Citizen Brand

Of Bobby and Barack

It took 40 years.  America has fought four wars, one of which is still raging.  The world is a remarkably different place in June of 2008 versus June of 1968, but there is one very strong connection.  Barack Obama is the true heir to the presidency that should have been.

My personal political hero is Bobby Kennedy.  It has taken me four decades to find a candidate that I believe will make the kinds of changes we need.  Bobby Kennedy would have been a much different president than even his brother was.  Barack Obama will be a much different president than any we have had in the four decades since that turbulent year of 1968.  A year that shaped a generation's thinking and actions, including yours truly.

And yet Obama will mean much more than even RFK could have hoped to mean.  His is a truly historic campaign as was that of his worthy competitor, Hillary Clinton.  But the Clinton campaign did not comport itself consistently as one that deserved the historic tag.  It was at times difficult to watch and listen to the Clinton campaign.  In 1992, the Clintons represented change.  It was a change that was never fully realized as scandal and impeachment politics sidetracked the promised progress.

And now there are two.  McCain and Obama.  An aging war hero versus the young gun.  Two United States Senators.  Two men once again when many expected the first woman to grace the presidential stage.  The questions begin.  Can Obama convince Hillary's female and white male base to stay in the Democratic fold? Will the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have been energized by Obama stay tuned and vote in November?  Will John McCain figure out a way to distance himself from his promise to stay in Iraq for 100 years?  Will Obama pick Hillary for VP?  Would she take it or tell him to take a hike?

But those are the questions of practical politics.  Obama has raised our sights to look beyond the mundane day to day politics.  He is challenging us to step up, get engaged and embrace real change.  He is a reminder to this child of the 60's of a time when politicians could be respected and be believed.

It took 40 years.

Simple enjoyment

I can always count on Ernie to find us advertising that works and that we can simply enjoy.  This new spot from Guiness does both.

What happened to Lincoln and FDR?

Since we have already had most of this year to vet the candidates running to become the next President of the United States, maybe we should just go ahead and have the election now and be done with it.  Of course, that would require us to actually be ready to put one of the vast herd of senators, governors, former governors, former mayors and at least one actor and a former first lady into the White House.  And that is not something we seem ready to do yet.  Good thing we have another year.  I'm sure another year of canned sound bites and made for TV debates will clear everything up.

Think I'm sounding a bit cynical?  Guess I have to plead a little guilty.  But I wonder if we are all going to experience presidential election burnout because we do have almost a full year left before we cast votes.  Makes me wonder how far off base the story in Thursday's The Onion might be.......

"Americans Announce They're Dropping Out of the Presidential Race"

One news cycle

Back to the keyboard after a summer hiatus and it took just 45 minutes with Tuesday's New York Times  to make it happen.  Whatever page I turned to there was example after example of questionable, even unethical decisions by people and organizations.  One news cycle produced some of the worst examples of bad citizen brands I've ever seen.  Consider just a few of them:

In 2005, corporate America received huge tax breaks to bring home their offshore profits and create jobs in America.  Drug makers were the biggest winners bringing home $100 billion while paying only six percent taxes instead of the 35 percent they would have paid prior to the '05 legislation.  Any new jobs created?  Hardly.  Instead tens of thousands of people have been laid off by drug companies in the past two years.

Without even leaving the front page, we see that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has himself in a bit of a sticky wicket.  The man who used to make Wall Street titans tremble finds himself on the defense after a couple of long time aides decided to use the New York State Police for a little political tomfoolery.  Seems the Governor's nemesis - State Senator Joe Bruno used some police helicopters for trips from Albany to New York City.  Turned out not to be a problem, but the Governor's helpers saw an opportunity and solicited the acting Superintendent of the State Police to help them make a case against Bruno.  By the way, the acting Superintendent is vying for a permanent appointment so he did what any good public servant should do - he helped try to make the case.  Anyway, given Spitzer came into office seven months ago pledging to clean up New York state government, it seems apparent he will need to start with his own staff.

Of course the sports pages these days read more like bad reality television shows.  From Michael Vick and fighting dogs to the critical question of whether or not baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will be in the stands for Barry Bonds' record home run it's amazing that sports writers still find time to report scores of games.

The perfect sports commissioner, David Stern of the National Basketball Association , has a small gambling problem.  He doesn't wager himself, but seems he has a referee who got in over his head with some betting debts and began to make some interesting calls that turned a game or two or ten.  A good betting scandal is needed every ten years or so just to purge the rookie gamblers out of the system.

