Don’t You Get No Ugly Tractor. Buy a Purdy Kubota.

That’s the headline on a billboard south of I-20 as we drove through Tuscaloosa. It was charming. Imagine the dealer offering that part of Alabama a play on words. “Purdy” had to be the name of the dealership! And at 70 mph, the headline was all we had time to see, along with the photo of a fine-looking orange tractor.

Sadly there’s no Purdy in Tuscaloosa. Not selling Kubota tractors. I fooled myself looking it up: there is a Purdy Tractor and it’s in Hillsdale, MI. Silly Richard. I thought (briefly) MI = Mississippi. Well NOT. This Purdy is in Michigan and offers New Holland Equipment.

I think the briefly seen “Purdy” outdoor must be from Tuscaloosa Tractor, a completely different dealer selling Kubota and Bush Hog products in that neck of the woods for more than 20 years. Too bad. I’d like to have [a] the pun be true and [b] gotten a photo of the billboard to show you. Not to be, though, not at that 70 mph driving speed.

There’s room for beauty and humor in equipment advertising…and therefore no ugly tractors. Anyone in that part of Alabama in a position to send me a picture of this ’board?

Message from Alabama: August 17, 2010

“Yes, it is our billboard sign,” sent Tuscaloosa Tractor Office Manager Robin Jarvis. “Purdy is how one of our salesmen says pretty. We thought it to be comical.”

Not too bad: I only got [a] the headline and [b] the photo slightly wrong. Thank you, Ms Jarvis.

Southern Comfort: Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Brand Revamp.

This coming October that semi-famous imbiber of Southern Comfort, Janis Joplin, will be dead 40 years. I suppose Brown-Forman, the brand's owners, felt that a brand redo was overdue.

The distillers tapped a great Minneapolis design shop, Cue, to execute the rebranding campaign; it's an evocative and colorful job. Leaving aside the sheer fun of working on a liquor brand as filled with consumer history as Southern Comfort (Joplin aside), the design house filled out the new brand vision from labeling to activation elements – all intent on capturing the “vibe of New Orleans.”

The brand's even more Créole now...styling, illustrations, the lot. At the same time, the brand website states that for every bottle of Southern Comfort sold, the company will donate a quarter to the Gulf Relief Foundation through the end of October 2010. It's trite to talk about “giving back to the community,” but two bits here, two bits there...it mounts up.

No matter what, though, this is a way-back brand. (“Take another little piece of my heart,” Janis!)

Brown-Forman suggests that “Southern Comfort, or SoCo, as it is known to a new generation of consumers, has become a fun choice when good friends create legendary nights together.” IMO, blogger Christopher Null said it way better on Drinkhacker:

Let's be frank. Southern Comfort has a difficult reputation. Everyone I know has a story involving the peach-flavored liqueur, and it usually ends with the blackout or someone's head being shaved against their will.

I wonder how many Cue designers' heads...got shaved?

Previous Brown-Forman blog posts appear here and here.

BE the Subscriber. Getting Signalwriter by Email Is Just a Click Away.

I am spending time today working on the Signalwriter blog instead of working in it. And trying to make it easier for you (thousands of faithful readers globally) to subscribe to it.

Now just mouse over to and click on the words at the top of the right-hand column: “Subscribe to Signalwriter by Email.” According to all the best minds, this will get you notified when a new post is up. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants here – the legion of Blogger/Feedburner users who have already done this. And they’ve done it, apparently, far more easily than I have.

Don’t delay – subscribe (via email) today!

PS: thank you for reading…RLB.

“CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape” a Primer for Site Choices.

I wish I’d gone to this year’s Houston edition of the Online Marketing Summit. I have attended OMS each of the past four years, had to miss this one. The event has become such a magnet for marketing professionals and here I am in the “absent” column.

Brian Bearden of Upstream Marketing has been there all day. One of his texts says, “I’m surprised by the caliber of the speakers – and I know only a handful of…attendees. Attendance is very low.” The first part is great news: past years’ OMS speakers have been outstanding. Though there was some concern expressed over this year’s slate, OMS has definitely delivered the mail today on this score.

The event has been promoted heavily by AMAHouston, the BMA chapter of which Bearden is outgoing president, Energy People Connect and many others. But there are a surprising number of people who’ve told me that they couldn’t get away from the office today – I’m one of those. Everyone’s busy. (So this is actually good news too.)

