ecohegemony

The Lost Art of Authenticating Real (update)

Well, the redesign I had planned for Ecohegemony has yet to happen.  I can't imagine you're too upset. I've been thinking a lot about the impending TEDxDirigo (http://tedxdirigo.com/) talk for a few reasons.  

1.  We're (SOAP's) on the cusp of launching (with some cool new partners) a public event series of our own.  It will be very un-TED, departing from the complacency and predictability I think the monologue format brings with it.

2. I'm starting to warm up to my talk and have been wrapped up in several arguments about "green marketing" as a concept and practice.  Most of these arguments are purely in my head.  Others are me mumbling to my computer while reading my blogroll.  Green marketing isn't dead (as Joel "Twitter Pun Champion" Makower claims.  But I think it might be dangerous.  My talk explores why.

Here's the talking points, kind of a talk discography of hits (or lily pad as Seth at #ValicoGroup calls them).

1. Blizzards
2. Greenpeace
3. Whale Nerds
4. Winking
5. Simulacrum
6. Porn
7. Don Draper
8. Gary Busey
9. Cows and Acrobats
10. Authenticity
11. Buy Local
12. Instagram
13. Aaron Sorkin
14. Total Recall
15. Cause Marketing
16. Hungry Ghosts
17. Rolex
18. 2 Tools:  Acknowledge and Math
19. 1:1
20. Leapfrog Strategy
21. Happiness
22. Profitability
23. So. Cal in the 70s
24. Sk8ers
25. Corporate Trust
26. Blizzards
27. Winks
28. Second base
29. Green Marketing    

In this format it looks schizophrenic.  I may well be.

 

Cult branding lens research: know any cult brands?

I'm working on a lens study (looking at one through through another) about how some brands are cultish. 

Like religious cults these are brands whose "user's" beliefs or practices are considered strange by the mainstream.  In the traditional pejorative sense, these brands are bad for the followers.  This isn't just about passionate consumers - this is a lens looking at the extreme of passionate consumers.  Part of this is about intervention.  How do you convince the follower of a cult brand to leave the cult?  (A brand intervention company is an interesting concept). 

From a sustainability standpoint - these are brands that are bad for the planet, but we justify them anyway.

I'm looking for some examples of cult brands.  The most obvious are Apple, Starbucks, McDonald's, Coco-Cola.

One condition these brands need to have it seems is an alternative - an anti-cult (that may actually not be any different.  The Anti seems to increase the fervor and pitch of worship (like God and the Devil, Branch Dividians and the Government).

What else?  What other cult brands do you see out there?  email jrooks at thesoapgroup dot com with suggestions.

Lots of articles have been written about Cult Brands - but from a positive point of view.  There are serval "How to" guides.  This is not that.  It's about the pejorative.

 

 

 

Portland, ME vs. Portland, OR: competion, branding and being cool

I live in the other Portland.  The cold one with 4' snow drifts outside my window.  I'm cool with it, but I'm also jealous of the one in Oregon.  Bikes, super cool companies, hipsters with beards and belt buckles, amazing micro-brews, great coffee, lifestyle friendliness. 

Wait a minute!  That's the one I live in.

So why is it that they own the brand of Cool Portland?  Do they have a bigger marketing budget?  A better marketing team?  More ads? 

They are named after us, after all.  Any yet they dominate the Portland dialogue.  Or maybe they are actually better than us. 

Are your competitors better than you?  Do they dominate the dialogue?  Why?  Deconstruct it to understand it.

I love my Portland.  I bet I'd love that one too.  They look fun.  I'd like to buy them one of these beers.

 

 

Granted  - their politics are far more progressive and their infrastructure is superior, particularly now that Maine is being run using discount-store mentality by a Tea-party backed, discount -store mogul.  What could go wrong?  But don't get me started on "Bad for ME" LePage.

 

MiracleWhip - the tangy Jedi Knight of sandwich spreads.

MircacleWhip launched a punchy campaign sharing staged testimony for and against it's product, drove people to a micro-site and then asked them to Like or Hate their product. It's a little bit genius.

Under the banner "we're not for ever body" it lets us categorize ourselves into likers and haters. I hate hate hate MiracleWhip and my taste buds are not likly to change any time soon.  They realized this and used my hate against me - Jedi Knight-style.  It makes me like them, but not enough to put it in my mouth.  Gross.

(also, very nice use of YouTube as the microsite and commenting mechanism)

here it is:  http://www.youtube.com/miraclewhip

 

 

 

indulging escapism and setting expecations

On a flight back from Salt Lake City last month,   I was working on a chapter I am writing for a new  anthology tentatively titled "How Not To Run a Start-Up" being edited by Julianne Zimmerman . I was tired and asked for a cup of coffee.  It should be known that I am NOT a coffee snob.  I will drink any hot, brown liquid. Seriously, my morning coffee right now is made with a filter and a funnel.

The styrofoam cup landed on my tray and I immediately looked around for any "green" messaging on the plane.  None.  It was USAir.  They were safe - no obvious lack of commitment or overlooked sustainability detail opportunity here to blog about.  Had they set my expectations higher with some signage, this blog post would be different.  But I expected nothing, so settled in to my chapter and coffee.

But then - THERE - on the cup in wispy, cloud-like font:  Cafe Mystique, Indulge Escape.

Now I can understand why JetBlue  would want to serve Dunkin Donuts.  It says  "we're one of you."  And I can see why United might like to increase its status by serving Starbucks.

