Periodically we celebrate excellent work, great campaigns and ideas that represent a measure of vision and innovation. For the most part we chronicle higher-calling projects that can impact brand behavior. But every so often a more tactical bit of communications wizardry comes along that you just have to recognize and salute for its sheer out-of-the-box brilliance.
Certainly there’s strategic linkage between the Tropicana brand of OJ and sunshine – the warmth and glow often attributed to Florida orange groves where this delicious fruit gets its healthy props.
So the brand evidently decides that working with portable sunshine can serve as a platform for effective, engaging and maybe entertaining online video communication – as well as serving to underscore a bright metaphor that’s tied to the juice’s origins.
I would have loved to be in the Tropicana conference room when this idea was presented — just to see the reaction, the questions and the process that led to approval. I say that because of the boldness and uniqueness of the project.
Just imagine for a moment: in a small Arctic Circle town in northern Canada each year they go through a period of near total darkness – a continual and unrelenting nighttime. So Tropicana sends an expedition to the town, hauling in a giant gas filled balloon-like object in the shape of the sun. The orb is erected and lit, spreading artificial sunshine and undoubtedly some cheer to local residents…. Not to miss a product tie-in opportunity, the crew passes out OJ bottles to the enraptured onlookers as they marvel at the spectacle of man-made sunshine.
The entire story is deftly shot on video with a thoughtful music track underneath and made share-able with the rest of the world through YouTube and Facebook. Watch it here:
Bravo to Tropicana for bringing a little light to the lives of these Arctic dwellers — and then allowing the rest of us to observe and enjoy the experience. Disruptive isn’t it? Unexpected. Entertaining. Memorable. Emotional. What do you think?
Wow, last week was “Apple Land in America,” with all of the online and mainstream media conversation around iPad. Marketing sites did comparisons of buzz-metrics between Jobs and President Obama’s State of the Union message, with Apple winning on most scorecards. Apple continues to blaze new trails, even in their deft handling of the sales message.
Brands look at the Apple phenomenon with envy. Wouldn’t we all want our brands to glow with similar outsized levels of consumer devotion and enthusiasm? Truckloads of breathless media attention and positive coverage oozing out of every channel we can dream up?
There’s a very simple yet dramatically important aspect to Apple’s behavior that bears mention. So much of the time in marketing and PR we’re focused on the essence of the new feature and benefit. We sit down in a conference room to review in every detail the various achievements the R&D department has wrought in discovering new recipes, technologies or bringing measurable improvements to an existing product.
And so communications follows this path to creatively move the “what’s new news” through various media channels. On the other hand, Apple religiously and routinely focuses its communication from a slightly different angle: the consumer first and itself second.
Sure the product messaging is there, but the twist is vital, important and matters to achieving a better outcome. The overview tour of iPad is conducted from the user experience point of view. It’s about you first and how the product answers the need, rather than me first and my wizardry.
What’s missing?
The lesson here all too often is about remembering to put the consumer in the driver seat on messaging. Framing the new product in terms of the consumer’s real need and then connecting to your solution’s deft handling of same. Steve Jobs talked about iPad in the user context. How the product makes common tasks like Web browsing and book reading more engaging and interesting.
Simply said: consumer first, me second. The shift is important because relevant messaging trumps the easy-to-fall-into trap of specsmanship. Consumer self-interests govern our willingness to engage and listen. Apple smartly knows this and frames the message in this way.
Consider a new food product that comes to the table answering first how it solves a preparation dilemma cooks would immediately recognize.
Or maybe a household appliance that springs from real-world concerns expressed by time-stressed homemakers.
So often in the consumer electronics world its about increased lines of resolution or connectivity improvements and expressed as such. Apple understands the specs and technology advances aren’t nearly as compelling as the experience itself.
Sea of sameness interrupted here and there with unique ideas
By Robert Wheatley
The National Fancy Food Show in San Francisco started last Sunday with a bang as 17,000 retailers, distributors and brand minders came together at the Moscone Center to see and taste what’s new in specialty foods.