For you and you and me – the ones who didn’t make it, take a look at this great chart from CMO.com – 10 social network choices with green-yellow-red choice points. Sites from Facebook to Digg are graded in four areas – Customer Communication, Brand Exposure, Traffic to your Site and SEO value.

Read this Guide. Print a copy for yourself. Use it to impress your colleagues...and your bosses. Best for the weekend.

Napoleon’s Underpants and More Fun Hermann Historica Ads. Aus Deutschland!

Nifty creative. Very layered. It’s hard to know where to start. But really, how often do you get to see an Emperor’s muffin-top?

The science of advertising – metrics, pay-per-clicks, performance – is often dismal. This ad campaign from Hermann Historica is not merely refreshing. It is hilarious in a geek-inside-joke sort of way.

The specialized German auction house makes it plain that it is willing to sell you the clothes off the backs of military figures from all periods of history. Arms and armor. Greatcoats. Military uniforms. Medals. Firearms and swords. Trousers! Every great execution, from this Napoleon painting through the late 19th Century German Imperial Court to Washington crossing the Delaware River, pays off the simple framed headline:

What once was theirs can now be yours.

So first a tip of the bearskin cap (French Old Guard or British Grenadier) to the company itself. While I wish that some of the charm of the ads had been added to Hermann Historica website, advertising and web are fulfilling two different functions.

Second, a hand salute to Heye and Partner in Munich. Peter Hirrlinger and Zeljko Pezely (CDs), Florian Binder (AD) and Christoph Gahwiler (Copywriter) delivered wonderfully funky and involving visualizations of the concept.

Example? Napoleon packed on the pounds over the years – 90 kg or 198 pounds by 1820, according to scientific investigation. That’s a lot of weight on the Emperor’s five-and-a-half-foot frame and, as you can see, he looks properly porky in this ad illustration.

That great detail, and so many others in the ad campaign, are the contribution of Kunstsalon Posin, a German art studio specializing in fake paintings and operated by three talented Russian brothers: Eugen, Michael and Semjon Posin. You have to see them…go on, check out their website…to understand that this ad campaign was probably (hopefully) a knee-slapping fine assignment from the agency.

Please note that I have refrained from saying anything about Napoleon’s “plumber’s crack” or more politely, “buttock cleavage.” Even though it seems like Marshal Joachim Murat (the other guy with the funny hat) can’t keep his eyes off Bonaparte’s backside.

Well done, Germans. Talking frogs may work fine on TV but this level of wacky detail is the geek-stöffe that print ad dreams are made from.

“Napoleon’s Underwear,” Kunstsalon Posin, Berlin, for Hermann Historica, Linprunstraße 16 D-80335, München. After “Bataille d'Iena. 14 octobre 1806.” by Horace Vernet, Musée national du Château de Versailles.

Girl Scouts of the USA: What if they gave a new campaign and nobody came?

Consider the Girl Scouts’ new marketing as an argument for intelligent renovation of an old and valued brand. On the plus side, the headline on each new ad (and on its website) is the truest component of their revamped marketing campaign:

What did you do today?

One of the first sentences of the first chapter of the Girl Scout Handbook, 1940 edition, asks:

Do you even wonder what to do with your free time?

There is a clear brand line reaching from the Girl Scouts’ past (1912) to its present and prospective future. Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer Laurel Ritchie is trying to follow the line, at least in outward-facing communications. Ritchie comes with heavy-duty marketing credentials – Ogilvy and Mather – and a lot of transformative branding experiences, from Huggies to Kotex.

The Girl Scouts need that kind of transformation because, from the outside looking in, it appears that modern life is overwhelming the ability of the Girl Scouts to continue to serve American girls of all ages. Ritchie herself has said, in a press release, “"What we’re doing with this initiative is repositioning Girl Scouts with a message that is relevant to girls and the lives they lead today.”

Well, maybe. The Girl Scouts intro’d a “striking new visual identity” from brand/design agency Original Champions of Design in New York. The press has spotlighted the OCD-refreshed Girl Scouts logo, an iconic graphic created in the 1970s by designer Saul Bass. This is…not an entirely happy…revision with perkier noses, longer, straighter necks and modern hairstyles. You can read one example of logo-related blogospheric chit-chat here.

Logo-jiggering aside, though, the design firm and the Girl Scouts have rolled out a comprehensive new visual identity package with a great eye to contemporary photography, revised color palette and additional fresh uses of the Girl Scouts trefoil badge. In fact, “Brand New” blogger Armin has truly covered all the aspects of the design project and contributed a headline of his own:

This in not your mom’s Girl Scouts.

