The best fairtrade comms ever from Cadburys

Its been a while but thought I would pen a few words about the latest stuff from Cadburys.  I think its awesome.  Lets remember for a start that the story that they want to communicate is actually about their internal operations - the supply chain no less.  To many not a rich source of creative communications.  Going fair trade can easily be seen as a tick box exercise or be communicated in a cliched, 'because we care' kind of way, rather than being seen as a source of inspiration.  If you don't work in advertising then the latest work seems like some memorable 'out there' fun with an African theme to express the fair trade connection.  If you do you are tempted to think about how it was sold or even explained to the client to get them to sign it off.  You might also dig a bit deeper and find that the every aspect such as the people, music, and visual themes seem to been pulled together in an authentic way from genuine Ghanaian references.  For example the rapper is a top selling Ghanaian rapper, the face/mask was based on tribal art etc... etc...  Maybe that's part of the reason why it works even though it seems like a random fantasy / drug induced dream.  The final thing of note is the way it uses the 'make culture not ads' approach i.e. it works as branded entertainment.  There is a 'music video' edit as well as an i-tunes download, and I'm sure, loads of other things that I've not yet seen.    Brand substance I'd call it.

Awesome idea to make every road a power plant

This idea to make roads out of super tough solar panels really captures the imagination.  One of the big problems for getting renewable energy ideas off the ground is that they create an obvious impression on the landscape and there is a highly vocal minority who usually manage to convince councils to block promising projects.  'We are not against renewables, we just don't want them in our back yard' is the usual argument from people who have detected the slightest whiff of an impact on house prices.  Now someone has had the idea of making solar panels look like something big and ugly that for some reason causes less of an uproar with middle England... roads.  Whats really interesting is the ways they could create advantages over conventional roads such as ingtegrated lighting panels allowing better visibility.  This would give the ability to change road markings to alert drivers to possible hazzards making them safer.  They could also mean less road signs which are also pretty ugly.  Maybe if they managed to disguess other renewable energy projects as a branch Waitrose or 'good local schools,' then there could be even more sell in : )

Seen here...

Little Aston

From the few articles I have read it seems that the Aston Martin hatch back is not going down very well.  I wonder if there is any genuine problem with the idea on a practical level or whether everyone is either directly (if you do it for a living,) or indirectly (because we live in a marketing society,) just applying some kind of brand extension logic that is a learned set of rules rather than a fundamental anthropological response.  

Yes it does seem strange that Aston Martin would make a hatchback because they trade on selling the unattainable dream.  But this is just a marketing idea.  If we were to place this into a more human context it would probably be like someone we know that has a really aspirational ability i.e. a top chef, deciding to go and work in a chain pub.  Maybe it was because they fell on hard times and needed the cash? Perhaps it would make us doubt the quality of the best they had to offer i.e. if they are willing to lower themselves then why should we expect greatness from them in anything anymore?  But having said this if you put the initial expectations on one side for a minute and think about the realities then it makes you wonder... wouldn't Aston Martin be pretty good at making a hatch back if they put their mind to it.  And wouldn't it be good if more people could experience the Aston craft and expertese without having the money to buy a super car.  And more to the point where I am coming at this from... wouldn't it be better if they found a way to make money out of a product with a lower environmental impact.  

My view is that every brand at some time in the future is going to have to play with the idea of a brand extension that they might at one time have never imagined.  Anyhow to cut a long story short I like the little Aston and would be happy to see more experimental designs from companies that show that they know how to loosen up.

Brand Global, Eat local?

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real from CRUSH on Vimeo.

More on the theme of food.  And also another slightly geeky interest of mine... info-graphics.  Data and art together - does it get any better than that :)?  Genuinely though I think that lots of the truths about the world around us are hidden by the fact that we can't easily process the underlying information.  For example the realities of the journey of all the products that we buy in our supermarkets stay remote and difficult to grasp while we shop.  If we could really get a sense of the mass of trains planes and automobiles involved it may not sit right in our minds.   This is the point of the film but the interesting thing is that while the previous example below is from a bunch of independent film maker types, this example if from one the of the worlds biggest companies i.e. Unilever.  My gut instinct would be that a single jar of Hellmann's is made out of the eggs of chickens from every continent and so it's unexpected that they have the credibility to start an eat local movement with their Mayo as the star.  I am also pretty convinced that they have done their homework because the risks of an expose focusing them as per the example below is pretty high.  

On a slightly separate note it is here where the idea of green influencers comes in.  Mainstream audiences do not adopt behaviours of green niches like the conventional trickle down model.  Instead they act like a kind of police (like those that roam the pages of ebay,) to alert us as to whether Unilver are presenting themselves proportionately.

If I were them I'd take a look at the Hellmann's case but then also remember that they are not an island in the Unilever stable.  Dove is criticised for Axe's attitude to women.  If Hellmann's walks to the supermarket while other brand rock up in a hummer this could back fire.  Lets see if it stands up to questioning.  

Original ref on adverblog.

Food Inc 'Information wants to be free'

Expose on the food industry... Generally in advertising we work on the principle of above and below the line.  A new idea that I have been thinking about is in front of and behind the line.  The vertical line being the inside world and the outside world of the company.  At the moment many companies seem to think its ok to have very different behaviour on the two sides which results in this kind of damaging revelations.  What used to be the exception is now the rule in this area i.e if there is something to be exposed then the chances are that it will - seems like this needs a law to explain it.  I could call it 'Davidslaw'... but then I'd have to spend some time on the maths to actually prove it.  Until then perhaps the 'information wants to be free,' principle will suffice if you use it in the liberty sense rather than the economic one.  Step-up an agency that works in front of and behind the line! 

