Citizen Brand

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?

William Allen White

Besides death and taxes, there is one other absolute in my life - that I was going to attend the University of Kansas and have a life long love affair with all things Jayhawk.  When I turned 13, another absolute cropped up - that I was going to major in Journalism and become the next Walter Cronkite.  That Cronkite part turned out not to be an absolute.  But that's okay.

All of this background is to say that the marriage of the absolutes revolving around KU and journalism meant I would have the privilege of attending a great school of journalism - the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at KU.  I have been blessed in my career but it would not have happened without the jump start I had from KU and our great J-School. 

So last week I had a great honor and thrill to attend my first meeting of the William Allen White Foundation Board of Trustees -- as a trustee.  I was asked to join this group several weeks ago by the Dean of the School, Ann Brill, and the executive committee of the Board.  The group serves as an advisory group to the KU J-School and selects an outstanding journalist each year to be recognized with the Foundation's National Citation.

Needless to say, for me to be asked to serve on this Board is amazing when I think back about that 13-year-old writing a career paper about becoming a broadcast journalist and going to KU.  The Foundation has been in existence since 1944 and serves to continue the legacy of William Allen White and his incredible influence on journalism and the education of journalism.  The big names of Kansas journalism and media have served on this group over the years and it is an honor to be asked to do my part to continue the legacy of Mr. White.

So just who is William Allen White?  Simply stated, he was a pioneer and a giant of American journalism.  He was plain spoken.  He was a fighter for the things he believed in and did not back down from a fight.  And he didn't do his work from one of the great American metropolises where other giants of journalism were plying their trade.  He did it from America's heartland - from the Emporia Gazette.

William Allen White wrote the original "What's the matter with Kansas?"  He had owned the Gazette for a year or so when he penned this piece that catapulted him into the national limelight of that year's presidential election between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan.  It was a clarion call that focused the eyes of the nation on fundamental economic and political issues of the day that were impacting not only Kansas, but the rest of the nation as well.

White got into a public debate about labor rights and free speech with a Kansas governor in 1922.  He was facing arrest and a possible jail sentence.  When the charges were dropped, he wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning editorial - To an Anxious Friend.  This excerpt is as relevant today as it was in 1922:

"You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people - and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive."

William Allen White had his private side as well.  Tragedy struck he and his wife in 1921 when their daughter died in a horse riding accident.  His prose was never finer than in his tribute to Mary White.

"A rift in the clouds in a gray day threw a shaft of sunlight upon her coffin as her nervous, energetic little body sank to its last sleep.  But the soul of her, the glowing, gorgeous, fervent soul of her, surely was flaming in eager joy upon some other dawn."

This legacy of journalism serving the greater public good lives on at the School of Journalism that bears William Allen White's name.  At the Board meeting, we heard about two programs that are great examples.  One is called Covering Communities.  It's a site designed to bring together journalists, educators and citizen journalists to work together to create more meaningful journalism and create stronger and better communities.  These are the guiding principles of the program:

Name Your Aspirations.  You can produce coverage that has the greatest impact when you name your aspirations.

Know Your Community.  The ability to produce journalism that is authentic and carries authority begins with community knowledge.

Engage People.  People find the most meaning in community coverage when they are fully engaged.

Act Publicly.  What does it take for you to maintain credibility with the public?

This is a great project that is a collaboration of the KU J-School, the Harwood Institute and the Knight Foundation.

The second project has KU Journalism students spending time with 6th, 7th and 8th graders in the Rosedale section of Kansas City, Kansas and opening their eyes and minds to journalism as a career.  We had two of the KU students speak to the Board meeting and it was moving to hear the impact they were having on kids who might never have considered journalism as a career.  And to hear about the impact the young students had on the "older" students as well.

Hats off to KU professor Peggy Kuhr for providing leadership on both of these great projects.  Both are a great tribute to the man whose name graces the Kansas School of Journalism.

The day ended with the annual awarding of the William Allen White Foundation National Citation Presentation.  This year's award was given to a distinguished graduate of KU and one of the great photo journalists of all time, Rich Clarkson.  Clarkson was named by American Photo as one of the 50 most influential photographers of all time.

More evidence that the legacy of William Allen White lives on.  Take some time to study White and you will find someone who is as relevant today as he was in his own time.

Molly Ivins

We lost a real gem this week when Molly Ivins died.  The no BS journalist from Texas always wrote it like it was.  This piece from Salon is a perfect tribute.  And the ending is correct - Molly Lives.

Impossible as it is to measure the magnitude of the loss of Molly Ivins, who died  on Wednesday night of breast cancer at age 62, people across America are trying to express how important she was to them, what she meant to the nation, especially in recent years, and why we will miss her terribly. On the pages of newspapers, on the radio and on blogs, her passing has been marked with due respect.

Even her favorite goat, the president of the United States, understood that he must pay tribute to the tough Texas wiseass who saw right through "Dubya" and the political culture that produced him. I bet that would have made her chuckle.

What made Molly so special as a writer -- and raises her into an ink-stained pantheon alongside Mark Twain, A.J. Liebling, Murray Kempton, H.L. Mencken and other such greats -- was the American sound in her prose and the American style of her reporting. Her columns and essays -- and for that matter her wonderful, low, smoky voice, if you were lucky enough to hear her talk -- used her regional sensibility and experience to illuminate the wider world. She talked Texas but her subject was the universe.