That’s the challenge. The almost-100-year-old organization is your mom’s Girl Scouts; perhaps it is even your grandma’s. Can an organization headquartered on 5th Avenue, NYC, make the brand changes stick across America, and use them to propel the Girl Scouts into greater girl involvement over the next decade, in the face of members with (very) long memories?

In an outfit like the Girl Scouts, balance of power becomes a key issue. New blood’s attempts to get jiggy with contemporary styles and messages often will upset the multi-generational members who have a years’ long commitment to the way the organization was when they were, say, girls.

Prism Design principal Susan Reeves, with a lot of experience in the service-organization arena, points out:

The “power balance” is always top of mind in a women’s organization that’s 100 years old. The early volunteers sank their heart and soul into the org – to build, nurture, and grow it – so younger women could have an equally profound experience when they join.

As the new generation rises to positions of authority they still practice the core values, but also adapt events and traditions to their changing environment. Or they risk becoming irrelevant. The org must constantly question what relevance it brings to members of all ages, but it's the newest members they must attract or they fail to grow.

Even the oldest members realize this. They adapt slowly, which isn't a bad thing.

Girl Scout CMO Ritchie, along with CEO Kathy Cloninger and hundreds of staffers and volunteers, will foster the adoption of the revamped branding efforts within more than 100 councils nationally (including Girl Scouts of San Jacinto in Houston).

GSUSA will have make these brand changes acceptable, even comfortable to girl-scouting participants of all ages and extend the organization’s mission to millions more American girls. Even better, it will want to drive enthusiastic uptake of the revamped brand at the local level and nurture long-time adaptation to America’s changing demography.

Someday, somebody’s going to ask CMO Ritchie, “What did you do today?” Market-speak aside, what do you think her answer ought to be?

NOTE: The Girl Scouts of the USA is a long-lived organization with many components, features and benefits. Review its websites in detail to begin grappling with its complex offerings. Or just watch for new additions to its brand development campaign on the Girl Scouts blog.

New "Free Internet" Overview Gives You the Ammo – You Ask the Questions.

Consider the discussion I occasionally address as not only an Internet user but as a marketer and ad-guy: the anti-consumerist demonization of Internet users. I first mentioned it in the post about “Data Hogs” here.

Cruising for books at the county library, I picked up a new volume for Young Adults, Should the Internet Be Free? Now that I've absorbed it, I recommend it to you for background reading.

I wasn't aware of the series from Greenhaven Press (which is part of Gale). This volume delivers just what the At Issue series is supposed to deliver:

...a wide range of opinion on a single controversial subject. Each volume includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives ― eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials and many others.

I presume you have opinions on the subject of Internet access and usage, just like I do. But I hadn't made a study of the subject myself; well, since Big Media's propaganda effort landed in front of me, I'm trying to catch up. Should the Internet Be Free? Is a good place to start and it's punchy quick reading.

Now a word about the time span of the articles selected by Book Editor Roman Espejo. Though this volume has been published this year, some of the articles go back a bit: 2007, 2003, even 2000. In the life of the Internet, a decade's a century so several of the articles are dated. Some companies mentioned haven't been in business for quite a while, having be eaten up by larger outfits. Government initiatives have come and gone.

Nevertheless, historical perspective is a key strength. So I am (age-wise, at least) way beyond high school but it's never too late IMO to learn more. Especially about a socio-technical phenomenon that's grown into an essential attribute of civil society ― and marketing in the 21st Century.

BTW, Gale books of any type are expensive. You can order this book on Amazon but better yet see if your library has a copy. Mine did.

At the End of World Cup 2010, the Most Memorable Brand Image...

Presuming that you haven't been staying in South Africa for the past several weeks, what will the world (and you) remember as the brand-mark of this great World Cup series? The FIFA-copyrighted “Zakumi?” Or the amazing, colorful, noisy vuvuzela?

When it comes to judgment calls, you won't find me blowing my own horn. (But let's hear it for the loud voice of the masses, eh?)

The Formal Surrender of the Confederate Fortress City of Vicksburg,

Mississippi, occurred on this day 147 years ago. Happy 4th of July.

General Ulysses S Grant, USA, to General John C Pemberton, CSA:
     …the useless effusion of blood you propose stopping…can be ended at any time you choose, by unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men who have show so much endurance and courage as those now in Vicksburg will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and I can assure you will be treated with all the respect due prisoners of war.

