The best advertising also sells advertising and…

Advertising is dead. Won’t sell product in  our interactive age. Won’t be a good use of your  marketing dollar. Can’t compete with the pack and punch from social media.

The dollars once poured into mass media are being siphoned to social media, but the fact remains that nothing sells image and brand quite like a carefully placed billboard or a familiar voice in your car during the morning commute. Especially if you’re trying to gain credibility. Advertising builds awareness. It exposes what the brand thinks of itself – what the manufacturer or service wants you to think of when they show you a fleeting :30 seconds. Advertising is a cultural mirror. And, unfortunately, shows us how mature or immature we are in our response to the material world.

For the eco-economy, this is an opportune moment to learn from the big boys and take back advertising in a way that helps build brand awareness. Advertising isn’t evil, and purchasing air time may not be the best – or most economical – way of using a marketing budget. But it works.

Green Needs Mass Media

Although, critics, like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media monitoring group, contend that the council’s ads mistakenly “seek to change individual behavior, not social conditions,” change-agents, and companies who are urging us to  become more responsible, would do better with building their image with advertising, then, get the public swayed on how fun/wonderful/inspirational/spiritual/ and good “green” is. Check out Method’s ad on You Tube.

For the big boys, who already use adverting, and want us to believe you are change agents, be honest in your message. Toyota’s new Prius recall advertisement, sounds like Nike’s press campaign waxing how altruistic their corporation is around child protection laws – after some of its manufacturing plants got caught using child labor. Advice to Toyota: get your head honchos on the screen and apologize, give a guarantee; make something honest and real of your situation. Your commercial looks like a lot of old B-roll with an actor reading your corporate apology.

Let’s use our current cultural channels more intelligently. Then, maybe – just maybe – we can make some big changes.

Who will Save the Earth? No one.


Who will save book publishing? What will save the newspapers?

What means ’save’?

If by save you mean, “what will keep things just as they are?” then the answer is nothing will. It’s over.

Seth Godin’s recent blog post is extremely relevant to those who think the sustainability movement is about
saving the world. Who will be saving the planet from environmental destruction? Save cultures from disappearing? What does ’sustainability’ actually mean? If we sustain business as it is – even if it’s green -  then we will perish. Al Gore’s PowerPoint  in 3D.

Sustainability is about transformation. It’s about making business consider something other than one bottom line. Many are racing to develop metrics systems that, like alchemy, can measure carbon, water, and other factors, to come up with a green labeling system. It’s a step, but it’s still keeping our system in check.

Consultants Ed Quevedo & Sarah Isabel Parriott of Paladin Law Group are engaging with enterprise level corporations and cities to create a unique system of measuring that accounts for other factors – how many bike lanes a city may have, how many less sick days employees are using; how many cappuccino machines are there within a 200-foot radius? Things that matter. Factors that make a business add real value.

If we are going to make change, Ed & Sarah remind us, we must be asking, is this business helping those it serves, is it treading lightly on the earth? What can a business do to regenerate instead of generate?

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What do The Top 5 Social Capitalists Have in Common?

Fast Company just published “5 Social Capitalists Who Will Change the World in 2010.” As this leading publication is always at the top of my In Box every morning, I am able to get my 20 minutes of innovation education delivered in the most digestible way possible (even before cappuccino).

Turns out Fast Company’s picks for companies doing amazing things in the world of socially-conscious business have similar strengths and weaknesses from a marketing perspective. Yes,  they’re all doing great work; and forging a new path to a new economy. Ultimately, these companies will succeed on the merits of their business models, and the lives they impact are the ultimate goal. But for a marketing & branding geek, being handed a handful of sites to compare and contrast is F-U-N.

Most of the five website designs seem to reflect a sense of purpose; and have fairly decent designs. I don’t have to click around too  much to see they are legitimate businesses. Now, you may think this is a snarky comment, but if you email me, I can send you to websites that I have cross-referenced on Snopes (and that’s AC – After Coffee)

Only two of five websites tell me in less than five seconds of landing, who they are and what they do in the world. Their value proposition – to the world – is clear.

As time goes on, I’d like to see more photos of people – their work in action – images that illustrates the impact of the work. Vittana.org does a great job of putting a face on the brand. One of their partners is the accomplished Frog Design – so I think they got some eerrr help.

