I Heard the News Today Oh Boy: Graham Rust Died in Prague; World a Sadder Place.

Graham Rust, founder of the Czech advertising agency Rust, was a great teacher. I discovered this the first time we met. Lesson Number 1 was: Beer in Czech is pivo. Lesson Number 2: Dark in Czech is cerny. Then we just put ‘em together and we were all set to conquer Prague: Cerny pivo.

Sometime just after the fall of the Soviet Union (remember the Soviet Union?), Graham made his agency a member of Dialogue International. So in September of 1994, Barbara and I traveled to Prague for the first-ever Dialogue International managers’ meeting in a former Iron Curtain country. Graham and Jo Rust were our hosts then and on the visits that followed.

We ate a lot, learned how to say three more words in Czech and met wonderfully talented people. The best part of the trip was spending time with Graham and Jo; and staying friends with them for almost 20 years. Buried in a closet somewhere there are photographs of those early meetings. Not digitized. Trust me, though, Graham and I looked younger then. One of us had more hair.

My notes indicate that most of the old Dialogue gang came to Prague that year: Frits Slootweg and Charles de la Rochefoucauld, Jaakko Alanko, Timo Kivi, Gianfranco Vallana (yes, even then). It now seems amazing just how many have maintained their involvement with Dialogue. The managers tabled a next meeting scheduled for Marrakesh in favor of Paris for political reasons that sounds disturbingly contemporary.

Although a Short British Person, he had the heart of an NBA center and the smart of an ad giant. Graham’s death is sad. His life is way more fun. We had a lot of laughs and many great professional moments. Today, my sympathies and those of Barbara and Rachel go out to all the Rusts.

Graham once referred to me as a “Distinguished Friend” of Dialogue International. More important, I am thankful that Graham was a distinguished friend of mine.

Flying Cows! Event-Marketing a Ben & Jerry’s Opening in Prague.

Once upon a time, Graham Rust left England’s mountains green to open an ad agency in Prague, in what would become the Czech Republic. Many years (and a lot of Dialogue International meetings) later, he and his team not only produce great advertising but also fun times down on Wenceslas Square.

Unilever, the corporate owner of Ben & Jerry’s since the turn of the century, picked the capital of the Czech Republic - and Rust, Klemperer sro - for the first major launch of the brand in Eastern Europe: “Vermont’s Finest in Prague!”

Rust staged the initial shop’s grand opening with cows – flying and otherwise. Transplanted pastures. Motorized hay bales. Free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, right in the heart of the city. From this morning’s Dialogue International newsletter, Rust speaks! “A week before opening the first scoop shop we bombarded Prague with stunts featuring the champion cows. Teasing actions like parachuting cows, cows riding Segways and giving away paper cones which could be exchanged into real ones at the opening day.”

On Opening Day, July 30th, Rust brought the party to the people in Wenceslas Square.

Having stood my very own self hip-deep in crowds in Na Příkopě on the corner of that huge open space in Prague, I have to tell you that it takes flying cows to get Ben & Jerry’s noticed. As you can see by these photos (and more here), the peeps are eating it up.

Ben & Jerry’s, despite being owned by Unilever, still has adoring support. As Graham says, it’s “such a special, individual, quirky, passionate, human brand.” Therefore, congratulations to Rust in Prague for being so ice-cream-social. Now close the circle. Post the agency’s opening day photos to the Ben & Jerry’s Facebook site and squeeze just a bit more promo for yourselves out of them cows.

Thanks to Rust and the affiliates of Dialogue International not only for news from abroad, but for the ongoing relationships. Have a scoop of Mission to Marzipan on me.

“Poopzapper” Portrayed

Second installment, also from Graham Rust, is an “advanced technology” answer to the Fedog bag set I posted about yesterday.

The most effective solution, Graham wrote, is a team of helmeted guys riding along the pavement on quad bikes equipped with long vacuum cleaners, zapping (rather than “scooping”) the poop, a triumph of form over content.

Then: Rich! By an almost unbelievable coincidence, on the square below our office, Prague’s waste company is running a PR event, and so I have a photograph (above) of the poopzapper to add a multimedia dimension to your blog!

You have the thanks of the world, Graham. Nowhere else (not even on the Prague Municipal Waste Management website – I looked) has this powerful secret weapon in the war against dog poop been revealed. And Prague is doing PR events about it!

Prague Bag

This is a simple post about dogs and the people who love them. Sort of. It’s also a post about cities. Human ingenuity. Advertising. Let’s start with the fact that Rob Schoenbeck brought me a pass-along souvenir from his recent trip overseas: a Fedog bag (that’s it on the left).

In Czech, this is papírové sáčky na psí exkrementy – a paper set for dog crap. It was invented in 1995 because, “The daily amount of dogs’ excrements comes up to 20 tons in Prague alone.”

It’s a combination unit, the paper bag plus scooper plus advertising.

See how it works on the website – it offers an animated demo. “The paper bag is easily degradable in the nature. The scoop minimizes the aversion to pick up the excrement. The bag together with its content can be composted. The full bags can disposed of by burning, depositing in dumping grounds or recycled by composing.” I’m not making fun of the English writing here – I couldn’t even start in the original tongue.

I went straight to my long-time Dialogue International resource, Graham Rust, the great and powerful principal of Rust2 in The Czech Republic. He ‘splained:

Prague is plagued with dogs. It’s not like Bucharest which apparently has packs of feral dogs roaming the streets, but like citizens of all around the world, Praguers just don’t see the problem with keeping a huge animal in a fifth floor apartment in the city centre.

Some time ago the city installed special litter bits with bag dispensers (left) and sometimes you even see them being used.

The other glut we suffer from is advertising, on anything which stays still long enough, so it’s no surprise to see someone trying to sell space on this sharply targeted medium. Not sure there will be many takers. Public opinion on advertising is pretty low, but things are not so bad that we deserve a literal interpretation of McCluhan’s “the medium is the message.”

The engineer in me (of which there is precisely none, really) is intrigued with the concept of putting the carboard scooper inside the bag and putting the whole set in a handy dispenser. The city-dweller in me wishes to see this in the US, though we seem more conscious of the effect of many dogs on local sidewalks – and more willing to do something about it at the moment of generation.

The ad guy says, “This is outstanding – for somebody else’s clients.” And actually, I could see some real value if an entire city program was underwritten by a major veterinary clinic in the area or even a dog food manufacturer like Purina®. I can see Nestlé Purina PetCare underwriting an effort like this.

As Graham notes, the Fedog set is a precisely targeted medium – the smart advertiser could use that to its advantage and add a bit more environmental shine to its brand.

As I said, go to Fedog.cz – Czech it out for yourself.