General Grant to General Henry W Halleck, USA:
     The enemy surrendered this morning. The only terms allowed is their parole as prisoners of war.

General William T Sherman, USA, to General Grant:
     I can hardly contain myself. Surely I will not punish any soldier for being “unco happy” this most glorious anniversary of the birth of a nation whose sire and father was a Washington…This is a day of jubilee, a day of rejoicing to the faithful.

General Grant to General Sherman:
     When we go in [to Vicksburg] I want you to drive [Confederate General Joseph E] Johnston from the Mississippi Central railroad; destroy bridges as far as Grenada with your cavalry; and do the enemy all the harm possible.

General Sherman to General Grant:
     Already my orders are out to give one big huzza and sling the knapsack for new fields…Sunday and July 4 are nothing to Americans until the river of our greatness is free as God made it.

Admiral David Porter, USN, to General Grant:
     I congratulate you on getting Vicksburg on any honorable terms.

General Grant to Colonel James B McPherson, USA:
     I want the Negroes to understand that they are free men.

President Abraham Lincoln to General Grant:
     My Dear General, I do not remember that you and I have ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did – march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the…expedition…could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen [eral Nathaniel P] Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black [River], I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right, and I was wrong. Yours very truly…

NOTE: Passages appear in Grant Moves South, Bruce Catton, 1960. Painting of the 4th Minnesota Regiment by Francis D Millet, in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.

New Mobile Retail Report Rolls Out Minus Surprises. But Watch Out for Cramming.

On the same day I had to call my wireless carrier to complain about cramming, results of the first-ever SORO Survey were released. That would be today.

SORO – stands for State of Retailing Online – comes from the Digital Retail Industry and Shop.org, a forum that gives retail executives a place to share information,insights and intelligence about online and multichannel retailing. SORO 2010 covers interactive marketing, social media and mobile.

Join the group here, get access to the study. It breaks out results not only by category (apparel, accessories and footwear; beauty and personal care; general merchandize; home; and sporting goods and accessories); but also by company type (multichannel vs pureplay), size and Web selling tenure. However, a membership costs 2,750 smackeroos. Frankly I think you get as much help from the HiMA if you're really on the cutting edge of retail marketing.

I have now read various reports about SORO 2010 on the Web and the topline results don't appear surprising to me. For instance, US retailers implemented social marketing initiatives that included social network pages, microblogs, and customer ratings and reviews, among others. The industry's “anticipated investments going forward center on further leveraging customer/user generated content.” Whoa! Big news if you've been lost on a desert island for the last few seasons.

Yet there's a slight rumble for the attentive: mobile retailing is another significant focus for online sellers. Lots of companies are still developing their mobile strategy but the survey respondents have big plans for “functionality” for this emerging channel. I think this means retailers are going to be adding mobile capability.

Which brings us to cramming, “a major rip-off in the 1990s that involved placing unauthorized charges on telephone bills” (according to Consumer Reports). Cellphones are increasingly used as payment devices – think charitable contributions for Haiti relief. Look crosseyed at your phone and you can end up with all kinds of little charges on your bill, from “apps” such as voice mail and charges for online games to service subscriptions for services you never ordered.

You'll not have a clue these are on your bill unless you check it every month. Neither of my two cellphones have ever been used for any kind of online app, yet three little monthly charges appeared on this month's invoice as if by magic. (Fortunately, my carrier is extremely helpful in getting rid of these damned things.)

SORO 2010 affirms that cellphones will be increasingly used for retail purposes. So advancing technology fuels marketing programs. Which power more technological applications. Which then leave us open to increased fraud, of the death-of-ten-thousand-cuts variety.

While I'm pushing my colorful virtual shopping cart down the crowded virtual aisle of my virtual classic aloha shirt store, I won't know whether to laugh or cry or text a complaint to the FTC.

Sandwich IV: “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.”

The world’s greatest sandwich ingredient promotion started in 1960 with just a couple-three ads and some subway posters. The Levy’s Real Jewish Rye campaign was created* by Bill Bernbach of DDB.

Among any group of thoughtful advertising people today, Bernbach is one of our industry’s greats. But everyone has to make a start somewhere. In the beginning of DDB, the little Yiddische bakery in Brooklyn known as Henry S Levy and Sons could get Bernbach for a $40,000 budget. DDB worked for Levy’s for years before giving birth to the “You don’t have to be Jewish” ad campaign, which used photos of people of different ethnicities and cultures enjoying the Jewish rye. The shooter was Howard Zieff.