What would you consult apple on?

As apple seems to be everyone's favourite case study to prove pretty much any argument going in the branding and communications worlds, it is difficult to think what you would go and talk to them about if they held their hands up and said, ‘we don’t know what to do next, can anyone help?’ In actual fact their approach to advertising and media is pretty straight forward. Its  conventional compared to what I would talk to most of my clients about. An advertising idea thats basically a piece of visual design work that never changes, with a TV + big posters media strategy. In fact most of the things that we use in case studies really happens from the inside out. Having said this I had a little think about what I might pitch to them given the chance.  To me it would seem to be pretty difficult to talk about doing much differently in the way their brand delivers on and enhances the experience of their products. In fact its pretty impossible to separate out where the product stops and the brand begins. I would leave them to it on this front.  But then if they are suffering anywhere then it is something like the same problem that McDonalds has had since their runaway success.  The problem of seeming almost like a corporate religion but one that leaves us with the distinct impression that it might not necessarily have our best interests at heart. I would talk to them about their place in the world. And lets face it they pretty much seem to succeed in most things that they do i.e. who would have thought they could have revolutionized the mobile business in just a couple of short years. I would put the design teams and technology experts to work on something bigger that looks at the broader social issues about the way we live.  If you applied the simplicity, innovation, inclusiveness and aesthetics that they bring to their products to other issues or problems that affect society such as education in third world countries or community organisation at home, I expect they would come up with something marketable.  

Louis Vuitton choose substance

I have been a little critical of fashion brands in the past. Coming at it from an advertising perspective you could argue that luxury brands don’t really get the notion of having ideas. Fashion advertising is basically photography. TV ads are photos that move. Plus they are basically all the same. The latest stuff from Louis Vuitton creates a bit of an excursion from the norm. Recently they have started to tell the stories of great journeys using rock stars and even ex Soviet leaders. This latest campaign brings together three people who have in some time in their lives made the ultimate journey of a trip into space. Unless you look closely at the image and see the LV logo you would not expect that its luxury fashion brand communications. Certainly not by the luxury brand that has historically relied on logos and image associations more than most others.

What is interesting is the idea that they have chosen to embed their commitments to sustainability into the communications. If you click through to the site these seem pretty robust. Maybe the lesson is that if you want to communicate meaning in the brand you need to be able to communicate meaning in the company. If all you want to do is project an image then the realities that sit behind it are best kept hidden if that’s even possible any more.

Sustainability idea wins grand prix

nice!

Employees on the loose…

If you believe the Clue Train Manifesto (which I do) then you could start to think that the established brand marketing methods are a stop-gap.  A space opened up when the actors of the small intimate market places of history were dissipated into different places and even time zones by mass culture.  Advertising filled the void and created a semblance of contact even though it was not the kind of personal interaction that typified the old market place. In the mean time we forgot that market places are always just conversations between people. But now we have the internet to help us remember and recently it seems to be bubbling over a little bit. This spirit is probably most alive through the staff in technology companies where a culture of open hyperlinked conversations based on home made intranets and wikis is the norm. But just recently since twitter has been around and since facebook started being used in a bit more of a blog-like way than a myspace way, I have noticed that quite a few people from the big agency group I work in are connected and exchanging interesting stuff in a new way. Many are even posting stuff about the clients they are working on becoming a bit of a media channel in their own right. Whether companies see this as a scary prospect or an untapped opportunity it’s not going to go away. The employees are on the loose! 

Again Obama shows us how its done.

If the UK politicians expenses scandal is a good lesson for the corporate world about how behind the scenes insular thinking is dead then Obama so far seems like a lesson for the new corporation that needs to emerge!!

Green Land-grab

Some people think that there is only a short window of opportunity when sustainability will present a point of different for brands.  In this way of thinking it becomes a space race to claim as much of the available ground as possible before sustainability claims are no longer differentiating.  I think there is a first mover advantage argument to be made but that also the journey will be endless.  In the fast food business their is a fundamental assumption that the entire model depends on scale meaning a small number of large production sites distributing to a high number of outlets.  The 'eat local' movement seems incompatible with their whole way of doing business and would be pretty far down the list of measures that most would consider.  Mcdonalds has actually made big gains in being the first mover in being a better kind of company than peoples expectations of them but at the same time there is already a fast food company with an 'eat local' business model that could blow much of this out the water.  Read more on Springwise.  Lets here it for Burgerville.

Brand Reinvention

Following on from the last post on brand retirement another life-stage that many brands could find themselves in need of is Re-invention.  Celebrities do it all the time to reinvent their image to a public and media who are looking for something new.  Corporate brands seem to think that its all about staying as close as possible to one thing for as long as possible.  Saying something is 'off brand'  is the quickest way going to kill a good idea.  But Ford - they had no choice.  Their re-invention is more like a miraculous resurrection from a near death experience.  And 'green' seems to be something that they want to embed into the post bankruptcy brand.  Again like they had any choice.  Of course its easy to comment from the outside looking in without any knowledge of the broader strategy but a advertising style film would not be my starting point for the new journey.  Perhaps even there was an idea in the old company that external brand communications would be enough to keep the brand relevant without the same innovation in sustainability thinking that has put the top Japanese brands on a surer footing.

