Is online TV for real? You betcha.

Hard upon the heels of her Joe-the-Plumber -clogged visit to Memorial Coliseum, Sarah Palin is attracting even more attention elsewhere--online, on Hulu.com, for example. AdAge.com reports that while the live TV-viewing audience was SNL's largest in 14 years, it will soon be surpassed by the online viewing audience:

Two clips of the Alaska governor on "SNL," her fake press conference and appearance on "Weekend Update," have racked up 6.1 million views on NBC.com. Derivative versions such as those used in news coverage, as well as pirated versions of the clips, have been viewed another 2.85 million times on sites like YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo, according to web video measurement firm Visible Measures.

Combined, the videos have been viewed 8.85 million times since Sunday, an impressive number in four days. But that doesn't include what may be the biggest source of online viewing: NBCU and News Corp.'s joint venture Hulu.com.

Neither Hulu nor NBC will provide Hulu's streaming numbers, but they're likely to be high. Hulu streamed four times as many videos (142 million) as NBC.com (36 million) during September, according to Nielsen's Video Census. While it's possible a high percentage of viewers looking for "SNL" clips would go first to NBC.com, it's also likely that Hulu counts for as many, if not more, views as NBC. The opening skit with Tina Fey holding a press conference as Sarah Palin, while the real VP nominee looked on, was the No. 3 most watched Hulu clip this week, while the clip of Amy Poehler's Palin rap sat at No. 2.

The success of Hulu.com points to three important trends for marketers and other communication-watchers:

• Audiences are learning that there's no sense in investing 30 minutes in a show when you can watch the best bits in a fraction of the time. Shorter is better.
  
• The size of the audience gravitating to online viewing is only going to increase, so keep an eye on what you're being asked to pay for broadcast and cable air time.
• Also pay close attention to content that's timely, and line up your advertising accordingly. Palin is a phenomenon, but a week from Wednesday she may start to be forgotten altogether. Get on the bandwagon as soon as you can, but bail out before the wheels start to fall off.
  

NYT awards the gold to NBCOlympics.com, Yahoo, Coke, GE, GM, others

The New York Times' Olympic wrap-up coverage included two stories about the big winners in media and advertising. Coke, GE, GM, United Airlines, and Visa produced the Old Grey Lady's favorite spots, and the paper also awarded Yahoo and NBCOlympics.com the gold in generating interest on the web:

Benefiting from the growth in broadband Internet access, NBCOlympics.com served up more than 1.2 billion pages and 72 million video streams through Saturday, more than doubling the combined traffic to its site during the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Games in Turin. The popularity of the site will very likely make digital rights more significant in next year’s bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Games.

[...]

NBC, as the holder of United States rights to the Olympics, was the sole source for online video and the only media organization that could use the Olympics logos. But Yahoo, which offered a feature-oriented mix of news stories and slide shows, gave NBC a run for its online advertising money, or at least audience, attracting just as many visitors, according to Nielsen.

But maybe the biggest winner of all--fittingly--is Michael Phelps. According to a recent story in CNN, he's looking at between $30-50 million in endorsements. No wonder those medals are made out of gold.

Safe is risky; risky is safe

You have about three seconds--maybe even less--to capture your audience's attention with your billboard. One way to do that, as this Moderinsta billboard for Stop Handgun Violence shows, is by embracing controversy. Sure, that's easier to do when you're promoting a polarizing political issue. But think how this translates to your product or service. What can you do to push the envelope? Remember, advertising isn't cheap, but it's a lot more expensive when no one notices your message. This is another case where--as Seth Godin might say--safe is risky, and risky is safe.

Hat tip: Ad Freak

Those Nike people know what they're doing

This Nike spot would have been my #1 pick among all those mentioned in Paste Magazine's "10 Best Songs in Commercials During The Olympics." Yes, even at the risk of people asking me where my lapel pin is, I liked it more than Paste's top choice, which is pretty good in its own right. But pairing a great lyric from The Killers with a combination of images featuring the agony of defeat/thrill of victory, Lance before and after, and Oscar Pistorius (an especially bold choice given the controversy earlier this year) make this one of the best brand boosters I've seen in a long time.

What's your favorite, and why?

Hat tip: Ad Freak

Made to Stick sticks it to the GM ad

I'm not the only one who sees some contradictions in GM's heavy rotation Olympic ad. Here's what they're saying on the Made to Stick blog:

[I]t seems to be a rare specimen: the self-refuting argument. First, there’s the primary argument, made via the titles: “…goes for miles and miles on every gallon,” “hybrid,” “biofuel,” “clean diesel,” “fuel cell.” I.e., GM is Rainforest Pure. GM = Green Motors.

