Commercializing The President: Everybody

First it was Ben and Jerry's "Yes Pecan,” and then it was Pepsi. And now, according to Brandweek, Ikea is jumping on the Obama brand wagon too.

Ikea's newest campaign includes out-of-home billboards featuring the "Embrace Change ‘09" slogan on local buses and trains. Ikea is also holding a "mock motorcade," touring the D.C. area Jan. 15-16, which includes strapping "furniture fit for a president" on top of vehicles. From Ikea's point of view, it's simply a good branding opportunity.

"We have never had an opportunity to do anything surrounding the message of change from a national standpoint," Marty Marston, public relations manager for Ikea told Brandweek. "[Obama's] notion of change and his commitment to fiscal responsibility match the Ikea philosophy of practical and affordable home furnishings for all."

But is it really a good branding strategy? Marvel Comics seems to think it's smart for Spiderman. And although BlackBerry didn't ask for an endorsement, it sure did appreciate it. But is it really a good thing? If you consider the fragile brand theory, then only if the original brand holds.

Thinking Global: Branding Local

For all the talk of a shrinking world, Nigel Hollis, chief global analyst at the market research firm Millward Brown and author of The Global Brand, has noticed a shift in the other direction.

"There are some underlying decisions people make when they decide to go global," Hollis told the International Herald Tribune. "One is that the world will become more and more homogeneous. That is just not happening. There's a lot of evidence that despite the spread of globalization we still live in a very localized world."

While the article recognizes some global campaigns, especially consumer electronics such as Apple's silhouetted dancers introducing iPods, can work; most brands, from food to personal-care products, make small adaptations in order to capture local appeal. In fact, even the on Web, communities tend to develop over time, creating a feeling of proximity that is based less on geographies and more on topics of interest.

Some companies seem to be catching up on the localization curve on the Web, even if they don't call it that. For example, Adweek noted that among the hundreds of journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, popular bloggers were being tapped by large companies with the hope of capitalizing on these localities. (Seth Godin might call them tribes.)

Prevailing thought, as reiterated by Chas Edwards, chief revenue officer at Federated Media Publishing, is that companies need to give up on the notion of control over their brands. The concept is not new. Companies never had control. And, when you step back and think about it, Hollis is saying something very similar — global branding is customized and localized.

Of course it is. As Phil Dusenberry, chairman of BBDO Worldwide, noted years ago: “Brand is the relationship between a product and its customer.” And that means branding, like all communication, works best when communicators and copywriters think in terms of reaching, or writing to, one person at a time. There is nothing more local than that.

Defining Communication: Real-Time Over Social

If anyone needs more evidence that 2009 will be the Year of Communication, consider the upcoming 'Real-Time Communications Conference' will lead with a keynote presentation about embracing social media and online community building by Pfizer Vice President Ray Kerins.


Following Kerins will be a panel discussion moderated by Sarah Milstein, author, Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution. The panel will include: Paul Gennaro, senior vice president & chief communications officer, AECOM Technology Corp and David Sacks, founder and CEO, Yammer, Dave Armon, president, PR Newswire, and Morgan Johnston, Corporate Communications manager, JetBlue. There are also two roundtable sessions.

The conference will be held on Jan. 14 at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York, but portions of it will be broadcast live via a PR Newswire/MultiVu Webcast. So what's on the agenda for business besides positioning "social media" as a subset of real-time communications?

• Case studies of leading organizations that embrace real-time communications.
• Real-time communications to build communities with customers and prospects.
• Analysis of leading organizations on how they can manage and defend brand reputation.
• Maintaining core values and principles while maximizing flexibility for unforeseen events.
• Integrating crisis communication when challenged by real-time events online.
• An overview of the tools and technologies that today's communicators need to know.

Lewis Green, L and G Business Solutions; Francois Gossieaux, Emergence Marketing; and Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent (to some extent); have all expressed concerns that the social media expert crowd might be disconnecting themselves from business.

We also mentioned the trend several times last year, first following up on some comments made by Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co., and again in response to the overemphasis of conversations even knowing that neither might be popular. Right. For all the fun of following what is hot and what is not, businesses are moving right along without those who profess to know.

Does that mean businesses will make mistakes? You bet they will. But even if the tone of the new Wells Fargo-Wachovia blog (hat tip: Shel Holtz) seems a bit off, the social media crowd might have to accept that most customers don't care what comes first or last as long as companies move in the right direction.

Accepting Temporary: Complacency Is Circular

Last night, I noticed something unusual at my gym. Typically, Gold's Gym is packed with "resolution members," people who made fitness resolutions for the New Year. After two weeks, most of them conclude that it isn't working and slowly fade away into whatever daily routines seem more comfortable. Not this year.