See the video on Cherryflava...

Brand retirement

Most companies think about dipping their toe into sustainability by launching an eco brand. The logic is pretty straight forward I suppose i.e. ‘if theres money in this green trend then a new product launch would be the best way to attract it.' But might it be a more powerful marketing tool to do the opposite. To resign to retirement a product or brand that you think is sat on a business model that can't adapt well enough to compete in future more enlightened market places. Companies are not generally very good at counter intuitive thinking because it means backing the less simple, harder to argue option. When 100 people or more need to buy in that’s not easy to pull that off.  

It seems that GM have decided to off load the Hummer which has become short hand in recent years for environmental recklessness and ignorance. 500million is the price quoted. I am not sure if that’s a lot of money or not in the scheme of things but imagine the message it would send if they simply decided to hold their hands up and say they have decided to send the hummer brand into retirement. How much fun would it be to work on the marketing brief for that.  It would be a bit like when George Bush stood down.  We didn’t agree with what he stood for and it was a bit late in coming but we can wave him off with relief and just a little fragment of sentiment.  

I think a good example of dead wood would be airmiles as rewards for frequent flyers. Give regular flyers special treatment and try and make the pain of business travel a little more bearable but don’t give them tokens to fly even more; a well meaning idea that has had its day. On a personal level I have a small build up of air miles from Air Berlin and British airways. Consider them now publicly retired from service. Maybe there is a business idea in that. A retirement home for airmiles that would collect them off conscientious executives and give them to charities for some of the handful of others services that they can be used for such as visits to British tourist attractions that the average executive would not themselves use.

The art of Forestry

There are lots of difficult questions in the idea of 'sustainable business' that from some angles seem contradictory.   This would cause some people to find it such a hard sum to balance that any kind of action is too challenging. There is some truth in their fears. There are really hard conceptual issues that could take up all of your time if you had to engage with them every day. This creates a huge responsibility on the proponents of the thinking to grapple with them until not only they can fully understand them, but they can also explain them clearly to others.

The route of the problem in my mind that creates all of the smaller inconsistencies and tensions that sprout up here and there is as follows:

-A smaller economy is the quickest route to reducing the total impact of human activity.

-Companies are defined by growth. This is core to their existence and the pursuit of this represents the only way they can survive in the face of competition

-Therefore sustainability interests and business interests are set in critical opposition to each other from the off.

The best resolution of this that I have ever read was on John Grants blog and is based around a useful metaphor - the idea of forestry. It states that we should think of the economy as a whole as a huge forest that has been growing in all directions for a while now. Trends towards reducing excessive consumption through government intervention, consumer choice or scarcity of resources can and should make the forest shrink in its totality. It would also change the rules of how the many forms of life inside win and lose. What would not change would be the fierce competition for the scarce life sustaining resources available inside. Each species and individual would have to adapt to this change in conditions in order to succeed. This will definitely mean that some of the biggest oldest oak trees (on present form lets say the American car industry) might fall. But this in turn would free up resources for other more suitable forms of life in their place. Other well established life might be able to change and mutate quickly enough to stay strong with a lesser or even highly coverage. However the most noticeable thing would be some bamboo shoots or other nimble fast growing life, totally suited to the new environment, growing up before our very eyes.  

In other words even in an economy that is shrinking overall, the growth drive of companies does not and can not subside. What’s more important is the transitions that will take place between better suited, more able, more sustainable forms of business, and older less flexible institutions.  

But despite this those in both scenarios need help. The newcomers need resources and guidance to become established. While the incumbents need help to modernise and learn new methods. If ultimately the latter are sat on an unsustainable business model and are not prepared to address this despite any smaller steps they take around the edges then they may not make the distance. But all deserve the chance.

So if it seems complicated sometimes the task can be reduced to something pretty simple… two tasks in fact. The first is making big or established companies become more sustainable. The second is making newer or smaller more sustainable companies big. The race for the future happens in-between.

MP's expenses and the end of 'behind the scenes' thinking

On BBC1's question time the sense of public contempt for politicians in light of the expenses scandal was pretty clear with derision even for public favourites like Ming Campbell.
 
It struck me that this whole business is a good metaphor for the relationship between companies and sustainability. A perfect example of the notion that there are negative consequences when there is a discrepancy between what you do and what you say. In this instance we all know that people have become disconnected from the political system. There is a general sense that the public face of the politician is not the whole story – that we are being sold some kind of façade or pretence created specifically to meet our expectations but somehow plastic and unreal.  
 
For most of the time this seems to be simply just the way things are and time passes without any great events or drama; just a background disquiet . Then out of the blue a crisis hits where it is revealed that behind the scenes everything is not as it was communicated. In this case we found out that the same politicians who talk to us on a daily basis about moral issues and the way that people should behave are caught taking advantage of their position and acting selfishly without due thought to the broader interests of the people who they represent  or the hard earned cash that they have to give up for the public purse. If only they had thought to ensure that everything that they stand for in front of the camera and on stage was perfectly aligned to the way they conduct themselves behind the scenes! The only rational argument for doing this is a belief that nobody is looking.
 
