Ellway DeJohneres?

Is John Elway looking more like Ellen, or is it the other way around?

Pat's World! Pat's World!

This Sunday night one of my favorite jazz guitarists in the world, Pat Metheney, is performing an intimate solo show at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater. Something struck me while perusing Metheney's web site this afternoon. As is the case with many gifted artists, Pat's appearance tends to be, well, eccentric. Yet still, it bordered on the familiar. Didn't take me too long to figure it out.

Me, Myself and My Brands

Each summer weekend stock cars loop the nation’s oval tracks, awash in corporate identity. These branding elements, and the spaces they occupy, have been carefully defined for those sponsors fortunate enough to secure logo placement on the sheet metal—or even better, the racing team uniforms.

In the third-millennium world of social media, we have become the digital equivalent of NASCAR drivers. A typical Facebook profile bears the fruits of countless corporate marketing efforts. Where coupons, direct response marketing and other cost-intensive strategies were once seen as essential components for determining the quantifiable effect of a particular product, measuring brand approval today is as effortless as getting people to click a “like” button.

Marketers (redefined as anything from brand leaders to “conversation specialists”) use successful social media campaigns to hook consumers by the thousands. Modern merchandising has moved beyond the days of Budweiser T-shirts and Coca-Cola stemware; in fact it’s even transcended merchandising, as companies effectively brand their brands right onto the souls of their customers. Inviting consumers to pre-qualify themselves is the name of the game. And once they like, they’re yours forever.

Celebrities have Twitter and MySpace followings far more interactive than those of the traditional fan club. Smart-phone technology now allows devotees and casual fans alike to follow them on tour, on location and even in the supermarket. In exchange, these public figures gain an instantly available market, eager to accompany them in any and all future endeavors. See Sheen, Charlie.

Even seemingly innocuous forms of commucation like text messaging present opportunities to reel in the unsuspecting. Reality shows let viewers text in their votes. Trivia contests on stadium jumbotrons encourage spectators to “text and win”. The result is a loyal, highly active and tech-savvy target audience for such sales tactics as retail store discount alerts and ticket e-mailings from their favorite sports teams.

If the response generated by our energized population tells us anything, it’s that the benefit is clearly mutual. For now at least, we free thinkers can’t get enough of this power over the stuff we buy, no matter how mundane and utilitarian the stuff may be. Consider the following brand names and the volume of true followers their Facebook pages have generated (as of June 2011):

• Glade: 72,587
• Mrs. Fields cookies: 15,236
• Dr. Scholl’s: 3,253 (Dr. Scholls For Her: 40,556)
• Aquafresh toothpaste: 48,728
• Playtex: 112, 787
• Skippy Peanut Butter: 16,962

Of course, most are persuaded by clever promotions and exclusive offers. (As if the mere presence of a public forum weren’t incentive enough for one to profess his love for odor-eating shoe inserts.) This is where tried-and-true, old-school marketing comes in. As evidenced by the insanely large amount of love shown below, the more successful the sweepstakes, sponsorship or celebrity spokesperson, the more dramatically a brand’s digits can grow:

• Armor All: 50, 573 (Tony Stewart endorsement)
• Hanes: 1,590,000 (multiple contests and promotions)
• Tide: 1,397,000 (NASCAR sponsorship)
• Gillette: 511,026 (numerous sports affiliations)
• Lysol: 378,300 (numerous sweepstakes)

Again, these are thousands of people who took it upon themselves, with little or no prompting, to voluntarily become targetted consumers. Country Time Lemonade has 54,770 fans—and they require permission to use your personal information before they will accept your “like”!

This spike in consumer involvement is evident in the pharmaceutical industry as well, though in a slightly different context. Whereas packaged OTC names like Bayer, Tylenol, Prevacid and Dramamine can take advantage of the aforementioned consumer channels, awareness for prescription brands is more commonly generated through word of mouth, in groups and pages focused on the conditions or symptoms they treat. The largest Wellbutrin page on Facebook has just over 500 fans. However, there are dozens of pages with five-figure followings for those suffering from depression and their families/friends/loved ones.

