Marketing

    Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Index

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    Wal-Mart’s sustainability index, reported today in The New York Times, is an important step in the right direction. Labels indicating a product’s eco-friendliness will help consumers with decision-making at the point-of-sale (POS). The index reflects things like carbon emitted, water used, recyclability, air pollution, etc. 

     

    In NYC’s commuter railroad hub, Penn Station, all fast food is now labeled with caloric intake. This mandate is another smart move already having an impact on POS product selection.  The latter idea has been legislated, the Wal-Mart idea is their own. (Bravo NYC and Wal-Mart.) 

     

    Change doesn’t always come easy. There are still people out there who don’t care about nasty, fatty calories. There are still people out there who won’t mind bringing poorly indexing products to the counter at Wal-Mart. (BTW, I’m thinking the index should be color-coded: green, yellow, red).  In fact, there are still doofuses who throw their trash out the window of their cars. But as derision grows and our culture finds these behaviors less acceptable, change will occur. 

    (And can we lose the word “sustainability” and call it “green” for goodness sake?) Peace!

     

    Sub-Standard Mea Cupla?

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    McGraw-Hill and Standard and Poor’s have been around for a long time. The former is best known as a publishing company, the latter a credit rating company. McGraw-Hill owns Standard and Poor’s. For those not in-the-know about the financial world S&P isn’t a company you think about often.

    Today I read a fairly benign ad by S&P in which it touted its people, purpose, practices and progress.  Depicting young to middle aged people, so we get the company is not run by 60 and 70 year olds (not that there’s anything wrong with it), the ad is quite unremarkable. The headline reads: “4 things you should know about Standard and Poors ratings.”    Why, why, why would anyone stop and read such an ad? Except me.

    I read the whole thing and the last para said “We’ve taken to heart the lessons learned during the financial crisis, improving the methodologies behind our ratings.”  Hard stop. No more copy. It got me thinking —Who was behind the wheel in this ratings company when banks, mortgage companies, car companies and other goobers were turning the country on its ear with bad debt?  Were these poorly run, insolvent companies receiving triple D or E or Z ratings? What kind of watchdog let this happen?

    If this ad is a mea culpa, it doesn’t work. Not with one sentence hidden at the end of the ad.  What happened? Do tell. If you want to help your brand strap on a pair of editorials and let us know.

    Peace!

    Kid Healthy Branding.

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    v8 fusion

    General Mills and the Campbell Soup Company are doing some really good work to change the poor eating and drinking habits of kids.  General Mills, which already increased the whole grain content in its children’s cereal, has now agreed to reduce sugar in cereals advertised to kids. Campbell’s has created a line of heart healthy sugar and fructose syrup-free V-8 Fusion fruit drinks and marketing them to schools.

    Kids love cereal and they love soda and juice, so if the right products are available, affordable and actually taste good, kids will go for them — reducing obesity and diabetes down the road. 

    I have always loved the marketing ploy of Campbell’s: one V-8 is like multiple servings of vegetables. That idea carries over to its V-8 Fusion and V-8 Splash drinks. It’s a great, focused branding idea — pregnant with healthy consumer imagery (salt aside).  General Mills is trying to make whole grain a differentiating branding idea, but it’s juggling that with a new effort to reduce sugar.  It’s doing the right thing, but dividing its message to conquer. Were I General Mills, I’d work on the whole grain idea and leave the sugar-free as a side bar.  Sugar free is a bandwagon issue, whole grain is big. Peace!

    Disappointment.

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    For the last week or so I’ve been interviewing dieticians. They are a fascinating lot.  One of the questions I just decided to add is “Are there any disappointments in your practice area you can share?”  If I hear silence, um or no, I’ll prod “How about, have you a wish list for your business or your patients?”  

    These conceptual questions draw out emotional responses, personal responses.

    So, I decided to ask myself the same question and the answer might be instructive to tyro planners. My disappointments relate to not selling my brand strategies hard enough. Or well enough.  There are been a number of brand strategies (one claim, three support planks) I’ve sold I know to be powerful, business-winning organizing principles. Powerful enough to redistribute market wealth significantly — but I’ve either let marketing clients, agency creative or C-levels get in the way.  When someone is trying to get a website created or a campaign out the door, they don’t want to spend too much time on its underpinnings. That’s the mistake. That’s my mistake. If you have a solution that will change the brand for the better, don’t let go. Don’t be deterred.

    Henning Mankell’s character Kurt Wallander has a father who paints.  He only paints one picture – a landscape. He does it in two flavors: with and without a grouse. That’s focus. That’s a plan. Is he crazy?  Does he see a different painting every time he puts oil to canvas?

    A brand plan is not a limiting document, it’s a rich strategy consumers can remember… and consumers can foretell. Peace!

    Blog Action Day – A Poverty Pledge

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    I’m embarrassed to say I am one of those people that never give anything to beggars. That’s what we 50 year olds call them, at least from my part of the world. This was a rule of mine because I used to line in NYC between 5th and 6th Avenues where there were lots of outstretched hands.

     

    Two quick stories: 1. I broke my rule one night when a person asked for $.17 so he could buy a can of Campbell’s Soup.   He was direct, had a purpose, and I believed him. 2. One night my pal and I ran into a dude we called “Mangia” at the Blarney Rock pub. We called him Mangia because he would echo this one Italian word up and down the corporate cannon in a most pitiful, pleading voice. The next time we saw Mangia, we were a little in our cups and ran up to him called him by our nickname, put on arm over his shoulder and gave him a beer. In a very Americanized voice, he said “Hey, thanks guys.”