In one interview, Zeif said, “We wanted normal-looking people, not blond, perfectly proportioned models…I saw the Indian on the street; he was an engineer for the New York Central. The Chinese guy worked in a restaurant near my Midtown Manhattan office. And the kid we found in Harlem. They all had great faces, interesting faces, expressive faces.”

Bernbach, Zieff and DDB were the creators – the 50-years-ago architects – of today’s Hellman’s® ads and Nature’s Pride™ ads and Oscar Mayer ads. Those Zieff photos with their humorous connectivity to real people were fresh in the ‘60s. The copycats don’t have much to say for themselves that’s innovative.

Bernbach has gone to the great deli in the sky. The Levy’s brand (no longer very good according to one review) is now submerged in George Weston Limited. And I have shorthanded a remarkable advertising story.

The Levy's campaign is great sandwich advertising by a great advertising agency. That’s my last word on the subject. But I’ll leave the capper to Jiffynotes:

“Levy’s had its competitors, but their names were largely lost to history simply because none of the competing bakeries in Brooklyn hired ad agencies that immortalized them.”

*The Mirror Makers credits DDB copywriter Judy Protas and art director Bill Taubin for the actual campaign creative (page 254). I will too.

Sandwich III: Our Lady of Grilled Cheeses Offers Prayers for Stronger Ad Creative.

Honest, officer, I didn’t know it was loaded. Having started a look at advertising the sandwich in Signalwriter’s previous two posts, though, it’s a difficult subject to put aside.

Is the sandwich really capable of being turned into a metaphor for advertising creativity? I suppose so. Just how far can the idea be taken? If current ads are too bland and undistinguished, what’s at the opposite end of the spectrum?

My candidate comes from a post by Mike Stanley some six years back. He carefully collected parodies surrounding the woman who, having seen an image of the Virgin Mary in her grilled cheese sandwich, promptly offered it on eBay. Read about Stanley’s entire adventure here.

Executionally, “Our Lady of Grilled Cheeses” could hardly be more of a standout. It’s as though the image’s creator* realized the ultimate power of icons and translated that force directly into his or her visualization. The illustration is artistic. It features a woman (ie, homemaker). It includes the sandwich. No headline required.

Opportunities to offend abound – as if people today need a wider range of options. Consider it something to aim for: just how much breakthrough can be had in a single (potential) print ad, elevating the humble grilled cheese into heavenly fare.

*The person who created this visual is not identified. Who it is? Please let me know so I can credit the outstanding work. For more hours of fun, Google “Virgin Mary, Grilled Cheese Sandwich.”

Sandwich II: the Fashion for Smiley Consumers Here, There and Everywhere.

No sooner written about (below), than more sandwiches are showing up in more ads everywhere. Example: the latest number of Real Simple magazine (which editorially seems now to be equating “body” with grown women who weigh no more than 67 pounds). In its pages, you will not only see another Hellman’s® ad with a different sandwich-stuffed face; you’ll also find the Nature’s Pride™ ad pictured in this post.

Next move on to Woman’s Day. Look at the print ad from Oscar Mayer entitled “Score.” This time, it’s a kid with the sandwich. Sean Marks, Oscar Mayer’s director of marketing, is quoted as saying of the ad campaign launched in January, “Our goal is to capture these spontaneous, real-life moments to demonstrate the relevance our products have in the lives of people today.” It doesn’t look to me like the Kraft brand’s agency broke much of a creative sweat on the sandwich execution.

Maybe all of America’s art directors met and pronounced, “Let’s always show a happy smiley face our product(s).” Maybe it’s the summer cycle, time for casual eating.

On the biz-side, we have called this the “rig-in-the-sunset” problem. A huge number oil and gas-related ad executions shows an oil rig, onshore or offshore; with a sun either rising or setting in the background. For our industry right now, sunset is probably appropriate.

The real question (for both food and energy industry advertisers) is this: can you afford to look just like your broad-image competition? In the cases of Hellman’s, Nature’s Pride and Oscar Mayer, apparently so.

Sometimes It’s the Simplest Headline that Appeals the Most.

It’s possible I’m tired (momentarily) of pretension. More likely, as you look back through this blog, you’ll see that I pay more attention to the ad campaigns with the simplicity of human emotion than with the bombast of high fashion.

