speaker:And he's like, Oh my God, I've made a horrible mistake.
Speaker:Um, or maybe he's like, wow, I finally got to the juicy center.
Speaker:Um, I realized that what I had been reading about was, uh, the culture
Speaker:that created the Ferrari brand, because this is in, in one swoop,
Speaker:we are talking about a culture that.
Speaker:created the Italian language to be able to talk about a metal worker who
Speaker:created a contraption that is run on spoked wheels and that takes the horse
Speaker:as the representation of its power.
Speaker:I mean, that's, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker:That's pretty awesome.
Speaker:It's crazy.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And I mean, the thing is, is that, you know, per your, your Mario metaphor,
Speaker:you went down a lot of different, um, tubes, and there was no way to
Speaker:know that you would have ended there.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But, but there's, I mean, but what's interesting is that, um, Perhaps that's
Speaker:why it's such a resonant symbol is because it carries with it all of that
Speaker:intent intentionality and intensity that is located in a, in a culture, but in
Speaker:a place, um, and speaks with, speaks with like volumes beyond what it should
Speaker:because it has all that baked into it.
Speaker:Yes, I deeply, deeply agree with that, that we're talking about six, at least
Speaker:6, 000 years of coded cultural and linguistic heritage that also speak to
Speaker:the intense amount of like respect and like relational, uh, success that we feel.
Speaker:When we are in the presence of or reminded of a horse, you know,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:that's it That's an enormous amount of like we didn't borrow a thing from
Speaker:another culture that we don't kind of you know What like this is this is
Speaker:we're dealing with something like if you are a person who is of a Western
Speaker:culture and you see the Ferrari logo.
Speaker:Ferrari is tugging on 6, 000 years of emotions of success, power, um, you
Speaker:know, speed of, um, heritage, like just through that one little mark.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:and, and that's why it's, I think one of the reasons why it's so, so successful.
Speaker:And it's, yeah, and the fact that, that it's used often, and then used
Speaker:by companies and brands that are, um, signifying a, a kind of peak,
Speaker:uh, peak performance of some, of some kind, that's super fascinating.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's funny because at the top of this show we talk about how basically what we do is
Speaker:look at these intersections of culture and history and desire and symbol, um, and You
Speaker:know, we don't, we, you know, do it for great brands, but we also do it for brands
Speaker:that are not going to be the Ferraris of the world, but will, will do something
Speaker:really spectacular in their own realm.
Speaker:And we pull on those same strings, or we try to pull on the ones
Speaker:that are, that are relevant.
Speaker:Um, and it's not just fluffery, it's, it's really about what, um, what chords
Speaker:can we strike in people that are shared.
Speaker:Um, and they're shared because we have shared history, or we have inherited,
Speaker:um, symbols and these packets of meaning through, through our, our culture.
Speaker:those things matter, even when we don't, like, consciously know they matter.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:We're, we're, we're hacking into solutions that, you know, shield
Speaker:painters, in, you know, 1182 rems, uh, you know, had to figure out.
Speaker:Um, and were, were standing on the problem solving that, that they
Speaker:used to be able to figure out how to do something successfully today.
Speaker:I mean, really, Topher, you have, you have outdone yourself.
Speaker:You have taken us into prehistory to, to unearth the origins of Ferrari's
Speaker:power and I personally appreciate it because I was glad to spend some
Speaker:time with Jousting and, and Heraldry.
Speaker:So thank you very much for that.
Speaker:yeah, yeah, and it all started with me being like, I know they got a horsey.
Speaker:I, uh, I was a little bit of a horse kid.
Speaker:I remember one day, being like, My family must be so poor because
Speaker:we can't afford to buy me a horse.
Speaker:And it's the only thing I want in the world.
Speaker:Uh, and I remember just like being so sad and my mom just explaining like,
Speaker:yeah, we can't, we can't afford that.
Speaker:And that was like the first, maybe the first thing that I like remember
Speaker:as a kid being like, not able to afford, you know what I mean?
Speaker:It wasn't that I wasn't allowed to have it.
Speaker:It said actually like, it just wasn't realistic.
Speaker:Um, and that was like a, that was a sad moment for
Speaker:Did you have a, were you, there was always like somebody in the broader
Speaker:kind of social circle in Virginia who like, had access to a horse.
Speaker:It was, it was never a close friend.
Speaker:So I would never actually be able to ride the horse, but there's always
Speaker:like, Oh, did you know that Carolyn Ash has a, you know, has a horse?