The convention is remarkable in its fantastic array of vendors from around the globe who showcase their products for US retail distribution. Especially cheese, cheese and more cheese that populated both exhibit halls. The air was heavy with the zesty pungent dairy-air of hard and soft varietals mostly from Europe and North America. It’s hard to imagine any of the Showgoers having to retreat for lunch given the wall-to-wall noshing – all of which was occurring at a break-neck pace as everyone attempts to canvas the acres of product categories and companies.
Even with all of the chocolaty goodness, it’s hard not to notice the pervasive sameness and slim distinctions between competing offerings. So we see in dramatic relief the problem plaguing so many businesses in the era of over-choice and saturation. It just all runs together. For any business unveiling its version of Chevre, infused olive oils or extreme Cocoa chocolate, your eyes glaze a bit as many overlap together in a noisy heap of feature/benefit style selling.
There were some standouts — interesting items you could tell were more like Purple Cows as Seth Godin would call them – ideas that exude their own natural charm and glow with built-in interest.
Speaking of cows, Slow Cow borrows a chapter from the Red Bull school of functional beverages and produces its polar opposite: a concoction that slows you down with a layer of relaxation.
The grist underneath this proposition gets interesting as you explore the nature of life’s mounting pressures, alongside a desire for better blood pressure and a reaction to the relentless push, push and more push that accompanies life in our dog-eat-dog business world.
A healthy respite sounds about right. So this new category gets interesting as you see the possibilities around it for punching through on an issue many may be pining for: some liquid relief.
Although all things bacon may be so very “last year,” the savory, smoky, salty punch of breakfast protein was back in an array of products from sandwich spread and seasonings to desserts.
Chicago high-end chocolatier Vosges hit a taste high note with their bacon-infused chocolates. A generous sample covers the tongue with caramel, chocolaty sweetness followed by a quick after-note of smoky savory-ness that offered a dramatic counterpoint to what you anticipate from a chocolate bar. Even more exciting was their new and unique line of spice inspired ice creams.
In a word — awesome.
Also interesting was Bay-area based Hint. Clean, straightforward packaging promotes a hint of natural fruit flavor at zero calories and no added sugars.
Honestly, I thought it would be no taste, too. But to my surprise the fruity flavor was there and discernable. A sweetness was also evident, but again without the added sugars found so often in these beverages.
Parents will love this option for their kids because it comes without the down side.
The winners and losers here in the longer run will be an outcome of how they invest in building their brands. Yet, for so many the pre-occupation is pushing the product into the pipeline without much effort given to considering how brands are built. Noticeably absent was any reference to consumer insight on preferences and interest in these offerings or the trends on which they’re based.
Uniqueness and differentiation are vital to getting traction with consumers and markets that are already saturated with similar products making similar claims in similar categories.
Those who can punch their idea far enough to the right or left to create a new category they can own have a shot at a sustainable business that can increasingly accumulate value for its owners in the longer scheme.
Speaking
I had my shot at the event to help bring some of these brand-building ideas to life. Here’s my deck if you want to take a look:
Today we explore the prescription for building a true Trailblazer brand. On the one hand the word Trailblazer immediately suggests a business that understands the importance of innovation and new ideas. But Trailblazing frankly is so much more. It’s as much about a new method of brand building as it is a sense of forward-looking attitude. One that delivers the necessary resolve to attack your own business to uncover weaknesses and identify new business opportunities.
Why Trailblaze?
The forces of commoditization and price pressure are everywhere, helped by the difficult economy. Competitive threats are also multiplied by the ability of new ideas and upstart companies to quickly gain traction in the digital world. There’s no longer a significant barrier to market entry based on sheer size. Just look at Method competing successfully against , P&G and Unilever.
On the one hand current economic pressures will test the strength of brands and those with weak equity or lack of differentiation face the growing possibility of being squeezed out. And on the other, the consumer’s unrelenting interest now in what’s new and different, works to shorten product lifecycles. Thus the requirement and momentum these days for true white space innovation, more so than modest line extension tweaks and adjustments.
You really don’t have much choice except to look for and adopt Trailblazer behaviors to stay ahead of commoditization and to remain relevant.
Brand Trailblazing…
In the era of consumer control and opt-in engagement, it is no longer possible to dictate and tell the consumer what to buy, or use ample amounts of “shout” media in an effort to persuade and convince.