Quirky robotesses, like the Svedka models here, lose their appeal in the face of homemade sandwiches, I guess. So this new print ad for Hellman’s® Light Mayonnaise caught my eye – it’s clearly part of the Unilever brand’s Real Food Project. For this ad, the campaign tagline has been extended: “It’s time for real sandwiches.”

The web part of the campaign is overtly commercial, to me. Still, it’s the place one discovers that Hellmann's Light Mayo will be the first recipe in the product line to contain 100% certified cage-free eggs, part of the “real food” emphasis.

More than anything, though, I just like the ad headline: “Not all love notes are written. Some are made.” Pompous has its place but not in this kind of food advertising.

Every Day in Every Way, Wellness Marketing Gets Better and Better.

Boy, have we come a long way since Wellbee was the spokesinsect for the Centers for Disease Control – in practice if not in theory. The wellness concept has been around a long time. (The CDC poster dates to 1964.)

Selling people on wellness, though, has always been more challenging. That’s been particularly true of not just one but two company stakeholder groups: employees and executives.

Today, sayeth the Wellness Councils of America, more than 80% of America’s businesses with 50 or more employees have some kind of health promotion program, like exercise, stop-smoking classes or stress management. A lot of employers offer wellness programs because they have finally discovered that the benefit is worth the cost. But business leaders continue to wonder: how can they get more employees committed and involved?

When you practice the highly focused form of “internal wellness marketing,” you know that only worksite health promotion stands out as the long-term answer for keeping employees well in the first place. That’s an insight that you have shared with your management, and transmitted to everyone inside your company via employee communications programs like the one I blogged about here.

It’s an insight that drives five outstanding presenters at the next AMAHouston Healthcare SIG seminar, “Marketing Wellness Inside.” You should be there on Friday, June 25.

See, hear and learn about new and effective practices for internal wellness marketing from Mark Poindexter who manages wellness programs in the US for Shell Oil; Health and Wellness Director Andrew Lowe of the Frost Insurance Agency; Michele Nelson-Housley, the program coordinator for employee health and well-being at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center; and Human Resources Generalist Shellie Perez from Mustang Engineering.

The event moderator is Jonathan Lack, who brings his own set of employee-marketing experiences to the show as Executive Director of the Houston Wellness Association.

A bit of imagination will tell you that classic marketing, applied with creativity and power, can work just as well on the inside as it does on the outside. Research will show you the reasons why wellness needs to be marketed as effectively as possible, from the aging of the American workforce to our cultural search for the Fountain of Youth. (I’m hoping for a great tan post mortem, myself.)

And perhaps most important is that this Healthcare SIG seminar will prove to you, once again, that marketing is a profession that encompasses all kinds of industries and markets.

Forty-five years ago, Wellbee promoted everything from washing your hands – sound familiar? – to booster shots…even “oral polio vaccine” if you remember what that was. Register today. So next week you can discover how we’re marketing wellness better than ever. And why it’s so necessary.

Anti-Consumer, Anti-Advertising: “Data Hogs” Is Nasty Propaganda.

The headline of an article by Ryan Kim of the San Francisco Chronicle is “Data hogs on phone networks could see meters on troughs.” To be fair, the term data hogs doesn’t appear in this article; the headline may have been written by someone else.

On the other hand, data hogs appears over and over – like mushrooms overnight – in article after article, such as the one by Matt Richtel in the New York Times. And on AOL. And the Christian Science Monitor. And Yahoo. And US News and World Report.

Don’t believe any of them – data hogs is anti-consumerist propaganda pure and simple. The massive media companies, chief among them being ATT, just want to charge you more for Internet access and bandwidth use.

Maybe you’ve been accused of being a…gas hog. Or a road hog. It is all about a “fair share” of some commodity presumed to be in short supply. It is almost always false. It is false in this case, too.

Data hog implies that data itself is in short supply – sounds provocative but untrue. There’s plenty of data to go around. (I’ll give you some of mine.) Bandwidth? There’s a lot of that as well. No, in this case, I suggest that media companies see all that “freeloading” as missed profit-making opportunity and they want more of it. They are greedy pigs, notwithstanding their supply of phone and interconnect services.

American companies such as Apple have made the world more accessible and more open than ever before, through science and technology that gives more people more access to data. We revel in it. It’s not just data that wants to be free – it’s access, too.

It doesn’t matter if talking heads say differently. In the NYT article, Edward Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research, says: “The biggest data pigs in the world are the iPhone guys.”