And then there is poor Sergio Garcia .  I love golf and I truly love the Open Championship.  It looked like Sergio was finally going to win his first major.  He was 0 for 35 coming into the British Open.  He is now 0 for 36.  Unfortunately his major drought is apparently starting to eat away at him.  He was not the shining example of a gracious loser in the press room at Carnoustie on Sunday.  He blamed bad breaks and other golfers in front of him for losing a four stroke lead in the last 14 holes in the final round.  Golf is one sport where no one else has anything to do with the way you play the game.

A handful of news stories in one newspaper in one news cycle.  All examples of either a lack of common sense, common decency or ethical behavior.  And proof that it's time to crank up Citizen Brand again and look for some good examples.  I know they are out there.

Good to be back.

Coach Rob

I assure you that I have not changed Citizen Brand into a sports blog.  But athletics so often provides us with stories, both good and bad, that allow us to mark the passage of time and measure our progress as a society.  The passing of Coach Eddie Robinson of Grambling State University is one of those great stories.

Coach Rob, as he was sometimes called, arguably had as much impact as any college coach football has ever seen.  Numbers can certainly tell part of his story.  He won more games than Bowden, Paterno and Bryant - 408 - and he sent more than 200 players to the National Football League.  And over the 56 years he coached, America changed dramatically.  As the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon points out:

"Robinson began coaching at a time when he might have to leave  campus to retrieve his best players from a cotton field and finished it in 1997, reportedly having been inducted into every hall of fame for which he was eligible."

Coach Robinson is one of those people I wish I could have met just once.  He sounded like one of those people you would want at one of those imaginary dinner parties where you invite the eight or ten people you would most like to have dinner with at one time.  Wilbon said he was in awe of Coach Rob the first time he met him.

"It was in the early 1980s, maybe even the Georgetown Final Four in New Orleans, and I stepped in an elevator in the Hyatt-Regency adjacent to the Superdome.

Coach Rob was there and it was nearly as overwhelming as the first time I saw Muhammad Ali as an adult. Luckily, Doug Williams was at the bottom of the elevator, and I asked him to make the introduction.

I had the pleasure of being in Coach Rob's company three or four times, one an extended visit, and had no interest in interrupting his stories with questions. He was quoted as saying of coaching, "Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of men and getting them to believe in you."

What was evident in the prime of his career, when he retired in 1997, and now upon reflection on his remarkable life and career is that Eddie Robinson won even more hearts and souls than he did football games."

Eddie Robinson was definitely a citizen brand.

(Link to Michael Wilbon's entire column)

Magazines for kids II

The real power of the blogosphere is in the connections we can create.  I had one of those connections happen today.  A post I wrote on August 31, 2006 resulted today in an email exchange with John Mennell, Founding Director of MagazineLiteracy.org.  I want to share with you some of what John said to me about this incredible organization:

"Our mission is to put wonderful magazines into the hands, hearts, and homes of children and families who would otherwise not have them.  One of our greatest challenges is reaching people who then sponsor the teachers, mentors, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and other literacy agents who help children and families learn and love to read.  We need to engage and leverage every magazine and media stakeholder in the ways that they excel to reach the masses."

As I said in my earlier post, other than making sure a child has the proper nutrition each and every day, I cannot think of anything more important than for a child to be able to learn about the world around them.  Many children have access to computers today, but not all.  MagazineLiteracy.org can make sure that children have access to information through the hundreds of magazines that are published today.  Check it out.

By the way, here is how John told me this organization was founded:

"Once, over ten years ago, an executive director of a battered women's shelter wrote me to explain how children and their moms arrived at her shelter with no belongings, and how wonderful it would be to be able to give each child a magazine with their name on the label.  I held on to that letter for all the years up until reaching a point in my own life when I could launch MagazineLiteracy.org.  Now, we make the necessary connections possible by inspiring and facilitating donations from individuals, groups, and business owners that sponsor magazines to children and families. But we need to reach more people in more communities to reach our full potential."

I think John has thrown the gauntlet down.

Seeing RED

My email rang yesterday with a request from my former colleague Andy and I am going to do my best to answer.  The subject is Product Red and my opinion about it.  I have been observing and thinking about this campaign as it has unfolded and here is what I think.

I'm disappointed.  I'm a little mad.  But I think cause branding as a strategy will survive the excesses of Product Red.  I believe that because if you step back from the edge of the cliff and view the campaign, Product Red is not cause branding.  It is a product promotion campaign.  Granted, it is a big product promotion campaign executed on a global scale.  But cause branding it is not.