Corporations can fall foul of the same problem. People already have a general sense that they are selling us one view of themselves while concealing the reality behind closed doors or in far away places. This status-quo can only go on for so long. Every now and again a new issue will reveal practices that are out of sync with public expectations or company promises. When this happens the cost is large and lasting. 
 
The thing that should keep companies on their toes even more than politicians is that public expectations of corporate behaviour are far more changeable than the idea of what is morally acceptable for the political class. Today it might be ok to use certain materials or techniques to bring a product to market that tomorrow will not suffice to convince people that your leadership position is justified.  
 
This expenses scandal could have happened at any time in recent years and the response would have been the same. Keeping ahead of expectations on sustainability proportionately across an entire enterprise  and being open and transparent about this at every stage is a never ending journey. 

Mapping behaviour change e.g. Zappos

This is a mapping application created by Zappos using google maps.  Every time someone buys a product the model flashes up on the map over the place where it was bought.  Wouldn't it be good to see something similar for carbon savings.  Every time a person or a company manages to reduce their energy use or meets a target they get a little credit through a tag on the map.  Zoom in further and you would be able to see who is making a difference on your street or your highstreet.  If sustainability is about behaviour change its worth remembering that people definitely start to act differently when they are in front of the eyes of the others.  A few people have been suggesting this to google and they have said that people should do it themselves for now.  Lets hope they have something up their sleeve.  After all lets face it the business model couldn't be that hard to crack!  

Reciprocal Altruism... A new golden rule for marketing

Sounds a bit lofty but could be the answer to something that I have been trying to resolve for a while now. Its an idea that is used to explain the notion that humans are innately moral in some way. In simple terms the phrase ‘do unto others as you would want done unto you,’ which is the original golden rule gets the idea across. If I do something good for you then there is more chance that you will do me the same or some other favour in return. In a meeting of religious faiths which brought together representatives from all of the key religions this was the one principle that everyone was able to agree on as the common ground.  

Brain research has also shown that our process for judging our own behaviour involves a step which blurs the line between the person having the thought and the person who might have to deal with the consequences of their actions - in other words before acting we put ourselves in the position of other people to judge how we would feel if the situation was switched e.g. taking something without asking or making a decision that affects others without consulting them. All of this says that there is some kind of original physiological and cultural predisposition to show empathy and respond to empathy from other people.  

Anyhow the problem I was toying around with was the belief that a lot of people have about sustainability as a marketing tool. There is no question that active consumer interest in products and brands who tick more of the ‘ethical’ boxes is on the rise. But despite this there is a large percentage who are not actively choosing brands on these grounds; they are aware and sympathetic about the issues but they are not doing anything about it. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to make ‘green’ easy for the current spectators many people would argue that this proves that there is no great demand and we therefore do not need to pursue it.  

This is where the idea of ‘reciprocal altruism’ comes in. For if you know that something is in someone’s or everyone’s interests then would you only do it if you knew that they were  actively calling out for it? Going beyond people’s expectations is often what is required to trigger a positive response from someone that they were not expecting to give. I have been a big proponent of consumer centric planning which is basically the idea that marketing should seek to give people things that they actually want. But if you restrict yourself to this then you might miss out on being more than they hoped. Now I would put forward a new idea based on a strategy of reciprocal altruism... lets call it ‘marketing kindness.’ An idea to explain acting for peoples interests as if they were your own rather than giving people whatever they will swallow fastest or easiest. Not because it feels nice to do it but because people are predisposed to respond positively to this kind of action. It builds a sense of trust and community and is likely to be reciprocated in some way - all things that companies are looking for.

For example Dove would not have been able to prove that the goal of building women’s self esteem was an expectation that women placed on brands in the category by simply asking people outright. In research I expect it might have come out as a nice to have rather than a big idea. But over the years it has worked for them incredibly well and has translated into sales success.  

Likewise Cadburys are about to go fair trade on every single product that they make. I am almost certain that in consumer research people would not say that fair trade was a pivotal factor in their purchase of chocolate. Lets see how it goes but I predict that there will be a positive ‘reciprocated response’ that goes beyond what they would have been able to determine in advance. 
 
Looking at it like this sustainability is not about ‘doing your bit’ its a strategy of taking a leap of faith to inspire people to believe in what you are doing rather than relying on simply taking the order of the day as gospel.  

Brand Leo...

“Brand” is one of those words that loses its meaning sometimes. It seems like it constantly needs revisiting for a definition of what it actually is. Maybe it’s to do with it being conceptual idea related to popular culture that is always on the move like ‘style’ which has a slightly mobile meaning. Or that it has a value attached to it.  Companies have to protect the idea that their brands have a quantifiable value, meaning that it’s an idea that needs upkeep like the word capitalism itself. I was reading ‘Creative capitalism’ which was a debate style book where Bill Gates’ concept of the same name was being interrogated. Lots of economists were arguing passionately about the need to maintain the purity of the profit motive of companies and that it was wrong to muddy the waters by confusing this with altruism. Maybe the advertising industry is to the word brand, what establishment economists are to the word capitalism i.e they have a vested interest in cultivating its meaning. What’s funny is that sustainability thinking offers clarity to a lot of the issues that branding is trying to work out since it realised that a lot of the old ideas need updating. In other words sustainability has helped me understand what brands really are. And so here you have it, no fanfare required…

“A brand is what people think about the things that you do.”