The goal of Trailblazer brand building is to find the most effective path to preference and sales, one that springs from greater differentiation and in some cases, new category creation. The iPhone is not another cell phone — it ushered in a new category of mobile devices that integrate computer-like capability and experience in a hand-held.
Mattering
Successful brands today matter to their users. This importance isn’t achieved simply by riding the wave of a large media budget (shouting). Now the onus is on business to earn permission to a brand relationship, one built on addressing mutual interests. We can call this reciprocity.
So brand relationships must start with a strong foundation of relevance, meaning and value to the users’ lifestyle. Said another way, the focus is no longer just on the product’s superior formulation or design – which is now table-stakes –but also on its ability secure greater meaning beyond the utility and functionality it offers.
The Trailblazer Formula
There are two mechanisms at the core of successful Trailblazing:
First is insight into the core user’s interests, passions, wants and needs.
Second is carefully blending that knowledge into a compelling brand value proposition that not only considers the financial and functional requirements, but the intangible and emotional cues as well – the last two being the most powerful and important. Consumers are simply NOT “fact-centered, data-processing organisms.” We are social and emotional creatures who base decisions on how we feel about brands more so than the specs on a sell sheet.
The study around consumer insights and constructing a remarkable brand value proposition provides the discovery tools to take the really big leap in Trailblazer brand building: determining a brand’s Higher Purpose or strategic mission –this is essentially a unique place where consumer lifestyle passions and needs collide with a brand’s ability to help enable, support and play a role in those activities or concerns.
Determining the Higher Purpose allows us to imbue a brand with greater meaning. A strategic mission is essentially a Big Idea that has the power to inform brand behavior and provide reliable direction for communications strategy and outreach (bringing the mission to life). When brands operate this way they no longer look at consumers as transactions, but rather as friends. And thus as brands adopt more human-like qualities in their relationships with customers, trust is established and a relationship can genuinely take hold.
Of course these relationships, like friendships, need constant care and feeding. The outcome is preference and sales.
The tricky part is getting the needed insight into consumer lifestyle priorities. For a 20-something adult beverage consumer it may be the concern they place on social experiences. For the home cook, their fascination and desire to learn and acquire new skills. Alignment with those needs allows a brand to build a stronger bond, add relevance and deliver greater value to its user.
A Stroll Through a Pet Trade Show Can Be Eye Opening
By Kerri Erb
Can you believe I love going to a trade show? At least when it comes to the H.H. Backer Annual Pet Industry Christmas Trade Show and Educational Conference in Chicago. It’s a trade show I look forward to every year, because as a pet parent I am passionate about my beagles, Frankie and Flora, and pretty weak when it comes to spoiling them with toys and treats.
I’m apparently not the only one, since the pet industry is still growing and set to generate $51.6 billion in sales this year according to a recent report in Petage.
Just When You Think You’ve Seen it All
The show is also a bit of sensory overload, with booth after booth of everything and anything you can think of that could be made for pets: pet food, dog leashes, dog collars, pet beds, pet supplements, pet clothes and even pet shoes! With that also comes the issue of sameness. I kept thinking to myself, how can any pet product stand out among all of these exhibitors? But when it comes to pet accessories I suppose it’s all a matter of finding something that fits with your lifestyle like an eco-friendly dog collar, or cool performance gear for dogs on the go, or even the fashion forward options that are available too.
Paws Down, My Pick for ‘Best in Show’
There’s a new company that stands out to me as my favorite pick of the show, called Yep Yup. It’s a combination of home décor for pets and pet parents so your house doesn’t have to be filled with paw print covered pet beds and dog bowls. I think the founder, Sepi Banibashar, is brilliant for coming up with fun designs that stylishly incorporate your pet’s stuff into your home. I can’t say that I’ve seen something so beautifully designed, so her business really stood out at the show, which is not easy to do.
Photos courtesy of Yep Yup
Some of the pet food and pet treats companies also have a presence at the show too, and that’s where the sameness can make things pretty confusing. It’s one thing for pet leashes to be very similar, because then it’s just a difference in taste and style. When it comes to pet food, it gets more complicated. How are pet food brands supposed to be distinctive when everyone seems to be saying the same thing?