Using social media to understand the effect of brands on those who use them is territory not yet fully plowed. But one look at the numbers from Facebook alone suggests that it’s already harvest time. Still in its toddler years, Mark Zuckerberg’s creation has over 500 million current users, by his own spit-balled estimate. A half billion whistle-blowers, ready to roll over on the very essence of their purchasing behavior.

We’re here if you want us, corporate America. Act fast, before we expect compensation.

Marketing Disasters

Noted geologist Jim Berkland—a former U.S. Geological Survey scientist with an 80% earthquake prediction rate who called 1989’s San Francisco quake within four days—recently speculated about a major seismic event occurring along North America’s western coastline before the end of March.

Like our planet needs another catastrophe. We’re still picking ourselves up from the 2004 tsunami that killed a half million people and reshaped the Indian Ocean coastline. Recovery from last year’s Haiti earthquake, while productive, is dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of its destruction. Efforts have begun following recent quakes in New Zealand and Japan, the last of which included a twenty-foot tsunami and nuclear crisis of unknown proportions.

Within our shores, we’re reconstructing the Manhattan skyline a decade after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history. And if Hurricane Katrina’s lingering effects were not enough, residents in coastal Louisiana and Mississippi are also mopping up the world’s largest oil spill.

These devastated areas require a tidal wave of aid—water, food and medical supplies, plus money to rebuild—the kind generated by massive worldwide awareness efforts. To ensure this desperately needed assistance, relief organizations must look at global disasters as brands. They share a common message: we need your help, now. Their audience is anyone of means who will listen and contribute. And the world economy serves as their competitive environment.

Beyond that, however, each event has a unique personality—often a mix between an area’s cultural distinctions and the nature of the catastrophe—that defines and shapes how potential donors will perceive it. This is where the business model stops. There is no bankruptcy option, no suitor to sweep in for an impending sale. The effectiveness of a disaster’s humanitarian efforts will impact the quality of life for future generations. And while failure is not an option, some succeed more than others.

Take Japan. Reports today raised the number of dead and missing from last month’s chain-reaction catastrophe to a staggering 24,000. Yet according to an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the U.S. monetary response pales when compared to that of other disasters. Six days after Katrina donations surpassed $457 million; the Haiti earthquake generated over $210 million over that same time span. Five days after the devastation in Japan, contributions had yet to reach $65 million.

How can something so emotionally powerful not stir our compassion—and contributions—more equitably?

Partly because of a nation’s stature. Being an industrialized country with a strong government and vibrant economy has actually hampered public sentiment for Japan. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF didn’t begin receiving donations for four days. Why? They didn’t know what was being asked of them. Disaster-response systems were already in place, overwhelmed yet working away. So UNICEF was forced to reassess what their role would be in Japan—or could be, given the stringent operating restrictions placed on outside relief.

Part of it also lies in the perception that our contributions just don’t matter. We Americans like to feel that we are making a difference. In fact, we insist on it. Anyone familiar with U.S. foreign policy can tell you as much. Poverty-stricken regions like Haiti and Indonesia don’t simply need our help to recover from the recent earthquake. They need our help, period. But Japan? The source of our stiffest automotive competition, where the going rate for a typical restaurant entrée is fifty bucks? Do they really?

The answer is yes, really. That’s the challenge dozens of organizations faced in those crucial first days. Disaster relief has a window of two to three weeks, after which the headlines fall from the front pages—and the donations follow. Just as few anticipated the domino effect that rocked the Pacific Rim, few also expected such difficulty in selling relief for a flourishing nation. If there’s one thing recent history has shown, it’s that disasters don’t discriminate. They rock rich and poor alike, and no one nation is strong enough to handle a global catastrophe on its own.

It’s a message we may one day have to sell to the world. Perhaps as early as the end of this month.

There are still many ways to help the people of Japan. A list of international aid organizations committed to providing relief to Japan and other affected areas can be found at www.causes.com. To support UNICEF’s efforts to help children in Japan visit www.unicefusa.org.

Oscar-worthy self-promotion

Advertising has given birth to entire industries. It has saved countless lives and it has spawned revolutions. Last week, advertising won an Academy Award.

It’s true, our industry’s bucket list is officially one line shorter. But let’s not stand aside and watch this latest strikethrough go gentle into that good after-party just yet. This landmark campaign deserves a closer look.