Pretty basic really. When people talk about your personal brand – they mean nothing more than this… what people think about the way that you conduct yourself and what they interpret from this about who you are and ultimately if they like you. Calling it a ‘BRAND’ does not change this even though it gets used in a way to suggest that it should. In fact if this notion that on one level everything is a brand did mean something it would mean something negative i.e. Looking after your brand would probably mean managing people’s perception of you regardless of how you really are. This is basically the assumption that has been made by advertising and marketing since they existed as independent departments and businesses. The idea that the perception of a brand can be created as whatever you want it to be regardless of what else is going on in the broader company. This is not saying that marketing and advertising is not necessary – the company needs a voice and it needs to get heard. It is the idea that the voice is disconnected from everything else and can basically be the mother of its own invention that is shaky. If that was the case then you could not really explain away why it makes sense to build your brand in simple common sense speak. It would probably be something like…

‘Brands are something that companies create to give the appearance that the products that it sells are more interesting or attractive than they actually are. ‘

Logic would say that if you chose this definition then you would also end up thinking that actually this was not sustainable (in the enduring sense) for very long and would probably end up opting for a strategy of actually trying to become more compelling as a company in the way you go about doing things and hope that this would rub off.  This is basically what sustainability thinking wants you to conclude. If a brand is what people think about what you do then you focus on that.  

Which in a long winded way brings me to the point of the post which is an example of this at work. ‘Brand Leo’ (not Leonardo Di Caprio these days apparently,) is nothing more complicated than what people think about the things that he has done. This means massive movies that will put off some cultural elites but also includes some with real merit. A string of super model girlfriends which commands respect from the ex-teenager inside men and from what I can tell does not seem off-putting to women. Then there’s how he comes over in real life situations such as interviews – do you come away thinking funny, big ego, boring, takes himself too seriously, insincere, smart?  Well from the couple of times I have seen him he seems to come over pretty well - articulate, passionate but also strikes up a rapport with the interviewer, seems to be ‘being himself.’ Of course all of this could fall to pieces if a Christian Bale like outburst  (remix,) at one of the on set minions emerged but so far it seems to be genuine. So a pass on most measures or 'a strong brand' some might say.

There is however another part to his ‘brand’ which is his vocal support and the time that he has dedicated to supporting awareness of climate change.  If this was just talk or he did not really seem to understand the issues then this would look like spin or tokenism but the commitment needed to get a film project off the ground suggests that you can judge on actions alone. And so what do people think of it? It makes us understand that he is smart and cares about larger issues i.e. a capacity for empathy. And rightly this makes his ‘brand,’ if you want to call it that, stronger. It gives additional strings to his bow outside of teenage girls by having something to say to more enlightened audiences. It also maybe even makes him more capable of being taken seriously which is a big challenge for the leading man with artistic ambitions. And of course the teenage girls like him even more for it. Maybe they do not understand all of the issues but they definitely approve. Would they choose a Leo film over a Brad Pitt film based on sustainability credentials alone – probably not, and if you asked them in a survey it would not register. However the extra notice that they took when they watched his environmental film did make them feel good and some of it might just have sunk in.  

So currently its working well for Leo but the important point is that he could not have done it in the sense of a ‘branding’ exercise if that means through perception creation and manipulation… he had to mean it. So in actual fact its as simple as ‘doing things that are worthy of credit.’ Don’t let branding detract from a simple truth. People, celebrities, corporations, its all the same.

Volvo for a bike...

Another example of a quick win win win from a UK Volvo dealership.

When you drop your car off for fixing the offer you a bike or a car.

-Volvo win through lower costs of maintaining loan cars than bikes

-Customers get a gentle push to take some exercise

-And of course a car off the road for short journeys that can be done by bike is good for the planet.

Courtesy of PSFK 

Some of the biggest global marketers see the need for brand substance...

This from the Unilever CMO...

"brands are now becoming conversation factors where academics, celebrities, experts and key opinion formers discuss functional, emotional and, more interestingly, social concerns," and "of course, the conversation is no longer one way or 30 seconds. ... You may want to talk about sport and just doing it, and the consumer raises the uncomfortable question of sweatshops."

Not just FUNCTIONAL or even EMOTIONAL but also SOCIAL concerns are important.  Maybe there was some sense in the post below...

Read the full article here...

Evolving beyond advertising...

A few years ago I went to a conference where one of the BBH founders spoke. I was not sure then whether it was B or B (i don’t think it was H.) While we are on the subject I expect that the new breed of agency that guide the enlightened brand of the future will surely be more imaginative in the names that they choose beyond a list of initials.Anyhow one of the bits advice he shared to the fledgling advertising professionals in the room that stuck in my mind was the idea that you should seek to ‘add to the intellectual capital of your company.’ The example given was a story about how some years before he had constantly re-pitched different ideas for the next level of understanding to define a product or brands ‘USP.’ It was explained that the ‘Unique Selling Point’ was old news - the stuff of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s. Already advertising was championing the value of finding the ESP of same product or brand... the emotional selling point that would communicate how it makes you feel rather than what it does. B or B spent time in his formative career thinking about what the new version of this would be to act as a short hand for the next step forward.