Then, at the end of the ad, as the song comes to an emotional close, comes the rejoinder: the HUMMER logo. Brilliant! Objection sustained.

The GM spot has made me dream of launching my own ad, with a (tough but inspiring) Lucinda Williams song playing over a montage of great moments in feminist history — from Seneca Falls to Rosie the Riveter, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Betty Friedan to Carly and Hillary. And then, with a dramatic flourish, as the cymbals crash and fade, comes: the HOOTERS logo.

From a marketing standpoint at least, it's time for GM to pick a side: stand by the Hummer and lose any environmentalist aspirations, or promote fuel efficiency and new technologies at the expense of Hummer porn. Regardless of whether the perception is based in reality, the Hummer stands for everything that environmentally-conscious consumers hate about gas-powered vehicles, so GM can't have it both ways. And because they're trying to do just that, I think the worst is yet to come for our shiny, blue friends.

Shiny, blue, and cheesy as hell

On Sunday night I turned on the Olympics for a few minutes, and this GM spot showed up. In the midst of the company's current troubles and the general national malaise about gas prices, the economy, and life in general, it rang more than a little hollow. Sure, the ad is pretty, but it ain't that pretty. Is this really all GM has to say about its products? You'll notice they ditch the word "Hummer" pretty quickly (don't blink at :13, or you'll miss it). Why not get rid of it altogether, and the rest of this one-size-fits-all, trite, let's-pat-ourselves-on-the-back message, and instead devote a full :60 to the Volt? Kind of a metaphor for not being able to let go of the past, no?

Hat tip: The Truth About Cars

Taking "The Real Thing" a step too far

Given increasing concerns about nutrition and obesity--especially childhood obesity--these are hard times for soft drink companies. So what's a company like Coca-Cola to do? Well, according to this New York Times story, the folks at Coke think it's time to share a few details about their secret recipe. Little did we know, however, that one of the most prominent ingredients is bullshit:

In a campaign introduced last month in Britain, Coke divulged a few facts about the formula. It has “no added preservatives or artificial flavors.” Its mastermind, Dr. Pemberton, selected “the best spices from around the world"...

[...]

“When we talked to consumers about Coke, we realized they didn’t know that it has no added preservatives or artificial flavors,” said Cathryn Sleight, marketing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain. “We felt it was important to reassure Coke drinkers of this fact.”

Now I don't know about you, but "reassure" seems like a bit of a stretch. The point isn't whether anybody is losing sleep wondering if there's anything "unnatural" in their soda. Isn't it more likely that Coca-Cola may be trying to subtlely infer that Coke isn't as bad for you as all those empty calories might lead you to believe?

Here's a simple rule: don't try to fool people into thinking your product is something it's not. It doesn't work and it makes consumers lose faith in your brand. After all, if you're overstating one thing about your product, why should I believe that everything you say isn't overstated?

BlueTie banking on "featuretisements"

Can your calendar or your e-mail predict what products and services you're thinking of buying? BlueTie.com thinks so--and the company believes it can do so more effectively than Gmail.

BlueTie's product is called the "featuretisement," and a story in this week's Forbes details company founder David Koretz's plans for growth:

"[F]eaturetisements," match an event someone types into his calendar or e-mail (such as a trip to Chicago) with, say, a possibly useful ad detailing flights that day.

[...]

So far [Koretz] has 26 brands, including Orbitz, ftd, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Amazon, advertising to clusters of his 3 million e-mail customers. BlueTie gets paid only if someone books a ticket or buys flowers. Koretz says 2% are doing just that, while the average rate for merely clicking through on the Web is 0.5%.

He has spent the past few months trying to sell BlueTie's featuretisement technology to Facebook, Microsoft and MySpace...

[...]

He thought of featuretisements one night after a meeting with managers of Google's Gmail service, which was already placing targeted ads alongside messages. "They told me not to go into application advertising, because they were going to own the space. I was frustrated and spent six hours brainstorming with a colleague," he says. The two realized that Gmail is often on the wrong end of a communication. "If I send you a message about my Kilimanjaro climb, you'll see ads for treks in Africa. But you never signaled you had any interest in going there. That got us thinking about what people do signal."