The “brand” being advertised? None other than Melissa Leo. The former Melissa Leo that is, since she will henceforth be referred to as “Academy-Award winning actress Melissa Leo.” Winning an Oscar is the Hollywood equivalent of knighthood: its indelible effect eradicates questionable behavior as efficiently as a whiteboard eraser.

So what happens when the behavior in question may have led to her winning the award in the first place?

In 2010 Ms. Leo—known endearingly to 1980s-era stay-at-home moms as Ms. Linda Warner from All My Children—delivered the performance of an acting lifetime. Her true-to-the-letter portrayal of Alice Ward, chain-smokin’, white-trashin’ maternal manager of “Irish” Micky Ward in The Fighter, was a triumph in itself. The 50-year-old Manhattan-born actress proved to have some fight of her own, clawing her way through a congested marquis bearing the large-type names of Mark Wahlberg, fellow Oscar-winner Christian Bale (Best Supporting Actor) and Amy Adams, a former Supporting Actress nominee for 2005’s indy hit, Junebug, who also happened to be competing with Leo this year.

But what set the feisty redhead apart from past Academy Award winners—including that other Leo from The Titanic—was set in much smaller type. Unwilling to let her performance speak for itself, she set out to send a self-promotional message to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

At first Leo intoned that she felt slighted by the overall lack of attention “women of a certain age” were getting from the media. In particular, the fact that she couldn’t find her way onto a single magazine cover despite recent Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild wins. FYC (For Your Consideration) campaigns are typically handled by the motion picture studios; hardly third party to be sure, but distant enough to keep the pimp perception away from award-hungry candidates. However, Paramount decided not to promote their movie’s stars prior to this year’s Academy Awards. So the actress sought the help of three of her friends to get the word out about Melissa Leo.

The four created and placed a series of full-color ads and posters that blanketed southern California, each bearing the full-bleed image of Ms. Leo with the single-word headline, “Consider.” On the surface the campaign spoke for aging actresses everywhere, whose careers Hollywood has figuratively dragged to the curb. The portraits contrasted Leo’s frumpy, bitter on-screen character in a manner that all but called out the role as “typical” for those of her demographic. Yet upon closer inspection, a strategy emerged as seemingly unconventional as Leo’s decision to lobby for the hardware. Unconventional in its choice of art direction—in one execution she appeared poolside in full-length white faux fur, Cruella de Vil sans cigarette holder—as well as its underlying satirical message of denial. The ads seemed to mock all self-promotional Oscar campaigns, as if she weren’t blazing the trail herself.

Many felt the move was detrimental to her chances. But Leo, knowing full well the glacial dues-paying process involved with winning an Academy Award, saw this opportunity for the unchartered territory it would occupy. She bet the house on a prize-fighter movie role, and chose an aggressive approach worthy of Mohammed Ali, who used to tell the world before, during and after each fight that he was “the greatest of all time.”

Forget whether she was actually the best candidate for the award. Personally I thought the statuette would leave in the adolescent arms of Hayley Steinfeld, based on her gritty performance as Mattie Ross that all but carried the Coen Brothers’ remake of “True Grit” (even with the presence of Jeff Bridges and Brad Pitt). Forget too the acceptance speech where Leo launched the Oscars' first-ever F-bomb into the living rooms of 10,000,000 homes, most of which were in countries without five-second delay. Fueling speculation that her role in The Fighter may not have been that much of a stretch after all.

Instead let’s remember, for a moment at least, the heavyweight gamble of a middle-aged character actress who took her best shot at what may have been her only title shot. Tactics fade, but the tall golden award will never tarnish.

Detroit. Brought to you by Portland.

The latest chapter in the continuing saga of domestic automotive advertising unveiled itself during a two-minute span in the third quarter of last Sunday’s Super Bowl XLV.

Struggling mightily to keep its brand alive much less relevant, Chrysler Corporation, the runt of the “Big Three” litter, delivered a resounding and impassioned 120-second narrative about the city it calls home. The commercial’s drive-by cinematography pulled us down streets we’d rather not travel, while a mix of foreboding sound design and full-on choir ebbed toward the familiar chopping guitar chords of Eminem’s anthemic “Lose Yourself”. In the final scene the hoodie-clad hip-hopper himself appeared, rolling up to the historic Fox Theater in a black Chrysler 200.

