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.