This stuck in my mind and every now and again I’ve wondered what my answer to this would be but have never really come to a satisfactory answer. Now I think I have it. The SESP. This would stand for the social or environmental selling point. People know what most products do and when they don’t they don’t really trust brand communications to tell them in light of access to so much impartial information. They are also less likely to buy into the emotions that are superficially attached to brands through marketing. But the social or environmental performance of a company and the products that it creates are meaningful in the modern context because they represent real differentiating value. The kind of thing that would be a big factor in like for like decisions for a large proportion of people. This would be strongest when the performance and perceived quality of the product is equated with its sustainable creation and company conduct.  This could mean a fruit drink that is produced using fair trade, organic, local fruits and being all the better in taste and heathiness because of this. Products that can’t do this or where there is quality pay off will be far less likely to succeed... especially for mass audiences.  

Also the idea is a broader concept. It would need to derived from a holistic perspective of the product and the company rather than a USP or an ESP which can to some extent be externally created by the ad man.  The final point is that the SESP might not necessarily be something that is itself directly a social or environmental fact or benifit.  It should be bigger concept or thought that is derived from these in order to make it robust but that goes further. For example it did not make sense for Prius to be sold on lower emissions.  I would have made its SESP something to do with modernity and futurism in a more holistic way where environmental credentials are the substance which supports it. Innocent use what essentially adds up to niceness which is underpinned by good ingredients, good corporate behaviour, good treatment of employees.   SESP’s could be a useful tool on the way to brand Brand Substance.  

PS I liked this image much more than the boring old evolution of man drawings. 

Companies are ecosystems so think like a gardener

Am making my way through this at the moment.  Its basically about the idea that in the new interconnected and interdependent structures of life our own ordered understanding of the world does not work. In pretty much every cultural discipline there will be a set of structured rules in use that basically can be reduced down to the following belief… that if A happens then B will be the outcome. It’s a way to bring order and simplicity to disordered and complex things. It’s also the reason why the experts get to call themselves experts – we can ask their advice because they know what’s going to happen, they have an equation to solve problems. This book says that these rules no-longer apply. That in the new world you need to find a way to plan for the unthinkable. One of the recurring metaphors is a pile of sand which is constantly growing due to new grains of sand falling from above onto the pile. When will the pile stand firmly in place and when will a landslide reshape this little mountain? Scientists once thought this is the kind of thing that they will be able to use logic to predict. Now they know that they never will – all they can bank on is its randomness i.e the relationship between every single grain of sand to all the reast, relative to every other variable creates complexity that we will never be able to iron out. This book increasingly sees politics, the environment, business, as well as science, in this light. 

One of the things that I like about it is the idea is that it is a way of un derstanding the world that you can apply to a vast array of different situations. My last blog blogged on about the idea that there are blurred lines between all types of culture such as arts and sciences or business and personal etc… etc… and that truly big ideas should stand up against the context of each of them (even if they get tested and reshaped a little along the way.)  

I have been thinking about this in the context of sustainability and see it as pretty useful. One of the most useful ideas it uses is the notion that we need to change our mindset to think in terms of systems rather than objects. For example we tend to think about a country or a company or organisation as a thing that can think and act collectively. In actual fact they are more like complex systems or balanced ecosystems in a constant state of flux.  

This idea is especially interesting when thinking about companies and how they need to see themselves in the modern world. It used to be that you could manage in a vacuum. You could communicate single mindedly and you could control your external perception. Now it makes much more sense to think of the company as an ecosystem… the things that happen inside are connected to the things that happen outside and the whole framework for decision making needs to be set in context.    Not only understanding the forces within the internal company structure but  viewing this in the full farthest reaching context in which it sits. Your brand, your environmental impact, your employees, your material use, your consumers, the media, the people who live close to your factory… they are all part of your corporate ecosystem. It can’t be run or managed it can only be cultivated or as I think the book said somewhere… think like a gardener!

Social media rules applied to sustainability

6 rules of social media that need to be applied to corporate sustainability initiatives... courtesy of faris. The full presentation is over on TIGS

Making less into more

This is the trailer for a film about the process of turning resources into objects through the eyes of the designers who change the stuff of thought into the stuff of material goods.  According to fast company a large section of the film is dedicated to the designers contemplation of the fact that most of what they create ends up  in landfill and a little less time to the process of marketing and business strategy that arguably focuses on making this happen at faster and faster speeds.

I am sure that designers can do great things to prevent the life of objects ending so frequently in giant holes in the ground or causing harm when they do end up there.  There are lots of different ways to do this which go under the heading of 'life cycle thinking.'  I.e. make the product last longer, make it recyclable, make it less energy intensive,  using sustainable non-toxic materials.

The implication of much of this is to brief the designer using the notion of less; that 'less is more.'  The designer will not have much of a problem getting their heads around this.  It actually has the makings what seems like a great design brief.  Its more the business and also the end consumer who will struggle more with this idea.  Generally for business the idea of 'more is more' makes more sense.  Bigger products, bought more often, in higher numbers to fulfill ever more undiscovered needs = more profits and growth.  If the designer is working within the rules of this environment then their hands are tied.  