One thing's certain: Koretz understand the pitfalls of advertising on social networks, so his plan is to develop interactive solutions, not just passive ads:

Koretz and others say social network members want to share messages and photos with their friends, not click on ads. A few of the scenarios he has talked up to Facebook and MySpace: a click-to-print capability (via a service like Kodak's) for all those photos, an option to buy movie tickets based on an instant message exchange and gift-buying buttons that flash alongside birthday notifications. Says Koretz: "You have to see intent, and then not annoy the hell out of people."

I don't know if BlueTie's idea will fly. But Koretz's last quote--"You have to see intent, and then not annoy the hell out of people"--is the best description I've seen in while of what it takes to be a successful 21st-century marketer. Whether you're advertising on TV, in the paper, or on the web, keep those words in mind.

Slate on the "weird science of stock photography"

Back in June I posted about some of the perils of stock photography. The bottom line is that today more than ever, audiences demand authenticity in communication, and it's hard to be authentic when you're using a photo that wasn't shot for a specific purpose. This is especially true in ads, where the audience is super sensitive to inauthenticity because they have so many other choices about how the use their eyeballs and ears.

But there's another risk in using stock photos: someone else may use the same shot--over and over again, in fact. Yesterday, Slate.com ran a great story about stock photography, and it included an example of duplicate use by competing interests:

A few years ago, a model/actress living in Portland did a one-day photo shoot on the campus of Reed College. She frolicked around the grounds and inside a classroom, wearing a purplish hat she'd borrowed from the wardrobe coordinator. The photos taken that day have subsequently appeared in ads for both Gateway and Dell; on the Web sites for a Canadian media planning company, a British science museum, the BBC, Microsoft Finland, Greyhound bus lines, etc.; and on the covers of countless books.

If a stock photo is good and inexpensive, you can be certain that someone else is probably already using it. Want to ensure that your photos are yours and yours alone? Buy the rights. Or hire a photographer.

McDonald's Egg-cellent Chi-town billboard

Most billboards ideas aren't all they're cracked up to be. Well, you sure can't say that about the one McDonald's hatched last week near Wrigley Field in Chicago.

The Arab Aquarius has the details:

The giant egg billboard starts cracking and opening up in the wee hours of morning. By breakfast time, the egg has already hatched, and you can see "Fresh Eggs Daily" written on the egg's yolk.

The egg stays open from 6:00AM till 10:30AM, to indicate the availability of fresh eggs during that time. Once the breakfast time is finished, the egg billboard shuts and stays closed as a whole egg till the next morning.

This is a classic example of the "reveal," where a message is hidden or incomplete for a time, creating curiosity and interest before the mystery is solved. Reveals have been so overdone that most are anticlimactic, but you can't say that about this one.

Hat tip: SBB reader and Chicago resident Julianne...thanks for sending it along!
Photo: The Arab Aquarius

How to reach sports fans beyond the stadium

With the opening of Lucas Oil Stadium just weeks away, advertisers are eagerly awaiting the chance to reach Colts fans in the team's new home. According to a recent post on Sports Marketing 2.0, though, online might be a better place to spend ad dollars targeted at sports fans:

There are 7.5 million Colts favorite team fans online and over 20% spend 20+ hours online each week!

[...]

[W]hen you consider that 68.7% of the US Population are NFL fans, and only 32 cities have NFL teams, it makes you realize that targeting stadiums and regions around stadiums fall way short of reaching the majority of NFL TEAM fans.

The upshot of all this is that team Web sites are the only way to reach MOST of the favorite team fan bases, yet most sponsors are totally focused on the stadium and the region around it.

While I agree with Pat's premise, I think in-stadium advertising has additional benefits when it can be seen on TV. Dasher boards, scoreboard signage, and other ads can give your brand some air time during the game, when fans eyes are focused on the screen. In-stadium advertising can be expensive, though, so just make sure you're buying as a marketer, not as a fan.

More great stuff from Toxel.com

Toxel.com digs up another round of great ad ideas in this post. Another reminder that advertising that's fun, daring, and a little different works a lot better than the same ol' same ol'.

The verdict on these Schroder Joseph and Associates' ads? Pretty good.

In February I posted about the killjoyness that is most law firm advertising. There's a strain of thinking that says since the law is a serious business, firms must promote themselves in only the most staid way possible, and anything that couldn't be created by Ross Fishman's Automatic Ad Generator falls outside the lines of good taste.