Speaker:Like, what?
Speaker:How's that possible?
Speaker:Like, how am I in the same circle with this person?
Speaker:I don't also get a horse.
Speaker:This is ridiculous.
Speaker:We had like, you know, like in Albuquerque, we had like, you know, like
Speaker:folks that lived in the country, like they'd have a horse, you know what I mean?
Speaker:So like our piano teacher, Arlene Judd, she had two horses.
Speaker:We'd have to drive out way, way out, uh, on dirt roads to
Speaker:like go take lessons from her.
Speaker:Um, so it was a little more like, I was like, I also didn't totally buy it.
Speaker:Cause I was like, Wait, so our piano teacher has two horses and you're
Speaker:telling me we can't afford a horse?
Speaker:She's a piano teacher for crying
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What does she possibly make?
Speaker:Also, Arlene Judd had to be in music with that name.
Speaker:Like, you know what I mean?
Speaker:yeah, she was very much that.
Speaker:Um, her house did smell a little bit of cat pee.
Speaker:I also remember that about
Speaker:that's, she's an animal lover, so.
Speaker:yeah, yeah.
Speaker:But she was, she was a lovely, lovely lady.
Speaker:I, I wish her all the, I wish, I assume she's, Maybe not still around, but
Speaker:Yeah, she's gone to that great, uh, ranch.
Speaker:Pee, cat pee smelling ranch in the sky.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:Well, that's, that's, that's so awesome.
Speaker:I really appreciate you taking us through all that.
Speaker:Um, so what, with that kind of epic journey behind us,
Speaker:where, where am I headed next?
Speaker:What's, what's
Speaker:Well, so I initially started feeling resistant about the kind of like
Speaker:engineering focus and blah blah blah.
Speaker:But the more I got into it, the more I realized kind of like, oh, there's
Speaker:actually just like, Engineering is always just a way to solve a problem.
Speaker:But I thought, let's take things away from the more epic, speedy, um, you
Speaker:know, high performance, high gloss world.
Speaker:And I wanted to, um, ask you to explore a very different environment where
Speaker:engineering is being deployed, um, to solve problems or to create experiences.
Speaker:And so the brand that I would like you to investigate is Cuisinart.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:Cuisinart because yeah.
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:And then in the, in there, like the, I'm excited to see where they
Speaker:fit in the Pantheon of kitchen
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker:You know, you've got your Cuisinart, you've got your KitchenAids.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I
Speaker:I'll be honest, it was a little bit of a toss up for me between Cuisinart and
Speaker:KitchenAid, and I just sort of made the call, and so if that comes up,
Speaker:feel free to discover, you know, but like, I don't know, I was just sort
Speaker:of like, well, I'll pick one of the
Speaker:I mean, just the name alone is fantastic, you know, like,
Speaker:And there's a little, it gives me a little bit of like some throwback vibes
Speaker:that I'm kind of fun about, you know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:fully gives throwback vibes.
Speaker:But, you know, they're modernizing themselves, you know, they're
Speaker:not resting on their laurels.
Speaker:Well, that's going to be awesome.
Speaker:Um, I'm super excited about that.
Speaker:I might have to, do I have a Cuisinart?
Speaker:I might actually have a Cuisinart, um, food processor.
Speaker:So That'll be exciting.
Speaker:Maybe we can actually bring a prop next time.
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:I don't want to promise anything.
Speaker:I don't want to get anybody's hopes up.
Speaker:But, uh, for that, you'll just have to see where we go and join us next time.
Speaker:You've been listening to Strange Coordinates, the show where we use
Speaker:brands as roadmaps to arrive at surprising and fascinating places.
Speaker:Your hosts are Topher Burns and me, Robert Bailog.
Speaker:So if you want to learn more about our agency, Territorial, which I
Speaker:suggest you do, we're a lot of fun where it's really interesting stuff.
Speaker:Go to our website at weareterritorial.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Please join the mailing list, um, where you'll find out about the latest episodes
Speaker:and more, and then follow us on LinkedIn.
Speaker:And thank you everybody.
Speaker:We're going to be, Robert and I are going to be galloping off into the distance now.
Speaker:Just like, what if I just like took off my, um, you know, headset
Speaker:and then just, yeah, like just, you saw me ride by on a horse
Speaker:That'd be great.
Speaker:Or you can just mime it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Well, that's, um, thanks so much.
Speaker:We'll, we'll see, we'll see you next time.
Speaker:Bye.