When the news broke this week that Product Red had spent $100 million on marketing and returned $18 million to the cause of fighting AIDS in Africa, it was like a slap in the face to all of us who believe in cause branding not just as a marketing tool, but as a real way to make change in the world.  The Better Business Bureau says charitable efforts must return a minimum of 65 percent of all proceeds to the cause to be considered successful.  Product Red has a ways to go to meet the BBB minimum.

Product Red is all the rage right now.  We know because clients we are working with are constantly referencing it with envy and admiration.  It's big and bold and it has certainly captured the attention of the world.  But thus far too much money has been spent for too little return and the celebrities involved have outshone the cause itself.  That is why I don't want this program confused with true cause branding efforts.

Perhaps Product Red is creating a new category for which we will need to come up with a new moniker.  Maybe we call it marketing cause instead of cause marketing.  That may seem like semantics, but the simple juxtaposition of the two words illustrates that there is a difference between selling products to benefit a cause and creating a program that educates, enlightens and raises money for solutions to a societal problem.

I'm sure there are people who will disagree with my opinion.  I may have even offended a potential client out there somewhere.  I'm comfortable with that.  I know from the great organizations that we are now working with that there is a great understanding of the power of true cause branding. 

What do all of you think of Product Red?  Let's keep this conversation going.  I have my opinion, but I believe this is an important discussion for us to have if we care about cause, public relations and branding.

So now Andy, all we have to do is figure out how you can possibly dislike the Beatles. 

As P&G goes.......

When the CMO of Procter & Gamble speaks, we should take note.  Especially now.  You can link to the entire story below and read it for yourself, but let me pull out an operative quote of interest from it:

"Mr. Stengel....used his platform to describe a different set of imperatives: the need for brands to be authentic, trustworthy and generous."

Stengel says the days of “telling and selling” are over and he began his presentation to AAAA this week showing his Second Life avatar visiting the Second Life office of P&G’s agency Leo Burnett.

If P&G is sounding and acting like this, we can assume there has been a seismic shift in the marketing world.  Creating authentic brands that care about the world, not just making an extra buck, is the world we live in today.

The full AdAge article is here.

Along those lines, what is to be made of the Product Red cause initiative.  Is it selling products successfully?  Is it raising money and awareness for an important cause?  I think the jury is still out on both of those questions.  Others think so too.  Witness this recent website called buylesscrap which suggests that people not buy the Red products and instead donate more money to the cause.

Authenticity and transparency are critical in branding today.  Same goes for cause programs.  Jim Stengel at P&G has it right - authentic; trustworthy and generous are what people want today.  How is your company doing?

Cause Potpourri

Some interesting opportunities to think about from a morning of soaking up news and info from a variety of sources.

Hollywood big shot Michael Douglas appeared on ABC's This Week and talked about Global Nomads.  It is a program that brings together youth from all over the world using video conferencing to have a real time conversation about the issues of the day.

While perusing the New York Times online, this ad popped up talking about Ready, Willing & Able.  Here is what this organization is all about:

"The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program offers life-changing opportunities to homeless individuals through paid work, transitional housing and comprehensive support services. The beloved “men in blue” who clean more than 150 miles of New York City streets every day have become integral to the quality of life in our city. They are supported by thousands of community residents who recognize and respect the hard work they do to rebuild their own lives while making New York City a cleaner, safer, more humane place for everyone."

And don't forget to think about attending the Social Marketing University hosted by Nedra Kline Weinreich.  Visit her blog, Spare Change for more information.  And readers of Citizen Brand can have a $75 discount by using the code CB75 when registering.  Thanks Nedra.

It's not about spin

It seems to have died down a bit of late, but from time to time those of us in the realm of public relations are referred to as spin doctors.  It implies of course that what we do for a living is to take a fact and twist it into something to serve a particular agenda.  It happens, to be sure, but just like other lines of work, the wrongdoers are in the minority.

Kami over at Communication Overtones has a nice post that serves as a good reminder to us in the biz of what we should focus on each and every day.  And it will give those not in our world a clear picture of what good public relations is all about.

Kami is right about one thing.  Good public relations is about courage.  We have all had those moments when we are faced with a tough decision.  Do we simply go along with what our client or our boss wants to do - OR - if we believe their actions or words are wrong and will do harm to their reputation or that of the organization - do we stand up and say so? 

It's a good challenge for all of us in public relations.  For that matter, it's a good challenge regardless of what you do for a living.  After all, we all need to take responsibility for our own reputations and that of our organizations. 

What will you do?