I beg your pardon? We (technologists, marketers, advertisers) have spent decades creating a global culture which lives on the free flow of lots of data and which wants more of it all the time. In theory, it’s alright to charge for it.

But not to overcharge for it. That would make you, ATT, a money hog.

So what do you do? If you feel [a] trapped by these data-pig threats, move your data phone sub to other carriers – presuming they don’t all jump on the bandwagon. Or [b] keep checking your favorite social media for a grassroots movement against swinish profit-making – then join the fight.

Do not, however, believe in media corporation propaganda about data hogs.

PS: I may have lost a bit of my normally even temper on this particular issue. But some of my best friends are data hogs – see the attractive engraving of us all praying for more bandwidth, above.

When It’s All Blown Up – Beyond Crisis Communications.

The “disaster in the Gulf” has generated far more than sad deaths and leaking hydrocarbons – as if these are not enough. There was big-time yelling (did you see James Carville on TV yesterday?). Plenty of finger-pointing and blame-passing. Tremendous political pressure. And also, engineering challenges and potential triumphs when the leaks are stopped and the clean-up has been accomplished.

Looking back to the quiet times BL (Before Leak), you may find reading “Schumpeter” instructive. BL in this case is April 8, 2010, a couple of weeks before Deepwater Horizon blew up. The Schumpeter to whom I’m referring is the nom-de-plume of the regular Business editorializer for The Economist.

This Schumpeter wrote here about “Brand rehab.” He outlined two rules for successful crisis management:

First, the boss needs to take charge. This means sidelining corporate cluck-cluckers such as lawyers (who worry that any admission of guilt will lead to lawsuits) or financial officers (who obsess about the bottom line). It also means putting the survival of the company above personal considerations. Many of the most damaging crises, by contrast, have resulted from foot-dragging at the top.

The second rule is that crisis-racked firms should redouble their focus on their customers.

Now we’ve gone beyond the normal activities of crisis management, or crisis communications. In the case of the leaking well, all the stakeholders, from the crew and families of the sunken rig to the people who live and work along the shores of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, to company shareholders, to politicians, have been seriously affected.

It’s not like the Tiger Woods version of the problem which The Economist article actually addresses. It is much more serious for everyone, including BP and Halliburton (which are clients) and Transocean (which is not).

No company operating in the Western business world today will ever be free of intense scrutiny. And so much has been written, broadcast and screamed about what ought to be done, should have been done – including nationalization of the offshore wells and lynching oil company executives – well, Signalwriter isn’t going to add to the load.

Except to ask you to take the long view. (Hard but not impossible.) The real Schumpeter – Joseph Schumpeter, 1883-1950 – wrote:

Every piece of business strategy acquires its true significance only against the background of that process [of Creative Destruction] and within the situation created by it.

The creative destruction of this offshore drilling event is going to massively affect business and regulatory strategies. The event’s going to change companies and regulators too. Will the effects and the changes be revolutionary…or evolutionary? I don’t have the answer; I look forward to taking part in the dialogue.

PS: I certainly expect some readers will take me to the woodshed because I’m wiritng about branding and marketing in the same post as the tragic events which began with the April 20 explosion and fire that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig. So, dear readers: “There’s lots of copy on these subjects – Google it for yourselves.”

Baker Petrolite Wins “Maverick Marketing” Crystal Award with a Knockout.

What do you call a boxer who gets beat up in a fight? A sore loser. (Alright, alright, it’s a clean joke.)

What do you call a creative idea whose marketing team uses it to build awareness and business in a striking new way? A winner – in this case, a Crystal Award winner.

Or you can call it the “Boxing Glove” box: the Baker Hughes LeakGuardTM Hydrocarbon Leak Detection and Mitigation Services package that started life as a direct mail idea and toted up even bigger results as a maverick marketing tool for tradeshow use. The winnah and new champeen of Crystal Awards Category 77: “Maverick Marketing.”

Finding and fixing the hydrocarbon leaks in refinery heat exchangers is a huge problem. They cost a huge amount of money. To fight this expensive trouble, Baker Petrolite created the branded LeakGuard program to deliver three big benefits: early leak detection; rapid ID of the leak source; and emergency mitigation of microbial growth. In other words, “Find Them Fast. Fix Them Fast.”