Clearly, this is not your mother’s Sebring. And in an industry where survival means thinking outside the crumple zone, this isn’t even Detroit doing the talking. One line from the bravado-soaked script foretold this new mindset with all the resonance of a new-car smell: “When it comes to luxury, it’s as much about where it’s from as who it’s for.”

Interesting.

First, the “where it’s from” part. Chrysler has just emerged from a sad chapter in its own history—chapter 11, to be exact—and now finds itself under the control of Fiat. The Italian automaker currently owns a 25% share, with the opportunity to notch it up to majority status before year’s end. In fact, the buzz this past week is that Fiat SpA and Chrysler Group LLC may be combining operations under CEO Sergio Marchionne.

Not an earth-shattering development to be sure, particularly from the folks who not too long ago called Daimler “boss”. Yet it seems to fly in the face of their new messaging.

Then there’s the origin of the ad itself. For decades upon decades Chrysler used a stable of local shops for its advertising, from homegrown Ross Roy to the onetime Detroit offices of Interpublic’s Campbell-Mithun Esty, Omnicom’s BBDO and Bozell (formerly a True North behemoth).

BBDO handled things until last year. Since then, however, the account has bounced around like a Pittsburgh Steeler fumble deep in Packer territory. Minneapolis-based Fallon Worldwide, a subsidiary of French holding company Publicis Groupe S.A., took the reins for a few months until they were handed the Cadillac account. The Chrysler brand work then landed in the capable arms of Portland creative giant Wieden+Kennedy, while the dealer and retail (a.k.a. “tier-two”) business found its way back to the D via Southfield, Mich.-based Doner.

Hopes abounded among Doner management that the brand work would soon follow. But those dreams vanished this past week like a Ben Roethlesberger pass into Green Bay’s cover-two zone. If not from the Super Bowl spot alone—which generated four million hits to the Chrysler corporate web site, literally overnight—then from the announcement days ago that W+K had been named 2010 Agency Of The Year by Advertising Age, on the strength of its successful “The Things We Make, Make Us” campaign for Chrysler’s Jeep brand.

A Detroit story, told by an Italian-controlled carmaker through their Portland ad agency. Now that’s rolling the fuzzy dice.

Now on to the “who it’s for” part of the line. Ask any current or former Detroiter about the commercial and they’ll tell you how proud it made them feel. Some will actually well up as they speak. This isn’t just car shill to them. Chrysler served up a spot about who, what and where the brand is, and the city heard loud and clear.

Although the ad turned heads nationally, it didn’t come close to its local impact. USA Today’s annual viewer rankings of Super Bowl commercials put it at #43, behind eleven other automotive spots (four from Chevrolet and two from VW as well as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Hyundai, BMW and Kia). So why does Chrysler still consider it a rousing success and $9 million well spent? Could it be that Detroit wasn’t just the subject of the commercial, but the target as well?

There’s more than enough evidence to support the theory. History has shown that in times of financial crisis, Chrysler turns to employee-based incentives to rejuvenate sagging sales. They did so in the aftermath of their previous government bailout in 1979 and again through the Daimler dip of the 1990s. They picked up their numbers twice over the past decade with sales and leasing offers aimed at their employees.

How big is this piece of the Chrysler pie? Big enough to help the automaker gain market share in 2008 despite a 44% drop in sales. A large portion of Chrysler’s tier-two advertising is devoted to employee plan participants, persuading them through enticing and exclusive promotions to own or lease a car bearing the name of their employer. These ads blanket the Detroit market, where the lion’s share of corporate employees reside. The company has a pattern of internalizing during tough times. And this time it seems they didn’t merely reach out to their own ranks—they gave them a big fat Motor City hug.

So maybe this ad wasn’t supposed to tell the nation about Detroit after all. Maybe it was only intended to tell Detroiters what they wanted to hear. But if it turns around the fortunes of a Detroit automaker and helps keep more Detroiters working, does it really matter?

[this article also appears in the Brand Liberators Blog at www.gsw-w.com/blog.]