Yesterday’s quote was picked from a Shell document. That Shell? You bet.
The discussion of the ‘new medievalism’ and an ‘interconnected meritocracy’ they refer to, is found in this 51-page document called “People and Connections”, on “Global Scenarios to 2020.”

Reason I link to this doc, is I will dip into it during Global PR Blog Week in July.

Another quote:

“It’s like a rock hitting a pond.
And the ripples spread pretty far. The Internet is a great new tool for that.”

Nothing we didn’t know, except for the fact that it’s being said by Maverick Media’s Mark McKinnon. He may not be as famous as Saatchi & Saatchi’s Kevin Robert’s, but you gotta take note of what he’s doing. Why? Maverick Media is the ad agency for the Bush campaign! Also, I think he’s referring to sending ripples through peer-to-peer networks.

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Take a wild guess.

“In a world where no one is in charge and where governments have no monopoly on power, a kind of ‘new medievalism’ arises….a mesh of multiple authorities and competing loyalties arises, based on networked relationships.”

Does it sound like:

Lawrence Lessig?
Adbusters? (Or the MediaCarta site)
Vint Cerf?

Of course it does! This is the language appropriated by those in academia, the anti-globalization set, and several technologists.

But it’s not. It’s from a very corporate entity. More on this tomorrow.
I bring it up, because it (the idea of ‘networked relationships’) is something many companies may need to wake up to, as this one has.

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The first “Global PR Blog Week” in July draws near, and I will be inviting visitors from different parts of the world to participate in the topic I am covering for this event: “The Impact of Blogs on PR and Marcom.” My session is on Wednesday July 14th, 2004.

Wonder what I will deal with?

My focus will be on “The impact of blogs on PR and Marketing Communications.” How will we create the collateral, tell stories in the media, create content for alternative media, and open the channels for dialog with all those publics who have relationships with our companies?

More on what the other bloggers intend to do here.

One of the areas I am interested in, is how Marcom might tap into Word Of Mouth (WOM) networks –learning from the way blogs work. While we all know that online networks are modelled on the human ones that existed for thousands of years, I am hypothesizing that blogs may return the favor.

PR and Marketing Communications may give rise to WOM techniques to spread messages to micro targets, instead of wasting resources by going after the non-existent masses.

If you are interested in joining the discussion, I will be using Jay Rosen’s “The Anatomy Of Buzz” as a starting point.

On the other hand, if you would like to get involved in Global PR Blog Week, you can still sign up at this Wiki.

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People who dabble in branding probably know all the arguments that CEOs and non-marketing folk come up with when a new external brand strategy is being planned. Internal branding is even harder. In fact the two are interdependent.

I sat in a packed room today (at the IABC international conference that I have been reporting on for the past 2 days) and listened to a case study on internal branding at Qwest Telecom, and thought this was the most moving inside-out campaign I had ever heard of.

If you’re in one of the states that Qwest serves, you’d have probably heard of the “Spirit of Service” theme. Most people would dismiss it as ‘branding foo foo.’ The presenter, a marketing VP named Mark Pitchford, showed us why the brand turnaround was more than a pretty new slogan.

The ‘Spirit of Service’ was the title of a painting done of a lineman, one Angus McDonald, who went out in the blizzard of 1988 to fix the phone line, and also rescued passengers trapped in a stalled train. Apparently there are thousands of employees who are children and grandchildren of people who worked in the original phone company, and they share their stories with the CEO, via email. It’s these ‘spirited’ stories that are worked into the marketing. How do they make employees such a powerful part of the business strategy? Pitchford shared 5 principles that are worth following for any internal branding campaign:

1. Give employees the information they need and it will make them passionate about the company. The CEO often emails employees and responds to each email that comes in –some 80,000 over a two year period.
2. Build employee advocacy by giving everyone in the organization an opportunity to directly impact the bottom line. Qwest employees are part of a labor union, but they still volunteered time for grass-roots marketing.
3. Tap into your employees’ minds. Encourage them to share their ideas.
4. Use measurement to thoroughly understand the level of engagement, and the build on it.
5. Celebrate accomplishments. Qwest always rewards employees for going above and beyond the call of duty for customers.

