A Barkley alum has made good on his dream of starting his own company. It's called Interwoven Threads and here is a very nice article about this unique t-shirt company in Present magazine. Congrats to Andy Woolard for a job well done.
Another holiday gift idea from your personal shopper here at Citizen Brand.
One of my Barkley colleagues, Susan Shank, pointed me to a great story today about another brand figuring out that going green is not just the right thing to do, but is good for business. In a New York Times story, we learn how Frito-Lay is going to totally convert one of its plants to become energy neutral. Here is an excerpt from the Times.
"At Frito-Lay’s factory here, more than 500,000 pounds of potatoes arrive every day from New Mexico to be washed, sliced, fried, seasoned and portioned into bags of Lay’s and Ruffles chips. The process devours enormous amounts of energy, and creates vast amounts of wastewater, starch and potato peelings.
Now, Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the environmentally benign chip.
Its goal is to take the Casa Grande plant off the power grid, or nearly so, and run it almost entirely on renewable fuels and recycled water. Net zero, as the concept is called, has the backing of the highest levels of corporate executives at PepsiCo, the parent company of Frito-Lay.
There are benefits besides the potential energy savings. Like many other large corporations, PepsiCo is striving to establish its green credentials as consumers become more focused on climate change. There are marketing opportunities, too. The company, for example, intends to advertise that its popular SunChips snacks are made using solar energy.
“We don’t know what the complete payoff for net zero is going to be,” said Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo’s chairman and chief executive. “If this works even to 50 or 60 percent of its potential, that is fantastic, and it’s so much better than what we already have.”
Stop the presses! A Chairman/CEO that has authorized a major change in business operations without knowing exactly what the payoff will be. Pass the chips please!
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.
Seth Godin has a new book out called "The Dip.". I love this post he just put up on his new site to promote the book:
"We did everything within reason and we still lost."
Your competition beats you when they do things that are unreasonable. In large markets, the unreasonable competitor always establishes the new benchmark, always ends up as best in the world, always redefines what 'within reason' means.
I guess the only choice is to be unreasonable."
It's hard to fathom sometimes just how hard you have to push yourself to get beyond what everyone else is doing. Even when you do, there is always someone else right behind you waiting for you to take a break. When you pause, they slide on by to the new ground you had in your sights.
Seth is right. You have to be unreasonable. You have to break the rules. I don't mean things that are illegal or unethical. But I do mean doing things that might get you out of your comfort zone. Innovations and new benchmarks don't happen inside our comfort zones.
What rules are you ready to break tomorrow?
It's official. Cause branding is good for business. It is so because Brandweek has a story saying it is so. And I was starting to get worried that maybe cause wasn't a good strategy.
Thanks to Joe Waters for pointing that story out as well as pointing us to a cool new idea involving ATM's over at Lucy's blog.
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.
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?
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?
I understand the need for companies to protect their brands and proprietary products but I think the Heinz Company is offsides in asking the Red Gold Company of Indiana to stop a charity program because of trademark infringement. The brouhaha started a week ago or so - The Indianapolis Star tells the story for us.
"The H.J. Heinz Co. of Pittsburgh has filed a complaint with the Colts over the NFL team's partnership with ketchup and tomato products manufacturer Red Gold of Elwood, Ind., over some informal naming rights.
Red Gold says in a statement today that Heinz filed a cease-and-desist order with the Colts objecting to Red Gold being a sponsor of the Colts' "red zone" during team's time on offense. "Red zone" is a nickname for the defensive team's area of a football field inside the 20-yard-line.
For the past four seasons, Red Gold, which is an official Colts sponsor, has donated 136 tons of canned tomato products to Indianapolis area food pantries each time that the Colts have scored a touchdown from the “Red Gold Red Zone” during home games.
Red Gold officials today say Heinz filed a legal challenge claiming ownership of the term “red zone.”
Details of that legal complaint were not immediately available. The news release says that the “red zone” is not trademarked but became accepted vernacular of the game 22 years ago.
Heinz sponsors the “Heinz Red Zone” at Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers."
So Heinz says it's a trademark infringement. Red Gold and the Colts say no way. The Red Gold Red Zone program in Indy has filled local food pantries with 136 tons of food over the last four years. The Heinz effort appears just to be a branding program for themselves.
It always amazes me when these kind of David and Goliath scenarios crop up. And they seem to do so with regularity. Goliath just never seems to learn his lesson. Heinz looks like the big bully and Red Gold, a regional brand, gets tons of awareness and good will they would never have paid to get.
Another reason to cheer for the Colts in the Super Bowl.
It's been a while since I last posted. I have some new responsibilities at our company and that has kept me otherwise occupied. More on that in a future post.
Meanwhile, Selfish Giving has joined the discussion regarding the merits of cause branding. I like his closing point:
"Inger suggests that if companies really want to help, they "should pay their fair share of taxes. Then education, health care, research and other priorities could receive greater funding, with no strings attached." Right. Given the choice between waiting for Uncle Sam to mail me my no-strings-attached check or cause marketing my way through Corporate America, I'll take the risk of one day having to admit that I only have myself to blame.
On a related note, our public relations firm had a great meeting last week with Julia Hood, editor of PRWeek magazine, to discuss the second installment of our joint cause branding survey. It will be published in late October. We discussed how we might be able to go in some new directions this year and in the future. We are all thinking about the various options we discussed and will be making a final decision on our direction for 2006 very soon.
Our objective is to keep providing new information and data that all of us committed to cause branding can use to improve our programs for everyone involved.
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