I also think having the value proposition front and center is never a bad idea – these companies are introducing innovation in business and business model at the same time. As an investor, stakeholder, director, sponsor, prospect -  I’ll want to know what am I going to get out of partnering or becoming a customer. I’ll want to know how the company I am doing business with is growing, and feel confidence to tell a friend about you.

Word of mouth starts with word on the web.

It’s tough making a  website, designing a brand, and attracting new customers with multiple stakeholders and limited resourccs. I wish the best for these leaders and will support & follow them in their progress.

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Corporations Leadership in Sustainability

I attended The Executive Council’s Leadership Forum on Value Based Sustainability: The Business Case for Green & Clean in San Jose yesterday; an intimate conference with 100  global brand leaders, corporate execs, a handful of consultants, and a nice handful of green-focused PR and media folks.

It may look as though nothing is new in sustainability, but in less than a decade, industries have moved from viewing sustainable practices as a risk, into reflecting bottom-line savings, and even changing operational strategies.

In 2003, few corporations were openly talking about sustainability, and now, the greening of an organization seems to include employees, customers;  anyone along the supply chain. The story of sustainability has been carried and shifted by employees, and I suspect from the point of view  of the customer.

The overarching take-aways from this one-day event weren’t entirely new. And it seemed, that most in the audience are familiar with what the Fortune 100 are doing; and are fairly involved with their respective corporate missions.

But the panel discussions, presentations and discussions were encouraging; and brought up questions that greenies have been posing for over a decade:

1. Should a company be responsible for educating the public about sustainability?

2. If a company makes something inherently un-sustainable eg: drinks in plastic bottles, if the packaging is made from 70% plant-based materials, and still recyclable, is this product inherently “green?”

3.What is the role of government in moving sustainability? Businesses are a huge lever for change, even social change, should sustainability be left to private sector or civic sector?

4. What role does marketing play in sustainability?

LinkedIn Vs. Email: The Battle is Over.

Trade show producer and entertainer Ken Newman masters sleight of hand but when he’s not performing on the trade show floor, Ken’s magic may be how he uses social media to market his 25-year old company, Magnet Productions.

“Email is white noise,” says Ken, who still uses email blasts to reach key prospects but he sees its limitations in its efficacy. as email conjures up only two percent of his annual revenues.

Email is like the digital equivalent of 25 lbs of recycled paper you get in the mail everyday. I’m not going to open the PG&E bill, or the letter from the IRS first. I’m going to sort the stuff on the front stoop and throw most of it that doesn’t look of interest to me immediately in the recycling bin. There is just too much for me to open and organize. On the other hand, LinkedIn is something that my prospects and former clients are excited about. They open a message from me, because it’s come from an organized network free of junk.

So Ken did an experiment to test his hypothesis that LinkedIn was more effective to getting new engagements:

He sent out LinkedIn requests to his entire address book, and asked his prospects and clients if they would write a testimonial for him and post it to his LinkedIn profile. The results?

  • A 20% response rate.
  • Personal messages & testimonials from marketing directors, senior execs – decision makers who hire Ken directly.
  • Warm, direct responses from former clients whom he hasn’t connected with in over two years.
  • 21 new testimonials in less than one week.
  • Bookings for over four new engagements.
  • Comments regarding Ken’s expansion of services.
  • An offer to speak at an exclusive conference from his knowledge about social media.

There is the sense, it is business centric. It’s got a lot less noise. People look at that and think if I don’t respond to this in a timely fashion, I wont be thought of. The only way I can test that is empirically, the only way I did this to get recommendations on email 2%

“When someone is writing how wonderful you are, it reminds them how valuable you are. It’s happened to me, when I write a testimonial for someone else…. It makes me think,  ‘Wow, This person is really that wonderful.’ ”

LinkedIn is about connection in a very profound way, says Ken, who’s also got a healthy following on Twitter, Facebook and biznik. Even outside the viritual world, Ken knows how to build and manage business relationships, and understanding that connection in safe and trusted medium creates an impression in the mind of prospect.

A message from someone on LinkedIn may carry more value than email because it’s coming from a closed network; a perception that the sender of the message is familiar in someway, focused on business, and intelligent enough to use something that, I also have the decoder ring for.

There are 50 million LinkedIn users, and since 2002, LinkedIn has been building its credibility and product to ensure that those of us using it, will benefit from its experience.  Has LinkedIn worked in growing your business?

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