My Nutrition and Ingredients are Better Than Yours
In speaking with the pet food brands at the show, they even agreed that there’s quite a bit of sameness, from similar sounding ingredient stories, to packaging, it’s clear why there’s so much consumer confusion about pet food brands. Not to mention, pet food brands are letting the decision-making process on which food to buy happen at the retail shelf. So when pet parents stand in front of the rows of pet food, they see what seems like the exact same story about the best quality ingredients and countless glossy bags with images of real chicken and fresh vegetables displayed.
There’s a HUGE opportunity to reach consumers and gain their loyalty BEFORE they get to the shelf. I want the best for my beagles, like most pet parents. That means doing my research before I even walk out of my house to make a pet food purchase – that’s when you want the decision to be already made, before a consumer gets confused by the sameness at the shelf. For pet parents like me who are savvy about ingredients, it’s so much more than just the packaging. In fact, it’s long before a pet parent steps into a store that your brand can make a move to become the leader of the pack.
Let me know your thoughts or if you’re a pet food brand looking for some answers on how to break away from the pack, drop me an email at kerb@wheatleytimmons.com or twitter.com/KerriAErb.
From left to right — Andy Hopson, strategist and consultant to our firm and Noble, Bob Noble, CEO of his namesake agency and Rich Timmons, President of W&T standing in front of Noble’s 50-foot fork totem –an iconic nod to their firm’s heritage and expertise in food communications.
Our agency, like many these days, is in a constant state of reinvention as we work to align ourselves with the changing media landscape and resulting client communication needs. Chief among the requirements of effective communications and brand strategy guidance is the overwhelming need for up-to-the-minute insight into trends, consumer attitudes and behaviors.
We’re about to introduce you to CultureWaves…
Just a little background to start: We happen to believe in strategic partnerships, especially when a combination can change math so that 1 + 1 = 3 or more. And so it is that we are embarking on a partnership with Noble, a fascinating advertising, test kitchen, new product creation, Internet media and insight firm run by the visionary Bob Noble and his team of experts from, of all places, Springfield, MO. Yes they have a growing Chicago office, but the nerve center of Bob’s operations flows from his loft building environs on the business end of a shopping mall plaza in the Show Me state.
Bob’s unique take on the changing landscape is to re-think the agency business model. Voila, we had a simpatico going right out of the chute from our first meeting, as we share the same view that old agency business models and tactical capabilities simply won’t cut it in this increasingly social media-driven world.
So Noble has launched a unique, proprietary “human insights engine” called CultureWaves. Key to its functionality is the software underneath that Noble created called Neemee. So what’s it do, you ask? CultureWaves is fueled by hundreds of “farmers” – essentially a large group of intensely curious human observers who contribute articles and ideas to a searchable Thought Bank. So the magic isn’t in algorithms but in thoughts and perspective that flow from real people.
W&T now plugged into Neemee and CultureWaves…
Candidly we’re still in the training mode over here, so we have much to learn about extracting insights. What we can tell you is this — the entire process is much about discovery and the ability to aggregate information in one place in such a way that patterns and trends become noticeable. And that in turn can lead to new ideas and observations around emerging human needs and interests.
The end game is simple. We want to increase our value to clients by helping them see emerging trends and needs on the horizon that they can meet and fulfill. At the end of the day, brand relationships are built on a foundation of relevance and greater meaning. And how can you possibly expect to divine the elements of relevance without firm human understanding of what people are into these days.
Human behavior rules…
Often said that agencies exist to help brands better understand how to influence consumer attitudes and behaviors, and in doing so to earn permission for a relationship – one that hopefully drives brand preference and thus sales. So knowing more about human behavior serves to fulfill our primary mission.
So far the journey proves to be fascinating. In the coming weeks, we’ll reveal more details about the CultureWaves model and share our learning with you.
Robert Mondavi Blazes Consumer Engagement at Chicago Gourmet and Beyond
In the wine world, tasting events are the root of all marketing outreach efforts. The entry to participate alone weighs heavily on both time and cost investments. However, there are not many other ways to replace the experience of swirling, sipping and talking with your consumer one-on-one.
Understanding both the importance and the investment, many brands see just getting to the event as crossing the finish line of consumer engagement. But, if you are not activating your brand presence, someone else is stealing your share-of-voice and your next customer.