Brenda Bramhill, then-water treatment marketing manager, envisioned an offbeat marketing drive to surprise National Petrochemical and Refining Association (NPRA) attendees in Dallas. ‘Cause for the first time, NPRA would let sponsors purchase table-top display areas that could be operated during lunch and reception times. Petrolite had a whopping six hours over two days to get its message out – to create LeakGuard awareness and memorability.

Nobody can resist a big box. This big box has a boxing ring on the outside. It has a bright red Everlast™ boxing glove with the LeakGuard brand name, plus the tag line “Find Them Fast. Fight Them Fast,” on the inside. Plus it’s got your sell-them-don’t-just-tell-them program collateral (all theme-matching, thank you) and a call-to-action.

According to Bramhill, the Petrolite team handed out enough boxing glove boxes in the six hours time period so that “…people were lined up to get an opportunity to see what the excitement was all about, to experience the buzz for themselves.”

The Boxing Glove giveaway generated that buzz. When customers realized the symbolic nature of the glove and their problems with hydrocarbon leaks, they said this giveaway item was one of the most creative they’d ever seen. And Petrolite beat its going-in qualified lead goal by 100%.

Baker Petrolite Downstream Marketing Manager Scott Bieber emailed, “Thanks to Brenda and her team for bringing their ‘A game’ to the creation of this successful Baker Hughes promotional program!” The team included graphic artists Beth Ann Prete and Lucia Clark. Susan Bourgain and Haley Zerwas assisted with the direct mail part of the campaign. And Bieber was kind enough to mention my name too. I sure am proud to have had a part in this award-winner.

Look, more than 200 finalists brought their best to the 2010 AMA Houston Crystal Awards. There were more than 60 winners. The one I helped work on and bring to market – that’s the one I’m writing about. Thanks, Baker Petrolite and way to go. This one’s a knockout.

When You Reach Heaven: Missionary Marketing Trumps Customer Loyalty.

Continuing to follow the iPad phenomenon is like watching a NASA shuttle launch (except for the obvious “end-of-the-road” thing imposed by the current Presidential administration). I not only wrote about how iPad has gone to market below (“How Has Apple Advertised the iPad”), but I posted about the effect of missionary marketing on the AMAHouston blog.

This week I was asked if Steve Jobs’s work with the iPad – like the iPod before it – wasn’t simply an extension of customer loyalty marketing: exceptionally powerful but still within the realm of CL.

No – I do not believe it’s the same thing. Even though there’s a path through customer loyalty programs that will turn a client’s customers into loyal missionaries for the business, CL classically helps you build strong relationships with your customers “by identifying, retaining and growing your best customers.”

This is one definition of CL by motivational experts Maritz. If you accept it, it consists of outwardly directed programs that foment brand loyalty and, in theory, strong Word-of-Mouth promotion activity. An Artists’ Center post about customer loyalty yields a slivver of wisdom about the needful effort: “…one of the best and easiest ways to get raving fans is to impress the $#@* out of them with your thoughtfulness.”

Missionaries, on the other hand, are true believers. This is more than a degree of difference from CL – yes, it does encompass the actual, stand-up-and-shout passion of the users of your company’s product or service. It is also self-powered. The missionaries themselves provide the energy and the initiative in marketing the product/service.

Therein lies the huge advantage that CEOs like Jobs can bring to their marketing. It’s not just Apple, either. It’s Starbucks (whether you agree or not) and Costco. [A fine BusinessWeek article about this is fortunately still online here.] When you are fortunate enough to have such a product or service in your line-up, or can make one happen, then you really are knock-knock-knocking on Heaven’s door.

“How Has Apple Advertised the iPad” Is Worth a Reprise.

Having gone through this year’s Offshore Technology Conference and created a perfectly good post for the AMAHouston blog about iPad missionaries, I wanted to explore the state of marketing for Apple’s newest miracle a bit further.

Floating the sea of content about the tablet is a fine post on the Penn Olson blog by Willis Wee – a fine if not quite up to date review of how Apple has taken the iPad to market. Read this. See how many of the initial parts were fitted together to make whoopee for Apple (and early adopters throughout the US).

Come on: It took the company only 28 days to sell one million iPads. Apple also announced that iPad customers have downloaded over 12 million apps and more than 1.5 million e-books from iBookstore since its April 3 launch.

So while it’s wonderful to think that missionary marketing was the key to this achievement, Apple – as usual – hardly left such things to chance. Wee’s article shows how the pipe was laid. Now I wonder how long I can keep from buying an iPad for myself.