Well, the women at Schroder Joseph & Associates have a better idea: why not create ads that differentiate their firm, get noticed, and invite the audience to have a little fun? The all-female firm put together an ad campaign that does all of those things by turning some common stereotypes on their head. The Buffalo News explains:

“Ever Argue with a Woman?” reads the headline of one of the ads for Schroder Joseph & Associates LLP. “Labor Pains? Talk to us. (We’re women . . . We get it),” states another

Of course, some of the stuffier shirts at the American Bar Association website have gotten their wing tips all winged out over the whole thing. More from the Buffalo News:

The main criticisms of the ads, which play up the firm’s feminine strengths, is that they perpetuate sexual stereotyping.

“Great, next they’ll sell us on female surgeons because they sew better,” reads a post on adrants.com.

A comment on the ABA Web site said the ads open the door to male lawyers touting masculine virtues and suggests some not-so-politically-correct tag lines.

“Men Work Harder and Don’t Take Time Off For Childbirth” or “How Many Women Play Pro Football . . . Women Are Weak,” are two of the proposed male-centric ads.

(Obviously, the genius who came up with those probably wouldn't know a good headline if it hit him in the bow tie.)

Another unique twist to the story is that the ads not were the brainchild of in-house marketing staff or an ad agency; the idea came from Jennifer Dowdell of Business First, a Buffalo-area business weekly:

“This wasn’t about ‘we’re women, hear us roar,’ ” Dowdell said. “But they are an all-women firm, which makes them unique.”

Like it or not, ABA scolds, if you're not unique, you're invisible. And if you're going to create safe, boring ads, you may as well not run them at all.

Simple. Awesome.

You know what's going to happen when people see this new campaign for National Aquarium in Baltimore? They're going to want to go to the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Great stuff from GKV. To see more from the campaign, visit Toxel.com.

Breakthrough ad ideas from Toxel.com

At some point, someone probably said no to all the ideas shown in this post from Toxel.com. The finance guy said they were too expensive to execute. The media buyer said they didn't fit into the plan. And the lawyers--well, they said no before you even finished explaining what you were trying to do.

But here's the thing: someone eventually said yes. And when you have a good, breakthrough idea, all you need is for the right people to say yes, regardless of how many people say no. It's a little harder than doing the same thing as everyone else, but in today's communication environment, can you really afford to do the same thing as everyone else?

She probably thinks Kim Possible is a total harlot

This from this morning's Journal Gazette, in a story about "Toll Road detractors":

Everyone seems to agree that bringing electronic tolling to Indiana was long overdue. But the advertising campaign urging Hoosiers to purchase a transponder, which saves them money on tolls, is another thing.

i-Zoom Girl is the buxom superhero mascot of the program. She was created by a South Bend advertising firm and has been on billboards and radio ads for months in the northern region of the state.

“I am mortified by the action figure I saw advertising these changes,” said Beth Williams, of Goshen, in a letter sent to Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman. “The year is 2008. How could anyone think that a large breasted, small waisted, scantily clad Barbie-type figure would be appropriate for this new venture?”

Williams says she is not a prude but found the mascot offensive and suggested instead that perhaps a race car might better fit the campaign.

A few notes:

• Actually, Williams is a prude
  
• Buxom ain't what it used to be, apparently
• Not sure which "South Bend advertising firm" this is, but I feel your pain
  

Scan from the Journal Gazette, because despite my best efforts to find her online, I-Zoom Girl appears to be too sexy for the web

Philly.com says fake online campaign kicks butt

Philly.com has a message for people like me who are a little skeptical about the effectiveness of online advertising: "kiss my derrière."

Last week, Philadelphia Media Holdings ran ads on the web and in the Inquirer and the Daily News for Derrie-Air, "the world's only carbon-neutral luxury airline." The ads clicked through to a landing page that described Derrie-Air's unique pricing strategy:

The magic comes from our one of a kind "Sliding Scale"—the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B. So we will charge passengers based on how much mass they add to the plane. The heavier you and your luggage are, the more trees we'll plant to make up for the trouble of flying you from place to place.

Prices were listed by the pound--$1.40/lb. from Philadelphia to Chicago, for example--and customers were offered amentities ranging from "spacious private washrooms outfitted with porcelain fixtures and gilded faucets" to "loofah scrubs." For anyone who still didn't get the joke, this disclaimer appeared at the bottom of the page:

The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens. All names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, and other information appearing in this campaign and the associated website are fictitious. Any resemblance to real or fictitious names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, or other information, is purely coincidental and unintentional. In other words, smile, we're pulling your leg.

So what were the results of the "test"? According to SmartBrief.com, the campaign garnered a 1.25% click rate, "well above the U.S. industry average 0.05%*."