When I shared the observation that my gym was void of resolution members this year, PJ Perez suggested "overweight Americans have accepted their designations."

He's right, but I'm not so sure we're talking about fitness. Eighty-five percent of people voting on a news poll believe that the economy will get worse before it gets better, and only 33 percent have faith that President-elect Barack Obama's administration will be able to turn the economy around.

When the question had been asked during the election cycle, those numbers were considerably higher. It's one of the reasons he won. So what changed? People aren't certain the Obama administration can turn the economy around because Obama has yet to change campaign criticism into a confident challenge. Consider the following …

"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech set to be delivered at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., outside Washington.

Most speechwriters know that "but" cancels out everything that precedes it. Then again, I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about the acceptance of what seems to be and complacency as opposed to acknowledging what is and moving forward.

You see, complacency is circular in that it occurs in companies, countries, and people at two ends of the spectrum — when things are too good or when things are too bad. In either case, complacency is the general acceptance of a temporary situation or state of being as if it is permanent (or who we are). So if you haven't already, right now might be a good time to kick around the concept of complacency as a conversation in your office.

Are you making decisions based on (or complaining about) temporary situations? And if so, what happens if and when those temporary situations change? Will those decisions put you in a position to win or ensure you remain in the same place — at the bottom of the complacency circle (which might be where your company started anyway)?

Or in other words, if your company is waiting it out, you might rethink that. After all, times will change. They always do. It's the only certainty.

Surfing For Survival: The Fourth Estate

"But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?" — Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic

When The New York Times released an October earnings report that revealed drastic measures must be taken or the paper would be forced to default on $400 million debt, some people, including journalists like Hirschorn, woke up wondering what if what once seemed like a slow a painful death for print might be hastened before they could develop a viable online business migration model. And what would that mean for journalism? And what would that mean for public relations?

The New York Times is not alone. Any time I spoke about social media last year, I carried some disappointing circulation statistics with me — most papers were down double digits: Boston Globe, down 10.1 percent; Philadelphia Inquirer, down 11.0 percent; the Miami Herald, down 11.8 percent; the Detroit News, down 10 percent; the Houston Chronicle, down 11.6 percent. And that says nothing about the Tribune Co. bankruptcy.

A few weeks ago, Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, noted "Information wants to be free, reporters want to be paid" in a column that reminds readers that newspapers survive to provide substance. He's right. Anyone can offer up opinion. Anyone can cater to the masses for link love and pats on the back. But not everyone will "sit through the council meeting and sift through the volumes of bureaucratic paperwork" or be able to disassemble and reassemble it in order to objectively educate the public as to what it means to them.

True enough, as that was the same point Paul Mulshine, opinion columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, made in the The Wall Street Journal. And I heard similar comments while sitting on a panel with Bruce Spotleson, group publisher at Greenspun Media; Jon Ralston, columnist and commentator on state politics, and Flo Rogers, general manager of Southern Nevada's KNPR. Increasingly, the public seems more interested in news that supports their worldview than the last remnants of objective journalism.

Sure, the old model must change. But what newspapers need to remember is they can't wait for someone else to invent it. Most models will be different. Some might shrink print content while driving more readers online for additional content. Some might create online communities for the strongest sections. Some might place a greater emphasis on another medium like video. Some will attempt to give up the one-way new stream and encourage journalists to engage the public, something BusinessWeek seems to be experimenting with, but with mixed reception. And some, well, some will surely just lay down and die. But what if they all did?

Ethics & The Fourth Estate

It's a question I ask myself every year while I prepare to teach public relations skill sets that seem a little less valued today than they were last year or the year before that. Do they even know that the burden of business ethics might fall all the more on their shoulders? That's one question Bill Sledzik, associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University, has on his mind as well.

"I worry that too many PR types will place client interest ahead of public interest, expediency ahead of ethics," he writes. "They have in the past, and social media makes it that much easier today."

He might be right to worry. Even where there aren't ethical lapses, the slips seem more frequent (even among those who profess transparency). There are a few who already seem all too comfortable walking right up to the ethical line (if not crossing it) or redefining it to fit their needs. Even more don't really understand ethics all that well. When I share ethical challenges in a class, for example, the informal fail rate has been as high as 90 percent.

It may get worse before it gets better. A survey recently conducted by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) reveals that the declining economy might increase the risk of legal and ethics violations in business. In fact, more than 85 percent of 600 compliance and business ethics professionals felt that the current economy greatly or somewhat increases the risk of compliance and ethics failures with only one percent offering a contrarian opinion. (The complete survey results can be downloaded here).

"There's good and bad news here," observed Roy Snell, the CEO of SCCE and HCCA. "We're finding that companies are increasingly seeing compliance and ethics as an integral part of their business and not a luxury to be discarded during an economic downturn. But, at the same time, we're seeing stagnant budgets or potential declines in resources at a time of increased risk for failures. That's creating a gap that could prove to be a dangerous chasm for business to cross."