    I’m not proud of my “no change for anyone” coda so, starting today, I’m going to make up for lost time. Every time I am asked by a sober person seeking money, I promise to reach down into my pocket and dispense change. So long as there is some jingle in the pants, I will give it.   It’s a start.

    PS. I saw a woman give a homeless man her orange the other day, and it near brought me to tears. Peace!

    Starfish Brand Design

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    I went to a workshop yesterday hosted by Starfish Brand Design in NYC.  It not only reenergized me, it reminded me there are still some really smart people in the branding business.  Starfish preaches that a powerful branding idea is, indeed, indelible but they don’t just preach theory, they make it happen.  Unlike some brand consulting companies, Starfish doesn’t stop at the paper strategy — or after the logo, mission statement, and style manual have been delivered.  They don’t rest until clients “get” the branding idea and as a company “live” the branding idea.

     

    Starfish goes into overdrive when it comes to helping brands manifest, operationalize and broadcast their unique selling proposition. That’s their point of difference. (My peo-ple!)

     

    Megan Kent and David Kessler, along with the other Starfish tentacles, have a genetic predisposition toward understanding selling culture. They know which parts of the brain light up during the different steps to a sale and apply that learning to help companies sell more stuff. They’ve got the tools and know the tricks. Glad to have been invited to the workshop. Peace!

     

     

     

    Insights and Briefs.

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    tighty-whitiesI love my briefs.  Not tighty whities  or bike shorts. Brand briefs.  I’ve got a million of them on the hard drive. What gets my engine going when reading old briefs are the insights.  Insights about targets, consumer desires, claims and proof arrays.  Insights are the stim creative people crave.  When well done, insights wrapped in a poetic, meme-able packages, light fires under art directors, copywriters and creative directors.  

    Insights are catalysts supporting the brand idea. A good brief will offer up multiple insights – but it’s the creatives who figure out which are most actionable, motivating and fanciful. 

    Early on I recognized I’m only about 15% creative. I’ve worked with, studied, and stalked some of the great creative minds in the business. I’m not them and never will be. Being a diagnostician and insight doctor is the next best thing.

    My old briefs remind me of the love. Campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.

    Peace, in this “post truth” campaign world.

     

     

    What Dilbert’s Creator Might Say About Branding.

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    My branding practice owes a tip-of-the-hat to politics. I borrowed the word planks from politics, incorporating them into my framework. At What’s The Idea?, brand strategy comprises “one claim and three proof planks.” Organizing brand value around three proof areas focuses content makers and the consumer minds — the rule of three.

    This morning I was reading a NYT article on political strategy and came upon an analysis of political memes. Cartoonist Scott Adams who developed Dilbert said something about political memes that really rang true to me as a brand planner.  The meme rhymed, he offered, and provided “brain glue plus framing and contrast.”

    Whoa! Trifecta.

    Rhyming always helps with memorability. Brain glue refers to the creative quotient. Do you want to remember it? Framing speaks to positioning and clarity of purpose. And contrast is all about differentiation and uniqueness. Much work today, brand and content-wise, does not differentiate.  If you hit all three of these strategy qualities, you have a good meme. Brand planners, much can be learned from this cartoonist’s advice.

    Peace|

     

    Curators Wanted.

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    Two disruptive trends one can observe on many a marketing street corner these days are “user generated content” and “crowdsourcing.” Like them or not, they’re here. Everyone knows what user generated content is – the creation and sharing of online media content (text, pics, song and video) – but crowdsourcing is a little more inside. Crowdsourcing is the practice of offering up a creative assignment to many, who work for free (or a pittance) in the hope of having their work selected for a one-time fee.

    People who participate in either of these areas are your more creative types. Crowdsourcers are often freelancers, tyros, or out-of-work, and on the UGC side the net gets wider – some of the people more creatively challenged. Both these marketing practices create the need for another function: Curation.

    I once created a contest for ZDNet in which 23,000 50-word essays needed to be read and judged. “Who gonna do that?” Exactly. We hired temps for the initial culling of the herd. For a crowdsourced logo design competition with 600 entries who will evaluate the work? For an online newspaper with, 175 local stories send in my citizen reporters, who is going to decide what publishes? A curator.

    Don’t be surprised to see the word curator appear more and more on Craigslist and business cards. Peace!

    Facebook Looking For Caaaaaash.

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    Facebook had a big announcement yesterday about Connect, a service that will make it easier for groups of Facebook friends to leave Facebook, go to other sites to "do stuff,” the result of which will be a revenue share of ad dollars back to Facebook.  For instance, Facebook friends will be able to visit Hulu, watch a program together and share comments on Wall-to-Wall and it will monetize back to Facebook. Freakin’ goofy.

    But here’s what’s even goofier. Facebook, who capitalized to the tune of $235 million last year, is now actually looking for more money.  Can you imagine? They need the money so they can figure out how to actually make money. It’s an internet property people! It is machines, smart software and people to grow and manage them.  And by the way, the smarter the software, the less people needed. More money isn’t going to solve the monetization issue.

    Here’s a new title for you: Chief Monetization Officer. Facebook needs one and but quick.