Think of it this way.  You get up in the morning.  The soap and toothpaste you use, the cereal you eat, the car you get into or the subway stairs you descend, the maker of your briefcase or backpack or handbag, the coffee shop you favor (or avoid), the newspaper you pick up, the particular vacation spot you research when you get to your desk: your real or perceived experience with each of these things drives your choices.  That’s brand.  You can’t (and don’t) live without it.  It’s all over, all the time.

And man, there’s a lot of competition.  And distraction.  And price pressure.  And etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So if this is the case, then it’s the job of a brand owner to create positive associations – a positive experience – associated with the person, place or thing in question.  Life is hard: great experiences are priceless and they’re something  you want to share with others.

Thanks to my Twitter compatriots David Ansett (@brandamentalist) and Story Worldwide (@storyworldwide), I came upon this wonderful NY-based company, Improv Everywhere,  which describes itself as an organization that “causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.”

What does that mean, you ask?  It means that Improv Everywhere creates “missions” that create an attention-getting public event that creates positive buzz – a positive experience – that is very unexpected and equally as impactful.

Here’s one that got a lot of press in NYC: “Star Wars Subway Car” (if  you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

The one that made the biggest impression on me was “High Five Escalator.” The video was shot literally on the escalator/stairs of New York City’s E/V/6 subway stop at 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue.  Now, this stop is a friggin nightmare during the morning commute: you’re squished, it’s hot, it’s unpleasant… just a major potential misery at 8 or 8:30 in the morning.  But on this particular morning, a few Improv Everywhere “undercover agents” got 2,000 people to smile and give a “high five,” and many more just had a great experience on their way to work (if you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

Here’s an interview with Charlie Todd, the founder of 9-year-old “prank collective” Improv Everywhere (if you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

Improv Everywhere says that it takes on commercial clients only here and there, and that this is what allows them to keep doing what they’re doing.  But while Improv Everywhere “works to live,” if you will, hasn’t it cracked the very essence of the brand manager’s job?  What if your brand was associated with such a positive, memorable experience? 

This guy’s on to something.

P.S. I’ve signed up to be an Improv Everywhere undercover agent, so – the next time 200 people freeze in the middle of Grand Central – look around…

Ready, that is, until I’m not.

And so it was with the news that Goldman Sachs is considering a big, broad, very public effort to polish its brand. “Public” as in advertising, letters to the editor(s), responses to media reports - even an appearance by CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Oprah.

Can you imagine? Oprah. I picture it as a cross between Tom Cruise’s 2005 crazy-eyed appearance and her skewering of James Frey in 2006, and not in a good way.

Lloyd Blankfein

Look, I may condemn the investment banking scoundrels for their wrongdoing when I’m out having a drink somewhere, but – behind closed doors with the Goldman team – this would be my position:

Goldman executives may indeed be shocked – even hurt – by the way they’ve been treated by Congress, or by the all-out vitriolic point of view on Main Street, but the fact of the matter is that these are not the audiences that really matter at Goldman… and this is the price to be paid for what they do for a living.

Goldman isn’t nor was it ever in the business of being loved. It’s in business to be 100% rational, not emotional, and to make money for itself and its clients. That mission defines a fairly narrow set of individuals and companies that really need to know what Goldman is doing. For these people, a big initiative is (a) likely to be a grossly inefficient way of communicating, and (b) even more likely to be seen by those in the know as a silly distraction that pulls Goldman away from (make me money) what it’s supposed (make me money) to be doing (make me money).

Strike One and Two.

Then there’s John Q. Public, who may not understand a lot of Goldman’s business activities but knows the firm was at the epicenter of a series of events that were highly disruptive and that made a very small number of already rich people even richer. For most, these beliefs are almost purely emotional, and no company can advertise itself out of negative sentiment. If you lay low – particularly when a bunch of abstract business concepts are involved – the public’s anger will dissipate, and soon another target will present itself.  Sad but true.  To communicate now would only inflame an audience that – to be brutal – Goldman doesn’t need.

Strike Three.

Branding, PR, advertising… none of these tools can be used to uproot deep-seated negative opinion while an issue is still hot. It’s tempting to buy full page ads in the Wall Street Journal that say you’ll make things right (paging British Petroleum) but you can’t win doing this and, frankly, it’s a bit immature and disrespectful. It’s like saying “Hey, I punched you in the eye, hard, and I can’t take it back or make it any better, but I still want you to like me.” In Goldman’s case, the firm plays hardball, it’s going to bruise some people and it’s going to make billions of dollars for its inner circle of stakeholders. Everyone knows that’s the game, and – when the spotlight turns toward them – those involved need to be able to put up with not being “liked” in exchange for their success.