Now, I don't want to seem like the fun police, and I give Philly.com credit for having a sense of humor. But I also think the campaign outperformed most online ads mainly due to referrals from:

• People who got the joke and wanted to share it
• People who were curious and wanted to check things out more closely (in other words, people who were tricked into clicking)
• People in the ad industry who heard about the campaign
• People at Philly.com who were proud of their own work

So was the Derrie-Air campaign representative of how online advertising truly performs? No. But it does reveal something that's true of all advertising efforts: create a remarkable product that seems too good to be true, and you'll get attention. Of course, that attention only matters if your product really exists.

*A rep recently gave me an industry average of 0.02%. Sounds like Derrie-Air's pricing isn't the only thing with a "sliding scale."

What do you watch, listen to, and read?

This morning, one of the first things I did was walk outside and grab the Sunday paper. It's an old habit dating back to when I was a kid living just outside of Boston. Every Sunday, with few other things competing for my attention, I'd study the Red Sox box score in the Globe and read the weekly Peter Gammons column. This usually served as a gateway read, exposing me to issues and ideas throughout the rest of the paper that I might not have heard about otherwise. This was a good thing for a kid whose thoughts usually only ranged from Hank Aaron to Paul Zuvella.

Today, of course, things are different. The Journal Gazette is part of my Sunday morning ritual, but I spend significantly less time with the paper than I used to. That is somewhat a result of having less time, but it's also a reflection of my changing media habits. And I'd bet your habits are changing, too. All of us have more choices, which usually means less time spent with traditional media--newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio--in favor of new media.

All of this got me thinking about how it's much more difficult for advertisers to reach me these days, and much less likely that I'll be exposed to "unfiltered" information from outside my range of interests, for better or for worse. Here's a snapshot of how much time I spend with ad-supported media. How much opportunity does anyone have to reach me with an unsolicited message?

- The Internet is the big kahuna of my media consumption time. I spend at least an hour a night on the web, and as much as three hours some nights during the week. That doesn't count the time I spend on the web while at work, or the hours I'm online on the weekend, which vary from a couple to a couple dozen. However, I believe banner blindness is very real, and I can think of only about three times when I've clicked on a web ad. However, I know word of mouth (through e-mail, blogs, customer reviews, etc.) has a big effect on me, as does PR/earned media. In short, if you want to reach me, the web is where you'll find me. But it's unlikely you'll reach me with an ad.

- TV is where I most clearly divert from the norm. The only TV in my house is the one my wife has had since college (and she graduated in 1990). There is no such thing as "must see" TV in my world, and it's rare that I turn it on for anything other than occasional background noise. And while I'd like to attribute my rejection of TV to some Zen state of being or a preference for more high-brow activities, I'll steal a quote from Lev Grossman*: "I can get away with not having a TV partly because my personal life is so amazingly rich and satisfying but mostly because I have a computer." In fact, instead of upgrading my TV, I'm thinking of getting rid of it altogether.

- Radio is also a low-impact medium for me. When I'm in the car, I usually listen to a CD or I'm on the phone. I listen to a decent amount of NPR stuff on WBOI/98.1, but other than that, radio is a nonentity. And WBOI is, of course, "commercial free." So unless you're a public radio underwriter (sidenote: I don't think there's much of a distinction between advertising and underwriting), you won't get my attention.

- Newspapers and me, as mentioned above, go way back. But that's not to say that my newspaper reading habits haven't changed. In addition to Sunday, I read the paper on Saturday since its delivered as part of the ever-expanding Journal Gazette "weekend" subscription (which I think now includes everything but the third Tuesday of the month). Other than that, though, I almost never read a printed copy of the JG, and I read other papers only rarely, except when a blog post or a friend directs me to a story online. I used to go to the Fort Wayne Newspapers website just about every day, but now I have the sections I'm interested in--Local, Business, and Opinion--"delivered" to me via RSS feeds. And when Google Reader is your morning paper, guess how many ads you see? (Well, at least until next week.)

- Magazines still get some of my discretionary time. I subscribe to a few, and because they're aligned with my interests I'm sure the ads I see have some impact on me. The ones I read regularly include Runner's World and Men's Health (although I'm almost certain to cancel my subscription soon since all they write about is food, sex, and abs exercises...I'm not sure why I subscribed to begin with), and local publications like the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, Business People, and Fort Wayne Monthly. But overall, my time spent with magazines is declining. A great example is Time, which I subscribed to for more than 10 years before canceling a couple years ago. It just seemed like most of its content was old news by the time it hit my mailbox. This is where local magazines have an advantage, because it's hard to find the same information on the web and the content is potentially more relevant to my information needs.

