Consumer Group Can’t Be This Naive

It’s kind of cute. Apparently, the consumer group Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood really thought the people who make Dove soap came up with their much-praised “Campaign for Real Beauty” for some reason other than to sell bars of soap. But the scales have dropped from their eyes all right! According to the LA Times:

A consumer group accused Unilever of hypocrisy Tuesday for running conflicting advertising campaigns — one for Dove that praises women and their natural beauty and one for Axe that the group said “blatantly objectifies and degrades” them.

The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood launched a letter-writing effort on its website and demanded the company pull ads for the Axe line of grooming products for men, which one online pitch says makes “nice girls turn naughty.”

Unilever shouldn’t be commended for Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” while promoting products with a starkly different message, said Susan Linn, the consumer group’s director and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

“The campaign says they’re going to help girls to resist a toxic marketing environment but they’re creating that environment as well,” Linn said.

Both campaigns are clever attempts to push the right buttons to stimulate their respective target audiences. In this case, there is probably zero overlap between the horny teenage boys who are supposed to buy Axe and the skin-texture-obsessed women who buy Dove beauty soap.

The consumer groups surely understand this. They’ve just found a good PR angle to draw attention to themselves, albeit by insulting the intelligence of the rabble they seek to rouse.

Nevertheless, a flack tries to keep Santa alive for another season:

PR Agencies Keep Trying “Stealth.” Why? (*Updated)

By now, you’d think the major PR firms, the ones staffed by the crème de la crème, that snag the biggest, most prestigious accounts, would have learned that you can’t get away with a campaign premised on hiding the identity of the client.

Doing so is regarded as unethical by everyone you’re trying to persuade. Disclosure–which is almost inevitable–has a disproportionately negative effect, and the client risks being left in a worse position than if they’d done nothing.

But “nothing” of course means “no fees for you.” So instead of giving clients a real-world expectation of the dangers of a super-secret stealth campaign in an era of relentless transparency, agencies push bad ideas that get them paid.

Burson-Marsteller has apparently spent the past few years paying no attention to their own industry. And Microsoft’s amnesia is truly incredible for a company that sells “memory.” Get a load of this from the UK Observer:

Microsoft is at the centre of an embarrassing row over an attempt by a lobby firm strongly linked with the Seattle computer giant to rally opposition against rival Google’s proposed acqusition of internet marketing firm DoubleClick.

The Observer has seen an email sent by a director at leading lobby firm Burson-Marsteller to a number of top UK businesses. The email urges board members to raise the issue of Google’s dominance of search engines with politicians, regulators and the media.

The email asks companies to join a new organisation – Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplaces – which in the next few weeks will make a series of announcements on Google, internet privacy and copyright.

The email’s author is Jonathan Dinkeldein, a director of B-M. He admitted the firm was working with Microsoft on the initiative. A spokeswoman for Microsoft agreed that the firm has an ‘ongoing relationship with Burson-Marsteller’ but said it is not lobbying for Microsoft.

Relations between Microsoft and Google are fraught and the development comes at a sensitive time. Concern over Google’s dominance in online advertising prompted the US federal trade commission to probe its £1.56bn takeover of DoubleClick. Google itself asked the European Commision to investigate the takeover.

Microsoft has objected to the tie-up on the grounds that it will combine the two largest advertising distributors on the internet.

It lost in the auction for DoubleClick.

When asked about the email, Dinkeldein admited the organisation was formed by Microsoft. Dinkeldein added that his initiative attracted several orgnanisations to join it.

But executives contacted by The Observer told of their disquiet at being ‘cold-called’ in this manner. The emails included newspaper articles from the Financial Times and the Economist which some executives were concerned broke copyright rules. Others suggested that by not disclosing who Burson-Marsteller was representing, the firm was breaking the spirit of political lobby firms’ code of conduct.

Vogue Takes A Stand: If You Don’t Want Us to Advertise Cigarettes, Pass a Law

As this country ages away from its founders’ vision, we get more and more ambivalent about free speech.  Examples abound, but today’s story (possibly $$) about Vogue and Glamour’s publishers’ statements supporting a refusal to stop running ads for cigarettes helps illuminate the labyrinth our culture is building to deal with unpopular speech. 

The leader of a group of U.S. representatives that has been asking women’s magazines to voluntarily give up cigarette advertising said she is unsatisfied with publishers’ response — or, more often, their lack of response.

“I am extremely disappointed with the decision of these 11 women’s magazines to continue running ads promoting cigarette smoking,” said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., in her third and latest open letter. “These ads encourage a fatally addictive habit and are especially targeted at young women. It’s just flat-out hypocritical to run stories about becoming more beautiful and healthy while promoting a dangerous product responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.”