Interesting sidebar: All models used in Qwest branding are employees. Gives deeper meaning to ’employee communications,’ doesn’t it?

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I was a bit surprised today when the brand/PR director for Microsoft, Janice Kapner, who presented at the IABC conference in Los Angeles, checked off the value of several forms of online communication tools (portals, email, Instant Messaging, virtual tours, whiteboarding..) but didn’t mention blogs.

In her defense, she was talking of the growing importance of Live Meeting, and Microsoft’s work on enterprise-level collaborative tools –IM and an amazing device, tentatively called ‘RingCam.’

But Kapner did deal extensively with how PR collaborates with the media, and gives journalists access to product information in a virtual environment. These virtual, real-time exchanges between PR folk and reporters seems to diminish the potential of the press conference. It’s not the only way to get the story out, she said, but its value increases when it is complemented with the online PR tools.

So I asked her if the several bloggers at Microsoft –with or without corporate approval– frustrate the PR role, or add more slings to her bow. She replied that for the moment, they are watching what bloggers can do, but have no immediate plans to incorporate blogging into their strategy. I am not so surprised, considering how Microsoft ignored the Web phenomenon for quite some time.

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I am at the IABC International conference this week, and the keynote, Salman Rushdie made some typically sharp, engaging observations for all communicators.

His topic was on how storytelling is a superior form of communication.

“We are creatures that are defined by the fact that we tell stories.”

“Storytelling is a form of communication that is indestructible.”

The argument about who should have power over the story… is a serious ongoing battle, he observed. Many of us know this as we try to ‘manage’ the information seeping out of (and into) our organizations. So called brand guardians also make a career of this. He then referred to a well known journalist (he didn’t name) who said she was “Dixie Chicked’ –meaning her ‘story’ was spiked the editor.

We are now in an age where we have to frame our stories on the new way the world operated. Implying the complex, networked, always on world, he said that “all our stories now bleed into each other,” be they Middle east ideologies slamming into buildings in Manhattan, or the stories captured by digital pictures of prison abuse in Iraq bleeding into the stories of human rights across the world.

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Being election year, where we hold everyone and everything up to the microscope, I want to take Bob Garfield up on some generalities he sprinkles in his Ad Review column in Advertising Age, and some absolutely offensive things he gets away with that are not even related to what he is reviewing. (See more on this here.

Bob’s stance on what’s creative, what’s good positioning, and what makes marketing sense, is as flip-floppy as John Kerry’s stance on the military, or Bush’s on the U.N. He seems to say whatever suits the moment, appropriate or bizarre. (In one column he admits how wrong he was ( “historians take note: WE WERE WRONG.”) In another why he is so right.) He appears to be writing for MAD magazine, taking a stab at anything for the sheer entertainment value.

Like the Bush tactic, Garfield’s campaign staff conveniently divides the world into the evil doers –those low life Creative types—and those who were sent to clean up the world. Those who ‘worship’ his opinions, as he puts it. Take this uncalled for opening statement in the May 24th issue of Advertising Age:

“Why should you not merely read this column religiously, but actually worship it? Because, unlike the goofs and goofettes in the Creative department… the Ad Review staff actually appreciates and understands advertising.”

When Garfield says such things as “it’s more or less axiomatic that market leaders never acknowledge the competition” you know he’s trying to slip one past us. It’s his way of saying “disregard anything you have read or heard about the Cola wars, the analgesic comparison ads, Microsoft Vs Linux, the present spat between the King of beers and the President, or the anti-Bush vs anti Kerry ads. Never acknowledge the competition??? Axiomatic? Did Garfield’s scribes suddenly open a dictionary and stumble upon the word? Did they think, ‘cool, the ‘goofs and goofettes’ in ad land would not understand what it means, so let’s put it in our column?’ Garfield then proceeds to talk of another ‘axiom’ in political campaign ads: “Any charge not answered in 24 hours becomes a fact.” Popular misconception, yes. Axiom? No, sir. Any charge made in the mainstream media feeds the echo chamber, for sure, but that doesn’t make it factual. Garfield fails to appreciate the changing role of advertising, so uses these fake ‘axioms’ to buttress his passion of lashing out at anything in his path.