But why align yourself with such a fanciful expectation doomed to disappoint?  This cup offers way more than it could ever deliver.  Ok, so I am on a plane and escaping to/from something/somewhere.  But really?  Air-travel escapism went out when we stopped getting dressed up to fly and could smoke on planes.  Planes are more office, than escape. 

Coke gets away with it.  Open Happiness.  But then they have 150 years of associations to manipulate my inner child into remembering the pop-fly I missed and then when my dad bought me a cola after the game to console me with (never happened, but I remember it).

Setting expectations is tricky business.  Best not to over or under shoot.  Get it right the first time.  Start a dialogue with your customers and find out where their expectations are - adjust accordingly.

At least one person on Twitter agrees with me

everything is a commodity and how to be different

I was talking with a local printer the other day and he was lamenting about how his product (printing on paper) had become a commodity, and that anyone could hop on-line and find a better price, better paper and quicker service.  One strategy he started using is to offer free design services to his clients.  Agencies and designers (great repeat customers and evangelists) don't give him much business anymore.  I wonder why?  Ooops.

Everything is a commodity today.  Nothing is special.  Anything can be replicated and its priced reduced to nearly and sometimes absolutely nothing. 

Branding is one way to add value, but it is not real value.  Real value may come in the experience that the consumer has with the business.  For the printer, we brainstormed how he could make the experience of purchasing printing more valuable than the combination of paper and ink. 

If I ran a business that sold a commodity (and I do - we all do) I would be investing in understanding the experience of my product instead of marketing.

 

Marketing and Authenticity are walls between companies and consumers. Tear down that wall!

I've been posting/writing a lot about Authenticity.  Let me explain.

Early this month some new partners and I launched a new venture called ZMR.  ZMR is a boutique consulting firm providing authenticity and transparency services that help improve company and CSR performance.

In 2008, I presented at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship conference.  I spoke on a panel that included someone from (I think) Edelman who was running the response campaign for Mattel in the wake of their 2007 lead paint fiasco (more on that soon).  The write-up I provided for the talk was:

Real, Relevant, and Rhetoric: Communications and the Authenticity Gap
In an age of transparency, authentic communications is an  essential part of a good citizenship strategy. The session  will address the risks that come with adopting language and graphic images that are more aspirational than real and how  to craft corporate citizenship messages that are consistent with your branding, marketing, and overall corporate communications practices.

That was not my first run-in with Authenticity as a theme, but it was the first I had articulated as a Gap.  That planted the seed for ZMR.  But really, I think for the past 8 years, most of my service ideas and strategies have been about tearing down walls between companies and consumers. 

Marketing is a wall.  Authenticity is a wall.  Occasionally a new tunnel into (but not all the way through) the wall shows up - like social media - but the wall remains.  For Sustainability and Social Justice sake, the wall must come down.  If done right and with intention, the business will be stronger too.

I know ZMR  will chip away at the wall.  I hope ZMR is a wrecking ball.  We shall see - the team is certainly there to do it.  Along the way, corporations will run more efficiently and their sustainability initiatives will have more impact.

You can learn more at www.authenticatingreal.com.  I'm still running SOAP and serving as the CEO of ZMR.  They are sister companies connected only through my mission of tearing down that wall.

 

Promotion strategy: Building the bike as you ride it.

It used to be that a Creative Director and his team built a campaign, tested it, perfected it, and then handed it off to the client all gassed up and ready.  No more.

Today, campaigns are prepared and they evolve within the very stream created by said campaign.  Social media and the consumer call for dialogue demand this.  Today, we adjust campaign based on thousands of points of feedback (trick is listening to the right feedback) and move forward toward the next smart and lucrative adjustment.  It all happens very fast. 

And it can only happens with a solid agency relationship.

This is one reason why we are seeing an up-tick in retainers between agencies and clients.  Successful campaigns today are dynamic, requiring a very close and open relationship.  They require collaboration (agency - client -  customer) to create the campaign together on the fly.  This only happens under a retainer.  If you're still working project x project with your agency, you're not seeing the full value of your campaign.

The hegelian dialectic of sustainability? Where are we?

Oversimplified, the Hegelian Dialectic goes something like this:  Everything is a pendulum and the pendulum swings back and forth between extremes and eventually comes to rest in the center.

Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis

Abstract- Negative - Conflict

and:

Over-consumption - Green at any Cost - Stasis/Sustainability

My question is:  Where are we in the sustainability swing?  If we know, we can know what's next and how to expedite it. 

I want to argue that we are just between Over-Consmption and Green at any Cost.  We have a ways to go before we get to Sustainability.

But of course the diactect repeats itself into a battle of infinite regress and, hopefully, improvement.

 

 

The 'Real' meme strikes again: Xerox as Real

I’m in the process of writing another Cultural Lens using the Do It Yourself movement.  What it has exposed is a steep trend towards Authenticity as a marketing value. 

Coca-Cola has been doing it for years – The Real Thing (though artificially engineered). 

This morning, I saw an ad for Xerox with the following tagline: Ready for Real Business (see their concept site at www.realbusiness.com).  While the company has moved from a “copier company” to a “back office solution provider” it is interesting that a company known for making replicas is using the Real meme as a brand shift strategy.  Then again, maybe I’m confusing Real with Original, hmmm.

Maybe it’s just funny.  Maybe they were being ironic.  More likely it is a genuine business shift reacting to an archaic industry.  But it's still funny; Xerox as Real.  They still sell copiers (I mean document management solutions [barf]).

Note:  I’ll post a Strategic Memo I wrote for First Affirmative’s Socially Responsible Investing Conference later in a longer entry about the conference in general.  The memo looks at strategies for maintaining authenticity in your social media strategies.

 

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