Of course its not quite this straight forward and there are lots of different progress scenarios such as selling more of a product with more sustainable credentials so that less of a 'bad' product is sold, and selling more of a product but making the overall material and energy use less.  In these two examples there are some useful 'less' concepts attached to the notion of more from a sales perspective.  However one of the scenarios must also be the idea of less consumption of the products that companies make and designers design - radical stuff!  Fine for people to talk about outside of companies but a pretty risque idea to discuss within the corporate environment.  However its the people inside companies that create the design brief more than the people outside and so its an important question.  Companies are legally bound to maximize profits for shareholders and so proactively acting against the interest of profits is off limits.  So its this that is the real design brief - designing the company and the business model where less consumption is good for business thus giving the product designers the opportunity to use their skills sustainably.  I plan on dedicating a number of posts to collecting some of the thinking in this area.

Mind maps for sustainability

The Internet is pretty complicated - 'the one thing that humans have created that they themselves don't understand ' is the quote that springs to mind.  In order to make sense of it we have created a vast array of maps and visualisation tools.  The one above shows brands how to navigate the different connection points and communications opportunities that it provides.  Sustainability needs more of these.  Currently it is very disorganised in peoples mind.  Lots of the conversations I have with people take a quite a time for us to orientate ourselves around the same landmarks.  Are we talking about new product innovation, turning the lights off or brand communications.  Or more important are we talking about reducing costs or adding to them, or settling for lower profits or searching for more.  I think we need some more organising principles.

Sustainable Content

The best opportunity for media brands and a big opportunitiy for any brand that wants to help its customers be more sustainable is through content. I have been playing around with a few different ways of getting this to market. Brand Sundance of film festival fame choose an online TV channel.

What would you say to Eric Schmidt?

Google fascinates me and I think they and companies like them could be hugely influential and facilitating the solutions to big issues for lots of reasons...
 
1 - They are listening and have cash to burn  
2- They get seem to get it 
3- They are in future making business 

Also they are responsible for organizing the worlds information and putting people in touch with each other and the things that they need which is an influential position to be in. Plus somebody I know says that they might actually get to speak to the boss man himself so it got me thinking.

Thought 1 - Groogle

The neutrality of Google search results is one of the companies most precious assets but what if users wanted to initiate their own filters so that the results were ordered based on sustainability scores. This is already possible for things like site origins i.e. the 'UK site only' function.  Also though most people do not use it you can filter results by using the - sign which means AND NOT whatever word you want to filter out. What if you could enter -unsustainable. Perhaps even using some kind of lever that could make the criteria stricter when desired. This would obviously only be relevant for company listings within all of the other results. It could also be switched on for the paid links as well so the user can select what kind of ads they wanted to see.  This would be quite a big project and would mean that sites would need to enter the results of some kind of scorecard in a way that could be picked up by the google algorithm. This would need to be supported by some kind of auditing program to ensure that this was being done properly and fairly.  Hopefully then there would come a time when the green filtered search engine overtook the unfiltered search engine and became the new norm.

Capitalism & Enough

Is that an oxymoron? I am currently listening to ENOUGH by William J. Bernstein from audible. I did not expect that it was by one of Wall streets foremost leaders when I ordered it. Nor did I think that it would spend so much time talking about the problem with the Mutual fund industry or the soaring costs and diminishing returns of the finance industry in so much detail - not exactly easy listening a few miles into a run. Having said that if there is anybody who can talk about the concept of ‘enough’ without seeming naive or in some way weak or conflicted from a business perspective it would be a Wall Street finance business leader.  

The key principles as I see them in my half baked over simplified interpretation are...

-The finance system has grown almost exponentially to become the biggest sector in the economy
-Despite the many justifications the finance industry extracts value from the productive part of the economy rather than creates value
-It creates a fake reality based on share price rather than intrinsic company value.
-In this fake reality it needs and promotes instability; otherwise the value of shares could only ever grow in line with the overall growth in GDP - For all of the artificial peaks and troughs the true performance of the market is highly predictable.
-It does this through a number of self serving activities...
 -Focusing on speculation which detaches the financial market from the real world of business
 -Creating a myriad of confusing products that investors cant understand
 -By encouraging investors to keep moving their money around detracting them from any real interest in stock that they buy.
 -Focusing on sales and marketing for money alone rather than acting like a professional industry offering stewardship to its clients.
-The result of this is that companies focus on short term stock price strategies to play the game created by this artifical situation. 
-This is compounded by rewarding CEO’s through share options that are linked to stock price.
-Accountability is removed as shareholders have little interest in corporate governance as their stake is so transitory. 
-This in turn means that management is driven by numbers and accountancy rather than leadership and business character. Everything is reduced to a number that could be used to affect the short term share price up or down.
-For this reason the unmeasurable qualitative life of business is largely ignored - the value that can not be measured on a balance sheet like Ethics, principles, vision, character, spirit of innovation, professionalism, etc... 
-These are the things that are far more likely to affect the intrinsic value of the company over the longer term rather than the share price in the short term despite the wider benefits to society
-Due to this investors as well as other stakeholders are actually getting ripped off.

In other words the failing of the finance industry is far more profound than causing booms and busts i.e. making the numbers shoot up and then shoot down. It is to miss-direct the energy of business as a whole to chase those numbers despite their illusionary nature. Or if you want the really quick version then it would be this.... When the finance industry embraces the concept of ‘enough’ reality will set back in and business at large can start to think about the concept of what really matters for real success on every measure.  

The big lesson learned is that its not really a question of for profit or not for profit but its more a case of the real world which is likely to help everyone versus the phoney one that helps noone bar the finance industry.

