A conversation on marketing, communications and brand relationships with a little culture, music and random riffs thrown in for good measure.
Friday, January 11, 2008
agencies, brands doing good
friday afternoons call for some inspiration to put you into the weekend.
via the inspirational planning for good, a quick video on why agencies and brands should be focused on doing good in the world. we hear a lot about brands good work through corporate social responsibility, cause and philanthropy, but not a whole lot about the powerful work agencies can do to support such causes on their own. as our clients are increasingly looking to do good work in their industries and for their consumers, they'll rightly look at their agencies to ensure like minds are present.
in a perfect world, our talents are put to good use - not just selling more widgets or spinning brand blemishes, but creatively communicating important ideas . it's a hope many of us have and a hope many within our audience have for advertising. via the The Dozen blog, i took note as a consumer and a marketer when i saw the campaign for the Dutch charity People in Need.
what a relevant execution and message, executed in a clean, nowhere-near-desperate way visually with copy that carries the campaign. now is a powerful time to be conscious of the privilege most of the world enjoys. falls within that gut-wrenching category of "what did you do today?"
before i cut the cable cord, i enjoyed keith olbermann's Countdown news show. i really liked the "Worst Person In The World" segment, where he names someone for doing something truly bad...a politician, CEO, or civilian moron. you get it.
PSFK just posted on the Consumers International poll of the worst products and brands, based on a lack of corporate responsibility (or, really, a conscious). check out the link for those named.
a lot of marketing muscle goes into communicating good deeds and overall awareness of a company's responsibility to its consumers, environment, community. it's equally important to hold those brands accountable that actually try to avoid responsible action.
And this may be the reason why Bono spent 100 million buckaroos in well-lighted marketing/promotion on his RED campaign. Now, I was a fan at the start, even blogging here and here, but now I'm pissed. His 100 million spent kissing Oprah's wallet, taking beautiful shots of beautiful people, sponsoring everything under the sun, and saturating consumers with what is at heart a great idea, ONLY YIELDED 18 MILLION IN DONATIONS. For those of you in marketing, or just into budgeting in general, you'll see that the ROI on this is horrid.
The result? Well, partner brand reputation is going to suffer. Companies that signed on to raise awareness for AIDS in Africa are now going to have to mess with damage control. The public will get wind of this and probably stop and think harder about buying RED products. Non-profits are going to kick their dwindling buckets of donations in anger. One heckuva parody effort, Buy (LESS) CRAP! launched.
But the biggest fear I have? Personally...as a young consumer...I'm worried an opportunity at a new kind of consumerism was botched and will create yet more cynicism among a demographic that could, for years to come, change the donation model through better buying decisions.
Whew. That was a rant. But I'm mad. Cause marketing already walks an incredibly thin line and this doesn't help cause-based campaigns that are truly doing great work and watching their costs. They're out there. Find them. And they're getting great, positive press. I guess this might be a lesson to me, and others. Maybe I should have waited before jumping on the Bono bandwagon. Maybe I should have been more critical. But you know what, I hate to. I like trusting that people/companies are just plain being nice. I like thinking I'm part of something new and different.
In the end, the nearly 40 bucks I spent on a RED shirt might have better been spent as a donation to Aids Walk Kansas City. Or gas money from my house to a soup kitchen. I guess it's all relative, but it's certainly a wake up call to assess how each of us, as individuals, want to contribute to the greater good.
I'd love to hear from Mike (a former boss and cause thought leader) on this, at Citizen Brand. He's been at the helm of some great cause efforts that found the positive balance between marketing and impact. And others. Especially people in my generation. Those that accompanied me to the Hotel Cafe Tour and raved about its RED partnership, maybe.
Anyway...I'm done. Time for more coffee and a few deep breaths.
Recently, I've been thinking about social responsibility, both corporate social responsibility and my own responsible choices as a consumer. The first step was to ask myself, as a consumer and marketer, what social responsibility means. I kept going back to two qualifiers, priority and longevity of impact. Those seem to work both for judging a brand's social responsibility and a consumer's commitment to a cause. CSR can get a bad rap, oftentimes simply because a cause program or brand can't demonstrate the priority or impact of its social stance. Consumers aren't held to as high a public standard, so we get off relatively easy. So I started thinking in terms of brands and their social priorities?