Molly possessed the essential gifts of those few journalists whose work transcends the topical moment. With seemingly little effort and remarkably few words, she could pinpoint a scene or a character or an entire political system. She tossed off flashing observations like a circus knife thrower. When she put down a scoundrel, he stayed down (even if he won the next election). And of course she brought a woman's perspective into what was (and still remains) a male-dominated vocation, which made her insights into the boys club of politics sharper and deadlier.

Behind her beautiful, gleeful grin there was no real malice, however, not even toward the most deserving. She didn't hate anybody, not even the state representative whose intelligence she compared to that of a potted plant. Besides, they had to respect her because, back in the day, she could drink them all under the table.

What distinguished Molly from the few who might be considered her peers today were her indefatigable liberalism and her unfashionable idealism. Most political columnists, especially when they achieve her level of mainstream success, with syndication in more than 300 newspapers, tend to cultivate a certain emotional distance from such passions. They definitely prefer not to be tagged as liberal, perhaps because most newspapers continue to be controlled by conservative Republicans. 

But she didn't pretend not to care, and she didn't pretend to be a centrist or an aloof observer. She despised pretension and pomposity of all kinds. (Indeed, she was as likely to make fun of herself as anybody else.) Just as she wouldn't dull down her prose to satisfy censorious editors, she saw no reason to soften her opposition to prejudice, poverty and war so she would seem more moderate.

Molly's freewheeling personality and radical honesty were reflected in her fundamental commitment to the Bill of Rights. When I spent an evening with her in Austin, Texas, two years ago, she said that she intended to devote more and more of her time to defense of the First Amendment, which she believed to be in real danger under corporate Republican rule.

As things turned out, unfortunately, she didn't have much time left and her remaining attention was usually drawn to more immediate issues. Often in the months before her death, she wrote about the war in Iraq, as one of a handful of prominent pundits who had correctly and courageously opposed that bloody misadventure from the beginning.

But her devotion to free speech, journalistic excellence and progressive politics lives on at the Texas Observer, the marvelous magazine that she edited for several years. Again unlike many of her peers in punditry, Molly believed firmly in building institutions that would nurture other talents. For three decades after she resigned from the magazine's editorship, she continued to raise the substantial amounts of money needed to sustain a liberal voice in her home state.

Those labors of love were repaid not only in the Observer's prizewinning reporting but at an amazing evening of tribute to her held by the magazine's supporters in Austin last October. The highlight of that raucous "BBQ" -- with a cast that included Garrison Keillor, Lewis Lapham, Roy Blount Jr., Jim Hightower and about 800 of her most ardent admirers -- was bald, brave, laughing Molly. Everybody who loved her is grateful today that we celebrated her life while she could still enjoy the occasion.

Now she is no longer among us. But in the pages of the Observer, and wherever people carry on in her generous, irrepressible, democratic spirit, Molly lives.

The Career Manifesto

My colleague, Jeff Risley, told me about this today.  Tough love from Michael Wade at execupundit.com via Hugh at gapingvoid.com.  Priceless.

The Career Manifesto

1. Unless you’re working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut.

2. Yes, your boss is an idiot at times. So what? (Do you think your associates sit around and marvel at your deep thoughts?) If you cannot give your boss basic loyalty, either report the weasel to the proper authorities or be gone.

3. You are paid to take meaningful actions, not superficial ones. Don’t brag about that memo you sent out or how hard you work. Tell us what you achieved.

4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.

5. If you suspect that you’re working in a madhouse, you probably are. Even sociopaths have jobs. Don’t delude yourself by thinking you’ll change what the organization regards as a “turkey farm.” Flee.

6. Your technical skills may impress the other geeks, but if you can’t get along with your co-workers, you’re a litigation breeder. Don’t be surprised if management regards you as an expensive risk.

7. If you have a problem with co-workers, have the guts to tell them, preferably in words of one syllable.

8. Don’t believe what the organization says it does. Its practices are its real policies. Study what is rewarded and what is punished and you’ll have a better clue as to what’s going on.

9. Don’t expect to be perfect. Focus on doing right instead of being right. It will simplify the world enormously.

10.If you plan on showing them what you’re capable of only after you get promoted, you need to reverse your thinking.

Hard to top that list.  My only addition is one I have believed for a long time.  Whenever I'm asked what I look for when hiring, it is a person with a high sense of urgency.  And that doesn't just pertain to speed and deadlines.  A high sense of urgency means a person who is always pushing to find the best ideas; the freshest solutions; never being completely satisfied that we have found THE answer.  And urgency is all about doing all the small stuff too.  As we all know, it is most times the simplest things we do that have the most impact.  And that is why I like #4 in Michael's manifesto the best:

4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.

FightHunger.org

I wrote about this incredible project several weeks ago and now the videos to end child hunger by 2015 have been produced.  This one gets my early vote although all the ones I have watched thus far are powerful.  See the rest here.

People are hungry down the street and on the other side of the world.  Donate to your community food bank now and next month and the month after that.  No child should go hungry.