Goldman’s communications advisors would do well to make sure that its client is staying focused on what’s important to its core business and true constituencies.  I disagree with those who say that Goldman must vigorously present  ”its vision of the ‘right thing to do’ in the financial services industry going forward.”  To what end?  To “clarify” its point of view, or contribute to the national dialogue? Through a branding campaign? On Oprah? Please.

No.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to simply live with a situation, keep going and accept that there are moments when the right kind of marketing may be no marketing at all.

The sole-painting made me pause. I did not feel compelled to run out the door for LV shoes, though… it was more a gentle “Really? They hand-paint the bottoms of all their shoes?” 

Now I know how much Vuitton products cost.  They’re expensive – but probably not as expensive as they’d need to be for LVMH to clear a hefty profit after painting the soles of every pair of new Vuitton shoes.

So I took note when the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned the wallet and handbag ads, claiming they could “mislead” consumers into believing that Louis Vuitton products are handmade, when in fact machines are involved in the manufacturing process.  From the agency’s ruling: “We considered that consumers would interpret the image of a woman using a needle and thread to stitch the handle of a bag … to mean that Louis Vuitton bags were hand stitched.”  O&M Paris must pull the two offending print ads immediately. The ad of the man painting the shoe bottom did not draw objections. 

Interesting.

I guess part of my question is, Which consumers?  I’m curious, for example, whether a “reasonable person” in such an instance would be absolutely anyone seeing the ad in a doctor’s waiting room, or whether it would need to be someone for whom the ad would alter beliefs in a way that could misguidedly motivate a purchase.  Would the latter be more likely to be knowledgeable and savvy (and less gullible), or does it not matter?  Vuitton has never been secretive about the fact that it has factories in the U.S., France and elsewhere that some believe are the very representation of modern luxury good production, but I guess the ASA has made its call.

There are a number of fashion/culture tongues wagging online about the fact that the ASA had nothing to say about LVMH photoshopping Madonna until she looked like a 17-year-old.  Perhaps, but it’s probably a good bet that there were no ruling bodies that thought anyone might buy a piece of luggage thinking it would make her look like Madonna (at any age).

Check out the world’s first ATM that dispenses gold.  You* can get tiny 24K bars, or gold coins with customized designs.  And it monitors the daily world price of gold.  So handy!

The entrepreneur who came up with this brainstorm says it’s only the first step in building his “Gold to Go” brand.Maybe he should call these guys.

* Well probably not you, exactly, but… someone.  Don’t feel bad.  It’s ok.

Take a look at the June cover of Glamour Magazine at right (if you cannot see image, click HERE):

The photo of three attractive models on the cover is accompanied by the headline, “Curvy? Skinny? It’s All Good!” But… which one is the curvy one?  Is it the one on the far right?  The far left?  It’s the one on the left.  Yes, I said the one on the left.  I’ve added a couple other images of said model to this post (HERE and HERE), and let me tell you: any woman whose thighs (or other body parts) do not aggressively touch when at steady state is not “curvy” in my book.

I truly don’t understand this particular one, because no woman who is overweight believes she is also a thin model.  The average American woman wears a size 14 – and knows it.  She does not think that Crystal Renn is her spitting image.  Hair, cellulite, make-up, the size of one’s pores: the savvy woman generally knows that all of these can be drastically manipulated ad – sadly – some women still aspire to these things.  But chubby and frolicking in one’s bikini in a magazine? No.

Then why the fixation on imaginary weight claims?  Is it advertisers? And if so, go all out so an advertiser targeting a real plus-size girl might actually be able to see a real one.  There is no real-life party that is served well by this kind of activity.

I suppose I should just be thankful that Glamour didn’t pull a Ralph Lauren and get all drunk and stupid on Photoshop: see the related blog post I wrote and lovingly titled, “Can Someone Get That Turkey A Sandwich (you’ll have to read it to know why).   Do you think the average person knows that even photographs of food are fake?

No wonder people still don’t trust advertising.  Sometimes – a lot of the time – we lie.

A key feature of the campaign’s website – http://www.helptheoversharers.com - has a ”Best of” Twitter feed that streams some classics: “My arm is itchy,” “Cleaning the kitchen,” and “New shower gel – hooray!”