Vogue’s response was disturbing.  Despite his industry’s reliance on the First Amendment, publisher Thomas A. Florio wants Congress to punch a hole in it.  He objects to being pressured politically to withdraw the ad on his own, but he doesn’t object to being compelled to do so by law.  

Do Macs Make You Cranky?

Then you will love this post from the Guardian’s Comment is Free page.  Apparently those Bill-Gates-but-with-a-pot-belly vs. Jimmy-Fallon-except-smart ads migrated to the UK last month, with different actors; David Mitchell and Robert Webb, respectively.  They are a comedy duo of some repute over there. 

The ads backfired on Charles Brooker, and then some.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, “I hate Macs”, and then I think, “Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?” Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

(snip)

Aside from crowing about sartorial differences, the adverts also make a big deal about PCs being associated with “work stuff” (Boo! Offices! Boo!), as opposed to Macs, which are apparently better at “fun stuff”. How insecure is that? And how inaccurate? Better at “fun stuff”, my arse. The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal “adventure” in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-’em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac’s relationship with “fun”.

Yeah, that Mac mouse button has been a barrier to my switching for a long while.  I love to right-click.   And count me as one who would be more likely to spend $1200 on something made by the glasses-wearing nerd, than $2000 on something put together by the hipster, who was probably out all night nightclubbing and still hadn’t come down from that hit of Ecstasy when he put the machine in the box for shipping.

(Thanks, Assymetrical Information.)

Put Down that Sock-Puppet or I’ll Shoot!

If you’re an author with a book being sold on Amazon, and you post a fake rave review, or if you’re a company that creates a fake blog where consumers are represented as raving about your product, you could be prosecuted in Europe as a criminal!  From Britain’s TimesOnline:

Online consumer reviews are playing an ever greater role in shaping shopping habits, with websites such as TripAdvisor for the travel industry being seen as increasingly influential.

However, a string of businessman in the UK and the US have been caught posing as supposedly independent customers in an attempt to boost sales.

A recent investigation found that poorly rated travel establishments could lift their reputations from one to four stars in hours by posting fictional positive reviews.

Shortly before Christmas, the owner of the Drumnadrochit Hotel near Loch Ness admitted to posting a fake review of his own venue on the TripAdvisor site, calling it “outstanding” and “charming”. David Bremner said: “Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

Well, it is certainly true that before I buy anything, I try to find customer reviews to verify the manufacturer’s claims.  Don’t you?  But I take anything I read with a grain of salt.  I’m not sure I’m ready to see some poor hotel owner locked up in a Brussels prison for trying to lure me in.  What about “buyer beware?” 

I think the Word of Mouth marketing trend, all the research suggesting “people like me” can make me want to buy something, runs aground right here.  I’ve watched fake “people like me” try to sell me stuff on TV my whole life.  You’d have to be pretty naive to think the Internet is magically different from all other media in this respect.

Farewell to Anna Nicole Smith; Farewell to the 1990s

As gross as the public Anna Nicole Smith became later in her life, I will always remember those amazing Guess? Jeans print ads. She was featured in small-town and farm settings, wearing a gingham blouse to go with the jeans.  In my memory (I can’t find any copies of these ads online), Anna Nicole sits on bails of hay, rides in a convertible with a scarf on her head, leans against a fence; unaware of her exotic looks, feeling right at home in a “Last Picture Show” world.  

Those ads almost perfectly embodied pop culture in America in the 1990s: A dream landscape of baby-boomer nostalgia…a yearning for the pre-1960s pleasures of a simpler life, black and white movies, amber waves of grain, innocent yet abundant sexuality. 

Back when those ads ran, I think everybody wanted to live in that world. Even Bill Clinton chased the dream with a similar idealization of long-ago, imagined times, Monica Lewinsky. Monica was the earnest co-ed to Anna Nicole’s serene country girl.  Same kind of childlike face and voluptuous figure, same innocent, idealistic facade. 

And the same big mess when the dream faded into the ethers, and the aging dreamers moved on — to the emergencies and disasters of the 2000s, to the disappointment of realizing how meaningless these fantasies always were.

With Anna Nicole Smith’s unfortunate but seemingly inevitable passing, the 1990s finally goes down the memory hole, gone for good.  Those times weren’t meant to last.

Responsibility for Child Abuse

I’m fascinated by the twist that the case of former Rep. Mark Foley has taken toward trying to locate the source of his predatory behavior at the precise moment in his childhood when a Catholic priest apparently fondled him. The Nancy Grace types scorn this as “the abuse excuse,” an attempt by wrongdoers like Foley to shift the blame and avoid responsibility. That’s how Foley’s statements initially hit my ears, too.

But then it turned out Foley wasn’t lying. The priest in question, Father Mercieca, publicly said, “Once maybe I touched him” during their naked times together in a jacuzzi.

Fr Mercieca said he had befriended the boy after he arrived in Florida from Brazil.