- Outdoor is the one medium that seems to be least impacted by new media. But it's also among the media most likely to be executed in a way that makes it totally ineffective. Creating a billboard is deceptively difficult, but if you follow the rules of good design, I'll listen to what you have to say. But only for about three seconds.

As someone in marketing, I continue to use myself as a reality check when considering how to connect an audience and a message. It's not easy today, and it's not going to get any easier as technology continues to give us more choices.

How about you? What do you watch, listen to, and read? How have your media consumption habits changed during the past few years?

*Recommended reading: Lev Grossman's "Getting Rid of My TV" at time.com

Scott the Nametag Guy says "your marketing sucks"

Scott Ginsberg, that guy with the perpetual nametag, posted a great list yesterday: "46 Marketing Mistakes Your Company Is (Probably) Making." Some great advice, and it all boils down to this:

If you stopped advertising, would ANYBODY even notice?

Altruistic all too infrequently: AdAge on "meaningful marketing"

During the past couple of days, AdAge.com has published a few great articles on what happens when marketers act responsibly. Granted, one of the reasons marketers behave is to get you to buy stuff. But still, it's a nice reminder that marketing doesn't have to be evil.

A few snippets...

In "Make Your Marketing Useful, Like Samsung and Charmin," Jonah Bloom gives some great examples of "useful marketing," like Samsung's airport charging stations, and challenges other companies to spend money on something other than advertising:

My suggestions: AT&T, for example, how about you spare a few million from the billion you spend shoving your bars in my face, and help the MTA fix its Subway intercoms? Or Citi, how about you take some of the hundred million a year you spend telling us how friendly you are to construct a wireless network for New York? (Hell, I can even see an adaptation of the umbrella in your logo as a wireless signal.) BP, you really want to convince us you're green, how about putting together a borrow-a-bike system in a few U.S. cities, like the ones in Paris, Berlin and Munich?

In "Top Advertisers Add Meaning to Marketing," Jack Neff profiles one agency that is looking to make its work more fulfilling:

Young marketers or agency executives don't take long to learn they've dedicated their lives to creating stuff people seek to avoid, and with increasing success. But Bridge, a digital unit of WPP Group's Wunderman in, of all places, Cincinnati, ancestral homeland of Procter & Gamble Co. and interruptive advertising as we know it, thinks it has a disarmingly simple answer: "Marketing with Meaning."

[...]

[A]s Mr. Woffington and Chief Marketing Strategist Bob Gilbreath see it, the idea is to make the marketing the cause, with intrinsic value to consumers so it pulls them in rather than be thrust upon them where they can least avoid it.

"Consumers hate advertising," Mr. Gilbreath wrote in a preamble for a WPP Digital-backed discussion group last year. "Meanwhile, consumers hate us -- the marketers and advertisers who invent new ways to spam them online and offline. The result: CMO and agency turnover is rising dramatically, and advertisers are ranked below lawyers in terms of public respect."

[...]

Bridge's alternative, according to Mr. Woffington: "How do you make sure your marketing is held up to the same standard the product is? ... P&G says their products improve people's lives. But how about the marketing? Does the marketing itself improve consumers' lives? ... That's a much higher standard than just selling more product."

And in "Yes, There Is an ROI for Doing Good," Neff argues that cause marketing can be profitable--and often is:

Though you might not always glean this by looking at the home pages of the consumer-products giants touting their latest philanthropic or earth-saving gestures, these are for-profit entities.

While the cynical outlook, repeated endlessly across the blogosphere, is that cause marketing is all about making money, perhaps the more mature, post-cynical outlook is, yes, of course it is, and, well, it should be.

As someone who's worked in marketing for more than a decade, I can tell you that it's not always easy to see the good in the work we do. Part of the problem is that the profession seems to attract a disproportionate number of people who put style before substance (not you, of course--you're a borderline saint, and just perfect just the way you are). A bigger problem is that the ultimate goal of marketing is to sell something, and since people can be greedy they often stop at nothing to try to get you to buy their stuff.

But maybe our struggling economy is forcing us to take a closer look at how we present products and services. Or maybe it's just a phase. Either way, when no one's buying much, being responsible at least allows you to feel good about yourself, even if you don't feel good about your bottom line.

Photo: Gadget Guy Dave M on Flickr