Amazing: “hurray” is just the utterance I was planning – too bad P&G got to it first.

So anyway, the website offers tips for recovering oversharers, a plug-in that allows you to “shame a friend with just one click” (very popular, I’m sure) and even an interactive video into which you can drop some of your favorite inane comments.  And you can buy a t-shirt with a dopey tweet on it.  Of your choice.

The site is accompanied by a utility on Facebook that Pringles’ 3 million fans (and anyone else who feels like it) can download and use to label boring Facebook updates.

To me, the campaign feels a wee bit derivative of Burger King’s 2009 ”Whopper Sacrifice Challenge,” which offered a free Whopper to anyone willing to unfriend 10 people on Facebook. That campaign was semi-criticized for being an “anti-social” social campaign – a page that Pringles appears to have torn out of the fast fooder’s playbook. And there have been a number of other brands – like Nestle and Skittles – that have leveraged the riskiness and “nowness” of featuring a live Twitter feed in their promotions.

But so far, this has been a conversation focused on techniques and tools – a plug-in, a feed, interactive videos and custom t-shirts.  I love tools just as much as the next marketer, but… what does the Oversharers campaign have to do with Pringles’ persona and the ultimate goal of selling more product? 

If there’s a second phase of this campaign that ties the downside of oversharing online to oversharing your Pringles (because you want to eat them all yourself?), P&G better get moving. It seems like that’d make sense… but I’m guessing and this connection isn’t made at the moment.

So from a business point of view, I don’t get it.  You’re the Pringles brand manager: what consumer insight led to this campaign? What are you trying to communicate? What differentiation would motivate trial, or make an existing Pringles eater feel good about the brand?

Don’t “overshare” social media tools because they’re cool.  It’s tempting – and I recommend social media experimentation all the time – but all of the standard rules of branding, communications and marketing (and revenue and market share and shelf space) apply.

The two-day happening gave me enough material for quite a while, but let me start here.

There was a real mix of speakers.  On the first day, one of these presenters was Miky Lee (Mie Kyung Lee), Vice Chairman of CJ Entertainment & Media, the entertainment division of Korea’s CJ Corporation.

I know – I never heard of it, either.*

Ms. Lee carefully read her prepared remarks in English, sprinkling her comments with video clips from Korean films, cable television, games, recording artists and the like. 

While watching what appeared to be the Korean version of American Idol, I began thinking of my grocery list and wondering if the conference organizers had planned the session to seemingly wander off this way.

The Q&As came.  Ms. Lee answered a few questions here and there.  She was gracious and considerate.  Then an audience member asked if CJ was going to try to break into the United States.  The speaker wasn’t nasty or arrogant; he was simply saying that – to be truly successful - CJ would need to access the American culture market.

Ms. Lee stood oddly frozen at the podium until until one of the event moderators jumped in to say that Korea was far – far far far - past the U.S. in terms of digital sophistication and social media in all its forms.  Facebook, for example, is pre-historic news in Korea, where a vastly superior social networking site, Cyworld, has been operating since 2000. 

Clearly relieved, the polite Ms. Lee thanked the moderator for his comments and then proceeded to explain that the U.S. is no longer the center of the cultural universe in Asia.

“Having grown up in the 50s,” Ms. Lee said that she and her friends worshipped American music and celebrities.   American culture was the center of their universe.  No more. Today, Japan is the center of Asian life.  Kids look to Japan for what’s cool, hip and trendy.

At this point, Ms. Lee was on a (respectful) roll.

She shared a few details about Korean’s online lifestyle. Did you know that Korea is #1 in the world for broadband penetration in the home? This 2009 article puts that percentage at 95%. Ms. Lee said 98%.  They’re probably both right.  And the United States? As of 2009, we were 20th with 60%.

20th.  That’s 2-o-th.  Behind Singapore (88%), Taiwan (81%), the Netherlands (85) and others.  Estonia has higher in-home broadband penetration than we do (62%). Did you know that Estonia, a country with a population the size of Idaho’s, has an extremely sophisticated information technology sector?  I didn’t.  How about the fact that the creators of both Kazaa and Skype came from Estonia? Nope, ‘hasn’t come up in the line at Starbucks recently. 

I do know, however, that a moving van showed up at Sandra Bullock’s and Jesse James’ marital home last weekend. Whooo-eee! Come back later: my brain is full.