One brand that I admire for their successful event execution and consumer engagement is the Robert Mondavi brand of wines. Recently, I enjoyed experiencing their brand at the culinary, wine and spirits consumer event, Chicago Gourmet.
Here’s my run down of what Robert Mondavi did right and how you can take some pointers:
On-site Engagement: Education
Don’t just offer a wine sample. Add some value to the consumer experience and your impression will last beyond the event. Robert Mondavi has a beautifully designed traveling event that emulates their brand identity. Within their space they offer a sensory station to learn about the nuances of different varietals and throughout the event they host-cooking demonstrations and wine 101 classes led by their brand ambassadors.
Credibility Building: Spokesperson Sponsorship
What are the sources you trust for information on wine? Trade magazines, Robert Parker ratings, wine analysts, trend reports? Now, who does your consumer trust? You? Well, maybe your winemaker but sorry he/she needs someone else to give your wine a seal of approval. Robert Mondavi cleverly partnered with well-recognized and credited food and wine writer and culinary TV personality, Ted Allen, to elevate their Private Selection portfolio of wine. As their spokesperson, Ted helps spread the brand message leading up to events with local media appearances, integrates in event content as a seminar speaker and is available for giving consumers some very engaging one-on-one consumer time by attending the event.
Contests are a dime a dozen and many times miss hitting the core consumer when not honed in on the passions and interests of the consumer. Tapping into the star power of their relevant spokesperson, Ted Allen, Robert Mondavi asked consumers to submit a wine question to Ted for a chance to meet him for dinner at a high-end restaurant. The entry was simple for a wine enthusiast and it weeded out any professional contest applicants when asking a question relevant to the spokesperson and the brand.
(Full disclosure: I was one of the winners. The experience was memorable and you could not fit a more genuine and authentic group of folks in one room. Here again the experience and reach of the brand went beyond the event especially when contest winners like me blogged about the experience on our food and personal blogs.)
How else can you activate consumer engagement at events? How else should you extend the experience beyond an event space footprint?
My quick answer: applying a social media strategy.
Perhaps Robert Mondavi could employ live blogging or vlogging from the event or reward those who follow them on Facebook or Twitter by receiving an incentive when they visit the booth. This extra layer of engagement builds the conversation and strengthens the bond between consumer and brand.
But more on this for a later post.
If you are interested in some additional insight in how to better connect with your consumer at events and beyond, I’d love the opportunity to chat. I love chatting about wine, food and building consumer relationships. Email me: cbecker@wheatleytimmons.com or find me on Twitter: twitter.com/CarrieBecker7
One of the most endearing qualities of AMC’sMad Men series is its slavish devotion to authenticity – and not just the period dress and behaviors. The Sterling Cooper milieu is recognize-able for many in the agency business (PR or ad) even now, who can literally live alongside Don Draper in their creative strategy conversations and presentations.
We’ve Been There…
We resonate because of its relevance to our own business lives and experiences. We listen to Don and his minions discuss a client problem and know the thread of the conversation, because we’ve been there so many times before. Sure the work and its final execution exudes the sensibilities and cultural axioms of its era, but the mental activity around solution-building bears similarity to the leaps we work so hard to make – leaps that fall from deeper insight about consumer needs and desires.
Recognizing the Culture of Creativity…
Our organization is built around daily walks down the creative PR path. We dig for insights, we work very hard to unearth ideas that blow past the limitations of product features, to translate benefits in more powerful ways. In Mad Men this happened wonderfully in a dramatic meeting with Kodak and the launch of its eponymous “Carousel†slide projector — a revolutionary idea in its day.
In the show, Kodak reps wax on about the gizmo’s “space-age†technical achievements and capability. Naturally they think these things constitute its chief selling proposition.
Then, along comes Don and his innate ability to make the leap. In the agency’s creative presentation he says: “This is not a spaceship. It’s a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, and it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.†This statement conveyed while images play of his wife and family in happier times.
It was a moment of vintage leap to be sure. The presentation gently forced the Kodak guys to rethink what they we’re really selling. So, fast-forward. What constitutes the leap in 2009? What is the essential shift in our current world that must drive creativity and ideas?