In the end, I’m surprised and disappointed that the non ‘goofs and goofettes’ among Creatives haven’t risen up and voted Mr. Garfield off the island. No, Bob, they don’t “loathe themselves for not being movie directors or novelists of whatever,” a charge that I am refuting, lest you treat it as axiomatic. Believe me, I do not work for an ad agency (I used to) but I think you owe the vast majority of Creatives, and Ad Age readers an apology. Thank you.

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While the mechanics for the tentatively named “Global PR Blog Week” are being put in place, there’s another conference in Austria, next month as well. It’s the second European conference on Blogs, taking place in Vienna, from July 5th to the 6th, with plenty of discussion, research and collaboration on the agenda. Check it here. /

The conference, titled “Blog Talk 2.0” invites individuals and groups. Check the Call for proposals to see the areas they will cover. More specifically:

Experienced bloggers will talk about the practical use of weblogging in a professional context, around topics such as internal communication improvement, easy to use knowledge management, the PR potential of weblogs, weblogs in politics, weblogs and journalism, blogging as a lifestyle, etc.

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Trevor Cook is organizing an online Blog week on PR. I have agreed to handle a topic on one day, July 14th, on “The impact of blogs on PR and Marketing Communications.”

For more information on this global PR blog event, and the program line up, check this WiKi. It will be held from July 12th to July 16th, covering topics such as Corporate Blogging, Interactive PR, Crisis Communications and… well, go ahead, read the Wiki!

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Just because you hate French fries and burgers, does that mean you can condemn most of hamburger advertising?

This isn’t a rhetorical question, but one aimed specifically at Bob Garfield, Advertising Age ’s ad reviewer at large, whose recent column of the ‘Im lovin’ it’ ads in the May 17, 2004 issue, are totally off the rails. I must, in the interest of full disclosure and all that, say that I am not even a huge fan of McDonald’s. Also, the company I work for does finance restaurants. However, I have no friends at the Golden Arches, or any other remote connection with the restaurant.

The reason I take up Garfield’s review for review, is that I am a long time reader of Advertising Age, and have always read his column –one of the first things in the mag, in fact. However, there’s something very odd about them now. He’s often whining about things totally unrelated to marketing and advertising. Either he has nothing to say, so he says it in abstract, negative ways, or he’s lost it.

In a recent review of the advertising on NBCs Friend’s finale (May 10 issue), while grudgingly praising one commercial (Dodge), he couldn’t resist taking a shot at the “drippy” last episode of “Friend’s.” What if reviewers of one genre took up the mantle of reviewing everything else around it? Hey Mr. Film critic, why not analyze the popcorn at the theatres while you’re at it?

To get back to this column, I think Ad Age readers deserve better –someone who can do more than throw zingers at marketers, products and ad agencies. Even while delivering a half-baked apology for being wrong and ‘delusional’ about the “I’m lovin’ it” line, he goes on about ‘crappy meals’ and indigestion etc.

If you skipped first half the column (about 6 paragraphs), you would have not missed anything. Ok, so perhaps these were a really bad bunch of ads, but at least a reader has a right to know what are the elements that make them weak/poor/awful.

Take this comment:

“But maybe they aren’t meant to be advertising, so much as jingle-conveyance mechanisms –much as McDonald’s fries convey oil and salt.”

What’s that analogy supposed to shed light on? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and agree that the ads are excuses for jingles. But does that give him a right to assume that McDonald’s sells fries as a way to make you ingest oil and salt?

OK, I get it:

Garfield’s reviews aren’t meant to be ad criticism, so much as unrelated-wisecrack mechanisms –much as Advertising Age is an excuse to deliver 163 pages of puffy editorials and spicy ads.

Heck, I know many people who can write stuff like this. In fact I just might start doing mock-reviews, just to see if you can tell the difference.

Stay tuned!

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