Anyway, Ms. Lee went on to explain how Korea has leapfrogged everyone else in the world with respect to broadband and mobile usage. Downloading full-length feature films at home or playing games and watching TV on a cell phone are run-of-the-mill activities. And then there’s Cyworld, that social network owned by SK Telecom, Korea’s largest wireless provider.  Ms. Lee described Cyworld as essentially a millionth generation of the sites we use in the U.S.: a sort-of Facebook meets MySpace meets Flickr meets IMing meets Blogger. Characterized by CNN as “a license to print money,” Cyworld is used by 90% of all Koreans in their 20s (but also across all age categories) and produces 3x the revenue per user as does MySpace.

And although perhaps she had a right to be, Ms. Lee wasn’t smarmy, or poke-America-in-the eye arrogant: her remarks came across as a 100% sincere call for us to get our *** out of our *** and realize that the U.S is no longer the singular epicenter of cultural or technological innovation.  Seek out what’s happening in Japanese culture, she told us, as well as several other sophisticated countries, including her own. Learn. See. Question.

So - wow. I was intrigued. Who was this woman who read awkwardly from prepared comments and seemed uneasy on stage? (You know what’s coming, right?)

I’m going to make this short so it’s not too painful: Lee received her MA from Harvard in 1986, and served as a teaching fellow there for three years. CJ Corporation – the parent company of CJ Entertainment – built the first and largest multiplex chain in Korea. It also operates the country’s #1 cable network. And CJ’s Mnet Media is the leader in cable music television, music distribution and live concerts.  Variety considers Ms. Lee to be one of the world’s leading film industry executives, and she was the recipient of the CEO of the Year Award from a prestigious business association in her country.  Prior to joining CJ, Ms. Lee was a director or cultural and educational projects at Samsung America. In perhaps her spare time (?), Ms. Lee managed to establish the Parsons School of Design in Seoul and likes to chit-chat with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen (two CJ partners) about their mutual love of movies.

Oh, and of course there’s also the fact that she’s the first grandchild of B.C. Lee, the founder of Samsung Group, the LARGEST CONGLOMERATE IN THE WORLD by revenue ($173.4 billion in 2008), and owner of Samsung Electronics, one of the top 20 most valuable brands in the universe and the world’s largest manufacturer of electronics. CJ, you see, was originally a part of the Samsung world, although it specialized in some sort of foodstuffs before Lee and her brother transformed it into a media juggernaut.

This woman has seen, accomplished, hungered for and achieved things that only a tiny fraction of the world’s citizens ever will.

I… have no real end for this post, other to say that I’m still cringing a week later.  The world isn’t hanging on our every word and - in many arenas – has already pulled way out in front of the United States. 

And we’re going to use this to recognize that we must be more curious, more open, more interested in seeking out worlds other than our own, right? Right?

Today, any advertiser with a Google AdWords account can buy virtually any keyword to advertise its own goods, regardless of whether said advertiser has the rights to use the word.  This is particularly troublesome for brands that have spent decades burnishing a brand and consider the associated brand names to be reputational assets of great value.  If you go to Google right now and type in “LVMH” (the owner of numerous brands including Louis Vuitton and Hennessy), one of the sponsored ads shouts “Designer Handbags 70% off,” with a URL that includes the Louis Vuitton name. That has LVMH steamed and the company sued Google in Europe for trademark infringement.

Well the ruling is in… and it’s a split decision, advantage: Google. Upon Google’s appeal of earlier rulings (that didn’t go its way) the highest court in the EU has determined that - on its face – the mere fact that an LVMH-protected word is available for sale by Google does not mean that Google is in violation of LVMH’s trademark protection. 

Specifically, the court has said that the search company is not violating trademarks if (a) its automatic ad system is judged to be “merely technical, automatic and passive” in its operation, and if (b) the company is not aware and cannot be expected to fully police all the words that advertisers purchase.

Since computers are programmed by humans – and those folks at Google are pretty darn smart – this is fishy to me, but ok.  It was not a flat-out win for Google, however, as the court also ruled that Google must remove said ads if the brand owner formally complains about an advertiser infringing on its marks.  If Google fails to do this, the court says it won’t be so helpful in protecting Google’s revenue stream the next time around.

The court also reinforced that Google could be held liable for selling keywords that openly encourage or facilitate counterfeiting, which – in luxury categories – is a win (or at least a booster shot) for the brand owners.  And lastly, the court also clarified the responsibilities of advertisers who mustn’t be found “using such keywords arrange for Google to display ads which do not allow Internet users to easily establish from which undertaking the goods or services covered by the ad in question originate.”