Relevance in the World of Permission
In Don Draper’s day, you told the consumer what to do. Quite often they did it. Hence the era of mass-vertising, shotgun publicity strategies and their efficiencies propelled by routine effectiveness. Controlled messages were conveyed broadly. Repeatedly. Broad-based publicity efforts drove coverage across large swaths of media territory – millions of impressions racked up in various channels and to great impact on the awareness meter. Clip books were a mile thick.
Now the consumer holds the reigns in the equation, and the marketing world is dominated by unique “tribes†and narrow markets of consumer self-interest. Paid media has lost traction because consumers have tuned out what they perceive to be an interruption. Media itself has splintered into thousands of channels. The strategy is peer-to-peer more than message delivered to gazillions of aggregated eyeballs. It’s about the quality of conversation not quantity of heads exposed to a message.
Brands must now earn permission for a consumer relationship through ideas, acts and programs that “help†consumers realize their personal lifestyle dreams and aspirations. The Leap falls from a new form of understanding: strategy flows from a businesses’ ability to understand the fabric of lifestyle relevance and mine it. The Kodak moment transcends to enabling different, unique communities of shared memory and experience. Kodak should have invented Flickr.
Mad Men is a curious mirror for agency folk. Our work today is in many ways the same: know thy audience. And in many ways different:we don’t dictate, persuade or compel. Instead we invite, converse, help and demonstrate our willingness to earn faith and trust.
With the public relations media strategy game in a state of transition, we expose the new media communications paradigm here. It’s time to consider new techniques and approaches as we examine how editorial media outreach now mingles with direct consumer communication.
Before Social Media (BSM)
Forever and a day, PR media activity has essentially been a “business-to-media†proposition. Whatever the material developed to showcase brand and business messaging, the end game was always to entice, cajole and convince media decision makers to use said material and sources (spokespeople) for a story.
Not unlike two-step distribution in the beverage alcohol business – beer maker to distributor to retailer – the PR chain previously originated with media gatekeepers who in turn re-purposed the material we create in their “media-to-consumer†role. This effectively left the message maker one step back from the final outcome. Message credibility? Yes. Direct input on the final story line? No.
After Social Media (ASM)
Now the audiences for news consumption have exploded to include business-to-consumer, business-to-investor, business-to-employees, and other assorted stakeholders. So the digital media revolution puts brands and businesses on a path to converse not only with editors and citizen journalists — but also directly with the end consumer. Thus bypassing the media gatekeeper and enabling face-to-face interaction with those you’re attempting to reach. Some will say this has always been true and in terms of outcome it is. But the mechanics of what went on in the “BSM†process has been squarely within a business-to-media pathway.
Digital Evolution
Valeria Maltoni, author of Conversation Agent blog is a thought leader on this subject and has contributed much to the conversation about evolving media strategy. As you tear into the implications for how news and information is assembled and distributed, Valeria has a wonderful discussion on the subject of Social Media Releases and how this impacts PR.
A Fictional Pet Food Launch
You can immediately see how the tools that are assembled for a new brand or product launch are shifting gears. Let’s use the introduction of a new pet food diet as a hypothetical example.
Say we’re launching a new seasonal fresh ingredient pet food line from a company we’ll call Natural Bounty Pet Foods. It’s a super-premium food and the brand is aimed at pet parents who see their animals as family members and dote over them. They care, they’re engaged and they’re informed. They want to know what’s in the food they feed Fido and who is behind the brand and its formulation. Credibility is an issue – so confidence in the diet looms large.
Media Message and Story Packaging
In the BSM era publicity efforts in both mainstream and digital media channels would have coalesced around a press kit and some streaming video, distributed online and used as a foundation for contacts with editors, bloggers and producers.
In the ASM world new technology allows content rich micro-site-like platforms to be created and distributed that go much, much further. While the inverted pyramid approach to copywriting may endure (because it’s THE key to good, compelling writing) the style today gets more conversational in tone. Why? Because journalists AND pet parents, employees and other stakeholders are gong to consume the content.