The priest said he didn’t understand why Mr Foley had decided to come forward after almost 40 years.

“`Why does he want to destroy me in my old age?” Fr Mercieca told the newspaper.

“I would say that if I offended him, I am sorry. But remember the good times we had together and how we enjoyed each other’s company, and let bygones be bygones,” he told WPTV.

Ugh.

And now, less than 24 hours later, the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami has issued a public apology to Foley.

THE Catholic Church today apologised for the “inexcusable” behaviour of a priest who allegedly fondled Mark Foley when the now disgraced ex-Republican politician was an altar boy.

“An apology is due to Mr. Foley for the hurt he has experienced,” the Archdiocese of Miami said after the State Attorney’s office in Palm Beach, Florida identified the priest who allegedly abused the former politician four decades ago.

“Such behaviour is morally reprehensible, canonically criminal and inexcusable,” the Church said.

Meanwhile, Foley is being encouraged by activists to file a police report, even though the statute of limitations has probably run out.

This story illustrates what we all know about child abuse — that it is passed on, that the abused frequently become the abusers. We might be able to learn from Fr. Mercieca about the episode in his childhood that led him to mistreat a child this way. Beyond that, the path will surely get murky, but going forward, there will be a record, if any of Foley’s victims become abusers.

Another angle to examine: Fr. Mercieca claimed his abuse occured because he was “down…taking tranquilizers.” And Foley has blamed alcohol for his actions. Again, the popular response is, “there they go again, shifting responsibility.” But maybe we need to think a little deeper about this. How many child molesters are sober when they commit their crimes? A primary role for alcohol in society is to lower inhibitions — that’s why it is served at parties, to help overcome social awkwardness. But in the hands of the abused/abuser, it is often the fuel that takes their awful fantasies into the realm of reality.

Truly, I am not suggesting that an abuser should be viewed sympathetically if they claim they were drunk or on drugs when they committed their heinous acts. If anything, I am suggesting the reverse. Perhaps there needs to be an affirmative responsibility on the part of those who are suppressing these evil impulses to stay away from alcohol and drugs, and to seek help in doing so. “Know thyself” needs to become more than just good advice, but a legal and moral responsibility.

There also needs to be an affirmative responsibility on the part of the alcohol industry to warn their customers that their product lowers inhibitions and might lead to extremely regrettable behavior. They already warn about drinking and driving and drinking while pregnant or nursing; but drinking and abuse are at least as big a threat. What would be so terrible if the alcohol industry were forced to post signs and create ads warning that, for certain individuals, drinking leads to abusive, criminal behavior? If it makes one potential abuser think twice, it might be worth it.

It is particularly reprehensible that a doctor prescribed tranquilizers, as Fr. Mercieca has said, and the result was his woozy indulgence in child sexual abuse. Who was the doctor? What were the pills? Do they bear any responsibility for these acts on the part of Fr. Mercieca, and thus for Foley? If doctors are aware that drugs they are prescribing have the effect of lowering inhibitions or overcoming good judgement, then they need to develop a risk profile of their patients before letting them have a prescription. Doesn’t that make sense? Shouldn’t the doctors at least be required to ask questions like, “Were you sexually abused as a child? Do you harbor fantasies of having sex with a child?”

Believe me, in some ways I recoil from the implications of my own thoughts here. I am talking about a massive increase in exposure to legal liability for doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers and those who make and sell alcohol. I am also adding a layer of prosecutable offenses to what is already illegal — child abuse — by suggesting that individuals must be held accountable for knowing their own risk factors, and structuring their lives to minimize those risks. The trial lawyers hardly need more slop to feed on.

But if we have the power to break this chain of abuse by aggressive social intervention of this nature, shouldn’t we at least explore the potential to end this tragedy? Because it is a tragedy that ultimately victimizes the most innocent. If we can protect them, shouldn’t we?

Update on Swag Bags and the IRS

Randi Schmelzer’s piece in PR Week (link for subscribers) on the IRS’ position that “swag bags” are taxable straightens out some of my own confusion in the previous post on this topic. The IRS has determined that the swag baskets are not gifts, and that is why they will be taxed from now on. From Schmelzer’s story:

If any organization is truly benefiting from this news, however, it’s the IRS. Focusing on both recipient reporting and the filing of Form 1099 by merchandise providers, the IRS’ outreach program includes letters to entertainment industry groups and tax professionals, an online FAQ, and plenty of media relations, according to Nancy Mathis, a DC-based public affairs specialist at the IRS.

“Any individual’s requirement is to pay tax on income,” she said. “You are not required to pay taxes on gifts, [but] our position is that these… are items given with the expectation of something in return, that use by a celebrity will enhance sales, and the products themselves serve as compensation.”

