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.