Essentially, for Natural Bounty we’re constructing a digital, interactive repository of information in various forms that ladders up to an immersive experience — and deep dive into the product, its development, experts behind the formulation, how it fits in the framework of innovation pet diets, plus the emotional stories of pets who’ve benefitted from eating it. What’s more, the platform is distributed not only among mainstream media but also in social media channels as well.
We could go on about Natural Bounty launch events, interactive tactics and other strategies to build awareness and preference. But the point here is simply to say there’s strategic, tactical and infrastructure changes in motion right now for PR firms and clients in how and what information is created and packaged for distribution — to inform those who will learn and buy and virally share the message with others.
The story-telling possibilities are made richer by the technology. That it can be aggregated in one location and made available to various channels of on and off-line media and other relevant audiences adjusts the equation of message content and timing. Digital media platforms may indeed inform the future of PR because of the convenience, efficiency and effectiveness they intrinsically deliver. The multi-media options – embedded video, podcasts, links — strengthen message horsepower and bring more dimensions to the story. The built-in interactivity drives real-time feedback as the Natural Bounty launch progresses. Awesome. And message delivered without filter, direct to the pet parent making a decision on pet food.
I’ll leave you with this thought: PR is indeed the new advertising and word of mouth is the new PR. This evolution in media and content strategy is THE enabler.
Ok, you can stop laughing now. No really. Yes, this is me. I said stop laughing. Anyone hazard a guess on when??
Try 1977. Hopefully that helps explain the hair and stache combo. For those of you not old enough to get the era, the look actually was fairly typical for a guy of my 25 years at the time. This was my first job in PR after a short stint promoting rock concerts. Rocker boy turned farmer? Hardly. The assignment was for the King County government – surrounding the city of Seattle. I was working on a truly innovative project that eventually helped my boss, John Spellman, get elected Governor of the State of Washington.
This newspaper story was about me and what I was up to – sort of a local boy does good treatment. So here I am, standing in a field in front of a tractor, and yes, this farm is in the city. No I did not grow up on a farm and have never milked a cow.
Preserving Urban Agriculture
Not that I’m necessarily the tree-hugging type, but I really thought this project, in its day, was innovative and certainly precedent setting. I had this idea to put a brand identity (King County Fresh) on local produce, honey, and other agricultural products farmed in the urban environs. The t-shirt I’m wearing, a sort of bright Kelly green with reversed out white graphic showcased the Fresh logo, used on POP materials, product stickers and in transit ads to promote the effort. The goal: help create a stronger economic climate that would help keep urban agriculture viable at a time when farmland was disappearing faster than you can say, “Hey, is that a new shopping mall?”
The public policy concept at the time was revolutionary, only Long Island near New York City was also on the same track – to purchase the development rights to farmland, preserving their agricultural use — thus ensuring a steady flow of fresh products into the local market place.
Brands and Value-Added Meaning
I wanted people to know about and be able to recognize locally grown products. The difference in freshness and taste is remarkable. And our research suggested that people (voters) wanted to support local farms and help preserve them. So the King County Fresh campaign was novel in its day –intended to imbue some of the emotional values of branding on commodities like lettuce, corn and melons. The end game: consumers could vote with their pocketbooks to select local products stickered with the Fresh logo or merchandised in a retail section with POP material that showcased the identity.
Media got up for this because statistics revealed local farmland was going the way of the parking lot at an alarming rate. Farmers got excited because they felt it was THEIR brand. Supermarket retailers?? Whole other story because their buying systems had to be interrupted to get local products in the warehouse. Local independent markets were all over it.
It took two trips to the well with the voters, but we eventually succeeded in getting a $65 million bond issue passed to finance the development rights acquisition deal. Spellman, a Republican, got a lot of credit for this and voila, off to the Governor’s mansion, and me off to the agency business with Ogilvy & Mather in 1979.
I have never forgotten the great lesson of the moment, that a profound idea can be captured in an image and then used as a rallying platform to build business and secure fans. In this case, to benefit local farmers and eventually get voters behind an initiative that would keep the fresh cucumbers in those wonderful stalls at Seattle’s unique Pike Place Market.
So are apples, apples? Only if you let them be. Can a head of lettuce stoke emotional bonds? Incredibly, yes. Marketing and communication is such a powerful thing. It’s why I get up in the morning excited to jump into the fray.
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