September 23, 2007

"Of the People, By the People, For the People"

In two months, it will be 134 years since Lincoln spoke those lines. And yet they may embody a prescription for effective marketing and communications in today's consumer-driven world.

At the Aspen Institute this summer, we heard a presentation by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, the husband-and-wife team who sold their education software company in the mid-'90's and were looking around for another one to start, when they became concerned that our government was becoming paralyzed by the Clinton impeachment proceedings. While they certainly didn't condone the President's behavior, they thought it was time to move on beyond the nation's obsession with it and attend to the much more vital issues of the day.

They e-mailed fewer than 100 friends to ask if they would like to join some kind of loosely defined initiative to urge that the country move on past this discursive issue. And, within two weeks, they had more than 250,000 individuals who signed up to say "Yes. Count us in."

Today they have 3.3 million.

And, of course, that organization is MoveOn.org.

It has become convenient to label MoveOn as a liberal group, and there's no doubt that it's positions tend to be on the liberal side. But that isn't driven by the leadership of MoveOn. It's driven by the members.

And that's what I find so interesting - and instructive - about MoveOn.

It's truly run by the members. Boyd and Blades are merely facilitators...hooker-up-ers. They said, "We're in the service business, figuring out ways for people to be involved. We try to connect up what people want to do with what's possible."

In 2004, for example, they asked members to create ads on issues that mattered to them. More than 1,000 ads were submitted. And the ads they ran came from the members.

Members define the issues, the positions, the communications.

It is the new "public square." Boyd and Blades pointed out that it's increasingly difficult to have a real "public square." Most gathering/shopping occurs in malls, and they are privately owned and generally do not permit distribution of literature. Traditional media are expensive for relatively small national organizations like MoveOn, so the Internet becomes the way to go.

Yes, there are exceptions, such as the recent Petraeus ad that got so much publicity. These are mass manifestations of opinions shared by the many individuals within MoveOn that have said, yes we want to take a position on this, yes we want to invest our own money on it, yes we want to create an ad that puts a really strong stake in the ground.

This is truly marketing and communications of the people, by the people, for the people. And it's very powerful.

If Detroit were as sensitive to its customer base, it would never have gotten into the pickle it's in today. There are lots of other examples of other tin ears out there.

It's a great challenge to develop the mechanism for timely, continuous input from your customer base...to listen to it and respond to it...and let it even take you sometimes to zones of discomfort but great possibilities.

September 16, 2007

Comments

I love to get comments. I won't publish them unless they are signed. Some anonymous ones are interesting, but I'm not too crazy about hiding behind anonymity.

Becca's point is well taken. "Having it our way" in culture can be both selfish and limiting. I remember the first De Sica film I saw. I was impatient with this legendary director's pace. But then I got into it and he totally captivated me. Would I mistakedly fast forward, were I first exposed to his work today?

Yesterday we went to one of my favorite museums in the world, the Nasher Collection in Dallas. Ray and Patsy Nasher may have had the best "eye" of their time. He died this year, and she died a few years ago. Together they put together the most exquisite collection of modern sculpture in the world. It is exhibited in their jewel box museum, designed by Renzo Piano.

Anyway...the place was filled with people of all ages and types yesterday and I watched as they each experienced the place in entirely different ways. And with sculpture, you can move around the art, so you really have so many more ways of seeing. There was this wonderful symphony of different ways people were individually experiencing the art and I must say it seemed to be an experience totally consistent with today's consumer environment.

Space Matters

Being in a Renzo Piano designed museum reminds you of how important the setting is...not only for experiencing art, but also for our every day lives. Yesterday's Financial Times includes a piece about the research that has been conducted to analyze how different kinds of spaces affect the brain. People are happier and more productive in spaces that are well lit, have lots of color, and a certain degree of messiness that promotes eye contact. High ceilings enhance creativity. And there's more. A good source of information is a book to which we've referred before: The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton.

The article includes a great quote from Frank Gehry. It could as well apply to our business of marketing and communications. At a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last year, Gehry warned against being too prescriptive: "What enables you to find the cure for cancer is not to follow steps A, B, C. Some accidental thing in the lab will happen. You follow your intuition, it is an informed intuition and you have the 'eureka moment.'"

September 3, 2007

Making Numbers Come Alive

It's often challenging to make numbers matter. "Bill Gates is worth more than $50 billion." "The Atlantic Ocean covers about 31 million square miles." Tough to visualize those numbers. And yet, as we communicate in behalf of our clients, it's so important to make the numbers come alive...best done, typically, by relating them to something else.

A great example was the recent opening of the Venetian Macao Resort. How big is it? "Three times the size of the largest casino in Las Vegas." It "has more floor space than four Empire State Buildings." Great descriptors. And so easy to remember. Bravo Venetian Macao Resort promoters!

The Importance of Empowering Customers

We read so much about empowering customers these days. Three examples that recently caught my eye related to philanthropy, museums, and automobiles.

The Case Foundation (started by AOL founder Steve Case and his wife Jean) is asking the public to help them decide how to award their grants. Individuals and small local nonprofit groups can submit ideas for improving communities, and a panel of judges will select the recipients.

This practice is being followed by an increasing number of foundations, including the Rockefeller Foundation which solicits ideas on its Website. What used to be a we-decide-who-gets-our-money business is gradually morphing into a collaborative endeavor. Reaching beyond one's own sphere is fast becoming the rule.

A recent analysis of the decline of symphony orchestra audiences combined with the boom in art museum attendance concludes that what makes the museums so popular is that visitors can customize their own experience. I notice this when I go to a museum. I typically have a specific purpose...to see one or two works or one specific exhibition. I notice that others have their own agendas as well. We all "have it our way." By contrast, go to a symphony concert and you're stuck listening to what they want you to hear, in the order and at the speed they want you to hear it.

Finally, an online campaign for GM cars is customized to provide each recipient an ad that emphasizes what that recipient is most likely to respond to, based upon the recipient's Web habits. Creepy? A little, I think. But kind of fascinating as well.

A Wonderful Quote in Honor of Our Friend Henry Romaine Who Lived It

"Use all your senses, all the time...Take pains with the work; do it carefully. Relish the details. Enjoy your hunger. And remember why you're there." - Julia Child