I'd love some feedback here, as to what brands you recognize making an issue or cause a true priority. I'll fall back on one of my favorites, Patagonia. Since its founding, Patagonia has been tied directly to the environment, not as a marketing program or initiative, but as a way of life. A part of the employee and brand DNA.
Priority: Does the brand live its cause/social issue? If I crashed the company HQ, would I see a culture that embraces the cause? Or does the cause live only within the walls of the marketing department. If I met an employee at a bar, would that employee get excited - or even be aware - of what his or her employer has deemed an initiative?
Impact: Does the initiative/cause/charitable interaction truly enact positive change? Are the hands that hold a large check presentation callused with hands-on effort? And what is the longevity of the impact? Was the initiative set up to buckle down and impact an issue, or will the whole dang thing be forgotten in a year's time?
I'm already predicting I'll spend a good deal of 2007 blogging on emotion. If I can focus on one thing, as a marketer, this year, it will be emotion. At its core, CSR is emotional. Brands stick their necks out to take a stance on sometimes polarizing issues/causes. No matter how far those necks are exposed, a cause is always connected to consumers' emotions. The great brands have identified what matters to (or seek input from) consumers. They've created social priorities, not just programs. They share emotion with consumers.
Two recent examples have energized my thoughts on this topic. The first, relating to my beloved Apple brand.
In the past week, I've bought a new MacBook, visited the Apple store twice and received a new Mac as a work computer. So I was especially in tune with the brand when the "Green My Apple" campaign from Greenpeace came to my attention. Emotion played an instant role in my impression of this campaign - before sense or logic even entered into the equation. I'm a die-hard Apple brand loyalist. I'm also growing much more passionate about my environment and my role as a greener consumer.
As with most anti-brand campaigns (Note: Greenpeace does not call this a campaign against Apple), one has to search hard for both sides of the story. And as with most anti-brand campaigns, the side that harnesses emotion normally wins. Oftentimes with facts aside. First impressions matter.
First impression scorecard for this campaign: Big score for Greenpeace in creating a nice parody site, and providing lots and lots of ways consumers can interact should they choose. Big fumble for Apple, as it's innovative image is marred by its lack of action compared to its much less technologically innovative brand peers. Spike in the end zone for Greenpeace, which understood its audience (hip, young, creative, viral) better, it seems, than Apple on this issue.
On to another example of brand priority, Starbucks' treatment of Ethiopian farmers. Oxfam launched the "Day of Action" to raise awareness for the 3 cents Ethiopian farmers make on branded "Ethiopian" coffee. Watch this video first.
Starbucks, to its credit, utilized YouTube to post its response.
Now, as a professional communicator, I am impressed with what I imagine is Coffee Team head Dub Hay's ability to read printed cue cards. Nice response. Well written. And, though he takes a page out of "How to be interviewed on camera/always look at the interviewer," he is less than emotional. Kudos for joining the fray, but you're Starbucks! Take a film crew to Ethiopia and show me, don't read to me. Engage me, make me stand next to your spokesperson.
Facts aside (and again, I was impressed by Starbucks response), if you're going with emotion, Oxfam wins.
Two social issues. Both campaigns deal with more than CSR (Apple and Starbucks have admirable CSR/environmental programs). These campaigns deal with Starbucks' and Apple's social priorities. They deal with emotion. Pictures of the affected. Heartstrings. You get the drift.
From a crisis communications standpoint, both brands would benefit from grabbing onto these issues and making the necessary changes or explanation a priority. Both scenarios are great illustrations of a "crisis" where neither brand has yet lost the reputation game. Both are great opportunities for these brands to prioritize their social outreach and in turn, build a relationship with a group of passionate consumers.
Where do the brands you champion stand on social issues? Are they doing the minimum to play the field, or have they prioritized an effort to the point it is ingrained in your overall brand impression? Are you proud to hold that to-go cup or wear that shirt? Have you purchased products to support your own social priorities?