I don’t know about you, but if I’m an advertiser that gets into hot water for legally buying a word that Google sold to me – and I’m not trying to sell knock-offs – I’m naming Google in my legal response.

LVMH has been on the attack re. this issue for a long time, which is understandable. eBay has also been in the conglomerate’s in the past. This is a worldwide, high-stakes game such a company must play in all sales channels: right here in New York, LVMH was front and center in the effective elimination of a thriving Louis Vuitton counterfeit trade on Canal Street. The company will flood Google “Don’t Be Evil” Inc. with complaints until the search company will at least have to question what (and how much) it is defending by taking on massive legal expense (and bad PR) in order to make money from advertisers leeching off others’ trademarks.

And speaking of buying Louis Vuitton knock-offs on the street, a LVMH board member point of view has been (quote) “Under trademark law anywhere in the world, brand owners have the right to stop third parties from using their names. “Why make an exception for the digital world?”

 As the division between online and offline “worlds” continue to disappear, why indeed?

You may have read about the massive insider trading case against Galleon Group.  A former consultant, Danielle Chiesi, was a participant in and beneficiary of the conspiracy.  Her criminal trial begins later this year.

Is she scared? Perhaps, but there seem to be more pressing concerns at the moment.

HERE is Danielle Chiesi last October, on the day the FBI led her away in handcuffs:

And HERE is Danielle Chiesi now (February 2010):

These two photos were taken about four months apart. In between, Chiesi began to morph a la Michael Jackson.  Two months in, The New York Post noted the disappearance of Chiesi’s “bloated face and dumpy sweater” (see first photo) in favor of a ”slim new look” that looked like it was ”straight out of central casting for a prison flick.” 

I love it. 

Next stop: Dancing with the Stars, or perhaps her own makeover show.  Assuming, of course, she doesn’t spend the next 10 years in prison.

And I would definitely believe, by the way, that Ms. Chiesi is terrified of prison…. because it’s going to be very – very – hard to keep up her new plasticized look behind bars.

This brings me to ad agencies: frequently the poster child of what not to do IMO.

Witness three stories in just one recent issue of Advertising Age:

(1) Not all clients appreciate the art of marketing and advertising. Some, sadly, have re-assigned the responsibility of selecting and retaining agency work to procurement departments.  That’s pretty bad.  And insulting.  No question. “We’ll take 300 staplers, 500 boxes of the medium-sized binder clips and a global ad campaign that communicates the power and flexibility of our brand.” Ick.

Agency response? I first blogged about this phenomenon and the agency community’s atrocious response back in July, and now TBWA comes up with the brilliant idea of broadcasting (aka signaling) the fact that it has created a Chief Compensation Officer role to negotiate with these binder clip-loving bureaucrats.  AND he’s a ”former CPA!”

You want us to negotiate with pencil-pushers? WE’LL show you pencil pushers!

CPA vs. Procurement sounds pretty anti-relationship to me.  And there was no business reason to use a press release to announce this “hire” – the exec in question has been at TBWA for over 25 years.  They moved him from one office to another (if he moved at all).

Former CPAs?  Agencies that create an “us vs. them” scenario typically become former agencies.

(2) Today’s second flavor of us vs. them: a lengthy article that reflects agencies’ “hardened stance” on the issue of owning all intellectual property created for a pitch if the agency is not ultimately hired.  “It isn’t because clients are a**holes,” says the owner of an agency (a named individual, not an unnamed source). 

In this case, if you have to say what it’s not… you’re pretty much saying what you think it is.  Thanks for letting us know what you really think of clients.

(3)  And lastly, we have a “highly regarded,” “profitable” shop with “an abundance of project work” closing its doors.  Independent NYC-based Toy (the agency who brought us the brilliant “Elf Yourself” campaign) is now history.  One of the reasons: “certain unbending principles of the founders.” Translation: they couldn’t find an office big enough for all the clashing egos.

Very unfortunate. There were bold clients who went with Toy instead of the big holding company-owned agencies.  CMOs/execs who chose an independent shop.  Not typically the safest decision.  Now they must move that business, with all of the dislocation that entails.  And we’ve lost yet another independent voice in the marketing community.

Agencies face a whole new world today.  Even I’m old enough to remember 15% commissions.  It was simple.  Today things are a mess.  But this kind of behavior doesn’t further any kind of positive agenda.