And what if they do cross it? Without a viable Fourth Estate, there may be less risk and consequence. Yesterday, it used to be a suitable ethical review sum up to end with a single quip — unless you would be proud to see what you say or do on the front page of The Wall Street Journal or New York Times, then don't say or do it. Today, you can buy space on the front page instead. And tomorrow, there might not be one to care.

Saving Sony: Social Media?

In June 2008, Sony presented several initiatives designed to build on its previous three-year revitalization plan. Six months later, reaching even some of these goals seems further way than ever.

• Expand PC, Blu-ray-related products and component/semiconductor businesses while joining the LCD TVs, digital imaging, and mobile phone markets; which all seems contrary to rumors that Sony will abolish "several major divisions."
• Ensure 90 percent of its electronics product categories are network-enabled and wireless-capable by the fiscal year ending March 2011, which seems to be born out of necessity over innovation.
• Roll out video services across key Sony products by 2010-11, which started with the launch of the PlayStation Network despite some obvious trouble.
• Double annual revenue from BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries by 2010-11, which is another goal that seems dampened by Microsoft.

Since, Sony cut 16,000 permanent and temporary jobs worldwide, simultaneously expecting profits to be down 50 percent compared to last year. And even while Sony announced it did not plan to introduce additional restructuring measures, the writing keeps popping up on the digital wall.

Can Social Media Help Save Sony?

In an effort to directly connect and converse the public (and perhaps regain control over its apparently errant communication), Sony Electronics is placing its faith in social media. Today, it launched a new social site — housing the company's blog, videos, photos, polls, and consumer profiles. The rushed launch coincides with the Consumer Electronics Show.

"The Sony blog has enabled us to speak frankly and directly with our customer base and the public at large, not only in the U.S. but around the world," said blog host Rick Clancy, senior vice president of corporate communications, Sony Electronics Inc., before the site was truly live. "Now we're looking to make the blog the cornerstone of a more interactive community site that provides people with the opportunity to talk to us and to each other about their opinions, experiences and observations with respect to Sony, our products, the industry and even our competitors."

But does it really? While it looks great, there is just something missing from a pre-launch post written by "Sony Admin," who purchased DSC-W130 in pink to tame his precocious daughter. Transparency, which probably isn't needed at Sony as much as authenticity, is only believable when it comes from a person with a real name.

Sure, sure, Sony is still in beta. But it really is difficult to relate to an ambiguous "Admin" handle who shares personal stories. "Admin" posts are better left to generic content whereas, if the author really is Clancy, he might as well use his real name. After that, he can get his company to pitch in on products so he doesn't have to "buy" them for those future cameo posts.

Much sharper than the blog is the community hub section. Backstage 101 is dedicated to helping people learn how to use products; The Digital Darkroom is a photo gallery site to share photos with others; Frontline is an online research community where you can provide feedback to Sony through online surveys, panels, polls and focus groups; and Voice your Opinion promises to allow consumers to do exactly that about Sony products.

Yes, the categories are a bit awkward, but I expect they'll shift quite a bit while the site remains in beta. Eventually, I imagine that the company's classifications will be replaced by the way consumers think, which will place product sections — eg. I have a camera — front and center. Frontline and Voice Your Opinion can be consolidated to make room for such a move.

In addition to its on-site efforts, Sony is also promoting itself with several other social media accounts, including: a push PR Twitter account, Facebook page, Flickr account, and YouTube.

The Flickr and YouTube accounts appear to be the most promising of the bunch. They deliver the best of what you might expect from Sony whereas the Twitter account reinforces that the company behind this social media move has never been known for being upfront in its communication. That fact alone might even make a few mistakes along the way forgivable.

Sony Social Promises To Mix Slick And Silly

Mistakes? Yep. Expect them. For instance, in an effort to initiate engagement, Sony is asking for help in naming the new community site and encouraging consumers to submit their ideas. According to Clancy, his favorite name so far is "Sony No Baloney." Um, right.

If authenticity is going to be part of any social media arrangement, you cannot force it. Most would agree that this blog has a better chance of being renamed "The Sausage House" than Sony would picking "Sony No Baloney" for the banner of its new social media effort. Then again, it's the silly stuff like this that makes Sony our first living case study of 2009.

While there is plenty of potential, it's also painfully apparent Sony intends to struggle through social media all in beta. And considering we had the new release in hand several hours before "Sony Admin" had a "Sony's New Community Site Goes Live" post up, we anticipate some oddness now and again in the year ahead. Let's just hope in what seems to be a sincere effort to adopt some of the so-called "new rules of social media" that Sony doesn't break its own brand in the process.