The age of stupid

Went to see this over the weekend. It’s the most memorable film in the environmental education genre that I have seen as it manages focus on real human stories while still creating a big picture by piecing them together like bits of evidence for some kind of post apocalyptic research project. There is a huge task to bring to life the physical implications of the science without making it seem like science fiction… ‘The Day after tomorrow,’ springs to mind. Climate change can’t become a bogyman it needs to feel as real as today’s news even through some of the implications seem like some kind of Hollywood alternative reality.

Also liked the marketing. I am now armed with stickers to brand the world around me as STUPID or NOT STUPID. In West London you have to go further for the latter than the former.

Is there a brand bubble?

 

If you read No Logo there is a pin pointed moment that I can't recall when the value of building brands was formalised based on a case where the intangible value of the brand was successfully assessed and paid for in the sale of a major company - or something like that.  I think it was David Ogilvy that said that if advertising could add 1% to share value then that would more than out strip any incremental sales target.   If you think through the rationale it means that you can agree a set of benchmarks for things that you can measure that advertising can effect and come up with a formula to measure how much the brand itself is worth separate to more tangible things like assets, contracts etc...  Do some advertising to raise the scores and then you can raise the value of your company.  Some of the broader principles are sound but what if some of the assumptions it makes are not right.  What if suddenly you went out of fashion, or something in culture swung against you, or people just weren't as loyal as you thought they were going to be.  There is a new book out which I've read bits of that say that there is a huge brand bubble that could burst at any given time based on the argument that 'companies think their brands are worth more than consumers do.'  When you say it like this it sounds like it could be true. What is the answer to this problem assuming that there is one.  To my mind this says that you need to find more tangible ways to build brand value over and above a static set of communicated values.  A more tangible version might be to think more in terms of a mission or goal that leads every part of a business from the service that it provides to customers to the style of innovation that will create future profits.  In this more industrious action orientated definition the overall behaviour of the business as a whole the brand remit.  Sustainability offers the framework to do this as it helps you to define what good behaviour and bad behaviour looks like and adds substance to your mission.  Get this right and you will have established a more solid role for your brand to avoid the risks inherent in any brand bubble if it were to burst.  Tomorrows tastes and business environment are looking increasingly like a sharp edge that could catch out the laggards.  

Quick wins audit

 

To many people the idea of integrating sustainabiltiy into their brand feels like a big ordeal that will not lead to instant tangible benifits.  This is not the case.  My view is that thinking big now will pay off even bigger in the good times but also appreciate why this would be a tough sell to many a CEO.  But this should not stop people from looking for the quick wins win wins - brand, customer, planet!

12 trends... a million opportunities

Capitalism is taking a bit of a hammering at the moment - its almost hard wired in our culture to polarise and go from one extreme to another and make everything black or white.  People forget that capitalism can make good things grow faster than anything else.  Its the extremes that cause the problems.  For example to this point business can learn from charities and they in turn can learn from business.  This is one of the new Presidents key themes - that actually we are more alike and have more shared interests than the media or traditional politics allows.  Capitalism is not wrong but it can do lots better.  Anyhow 12 trends from trendwatching that could stir the green marketing entrepreneur.   

Green media

Its always been a bit of an issue for 'green' communications to wonder about how green it is to actually advertise in the first place.  Answering this while still getting your message across is not easy.  These guys could help...

http://www.mindthecurb.com/our-gallery.asp

What would branding with substance mean?

Ever since I have worked in the advertising business there has been a trend away from advertising in the conventional sense.  The creative advertising production process is a counter force to this in the way that it is structured and rewarded but around the edges lots of different models have sprung up to demonstrate that in the modern world of people who know what they want and how to get it, the role for advertisements to inform people about products is diminishing.  The engagement model, digitally led, experience led, brand as service,  brand as media, brand entertainment, destination planning, consumer centric planning; all of these speak to the notion that marketing needs to be worthwhile in its own right in order to earn an audience.  It needs a point or a purpose that make people choose to engage with it.  I started to play around with the idea that basically brands used to create intangible image associations but now they need substance.  Its no coincidence that the word content is such a buzz word - content has substance and therefore can have value for people that advertising in the traditional sense can not.  

So knowing this the problem becomes not what but how.  How would you go about creating real things of substance for brands?  This is a question that brand marketing agencies are grappling with at the moment.  Everybody seems to be able to define one way or another what the answer should be but far fewer can actually execute it in a satisfactory way.  The way seems blocked.  I think we have all of the answers but we need to think bigger.

If the old approach was about the image that a company wants to create then creating substance would be more about the things that it actually does in the world.  If you want to be defined by your actions you need to start thinking about what the right kind of actions should be.  A person of substance would have good qualities, depth and character, values and ethical principles.  Sustainability offers a framework for how companies can engage with all of these things but quite often this is a function of CSR rather than branding.  This blog is about the idea that all  brands need meaning and purpose and authentic stories to tell and many other things of substance.  But its also about the idea that sustainability thinking offers up nearly all of the answers that it has been looking for.  At the moment I'm pretty sure most people won't see it like this and will see CSR and sustainability and Marcoms and branding in worlds of their own.  But new culture and ideas are about fusing and joining the dots within what we already have.  So here the idea is to smash these worlds together and see what colours shapes and patterns emerge.