Okay, I’m a celebrity, and I get a gift basket that has some items in it I wouldn’t be caught dead using. Can I return them so I won’t have to pay taxes on them? And, if am given an item I don’t want, can I avoid taxes by declaring that I un-endorse it? “Hi, I’m a celebrity, and for the record, I never wear Axe body spray. The gallon of Axe body spray I was given in a swag bag went straight down the kitchen sink.”

Schmelzer’s piece includes quotes from PR firms whose business is focused heavily on filling these bags with swag:

Everyone is talking about it,” said Kari Feinstein, whose eponymous PR firm organizes brand, charity, and Young Hollywood-melding “style lounges.” “Even the guy at the car wash asked me about it.”

General consensus among celebrity gift-oriented firms is that while there is reason to proceed with caution, the demise of swag may be greatly exaggerated.

Feinstein said brands want to be in touch with stars, and vice versa. “That [won't] stop,” she added. “It’s too beneficial.”

“The whole intersection between Hollywood Boulevard and Madison Avenue isn’t going away,” added Lash Fary, founder of LA-based entertainment marketing firm Distinctive Assets. “It’s too important to the brands I work with.”

It might be important to the brands, but the key question is: Is it important enough to the celebrities to go through the hassle and expense of taking these products home? Celebrities are smart enough to understand that they help sell the products, but if you make it hard for them, why would they bother?

The art of real-life product placement is that you slip these products into celebrity hands stealthily, and then make sure someone else sees it, hears about it and photographs it. The celeb is working for you, and it’s only costing you the wholesale price of the item you gave them. If it’s costing the celebrity? Seems like that changes the dynamic, and puts us back in the world of paid endorsement contracts. But maybe the PR pros who specialize in this business are more creative than me.

The PR Tax (UPDATED)

Swag bags are part of popular culture now. Both “Entourage” and “The Sopranos” built episodes this season around the lavish gift-giving to celebrities at awards shows and film festivals. So it stands to reason that the IRS, which sometimes functions as a Ministry of Envy, would decide to start taxing these gifts that can be worth as much as $100,000, and would probably have continued to escalate if the government hadn’t stepped in. From the LA Times’ coverage:

“There was an awful lot of publicity about the ever-increasing value of these baskets,” IRS Commissioner Mark V. Everson said. “And somebody said, ‘Why don’t we do something about this?’ It was just so clearly taxable we felt we had to step in.”

The IRS reminded Oscar presenters before this year’s ceremony that noncash compensation was just as taxable as a paycheck. Everson said the effort was linked to his drive to bring “a sense of fairness that resonates throughout the system. You can’t let the rich get away with something.”

Legally, these baskets might be deemed gifts, but in gift-giving, it’s the thought that counts, and the thought behind swag bags is purely mercenary — product-placement PR. The thought being that if Will Ferrell wears the sunglasses or wristwatch, while enjoying the comp week at a pricey resort, someone might see it — in People magazine, or the National Enquirer. That’s a huge bang for the buck, worth more than advertising at a fraction of the cost. Guests visiting his home might enjoy his new plasma TV and want one like it. Friends might smell his new cologne and ask him for its name. That’s “WOM,” word-of-mouth publicity. All to give brands the right kind of visibility, and associate it with the coolest of the cool.

The product-placement concept is growing in many directions; I wonder if the IRS’ decision will have an impact.

For example: If you read the PR blogs about PR blogging, you frequently see giveaways mentioned as a key strategy to get bloggers on your side. The suave PR person is supposed to note that a trusted someone is blogging about electronic games, say; or maybe writes a lot about wine. An e-mail is sent: “I’m enjoying your blog tremendously. You’ve got a lot of cred. Hey, would you like to try …” and offer (never unsolicited!) a free sample, a beta test, whatever. If the blogger likes it, the suave PR person will encourage them to write about it.

Will these giveaways also be taxed? I detected a note of panic in these comments:

“Wow — this is insane,” J. Dubb, the marketing director for Five Four Clothing, the maker of high-end urban apparel, said when informed of the IRS announcement. (At this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Five Four was handing out cartloads of clothing in its crowded freebie suite.)

“It’s hard to say what the impact will be, but it will definitely be a hit,” Dubb said. “But we think [celebrities] like our stuff enough that they’d be willing to pay tax.”

Britt Johnson, whose Los Angeles events company Mediaplacement organized a freebie suite at last year’s Golden Globe Awards, said past recipients of swag may soon hesitate when offered ostensibly free products. “You are going to see a lot of people turning things down,” Johnson said, “and a lot more people donating to charity.”

I agree with Johnson, not Dubb. The prospect of paying a tax will be a massive disincentive. For the marketers, the idea that their gift baskets would be auctioned off for charity is also somewhat of a disincentive, because the point was to adorn celebrities with these items, not a bunch of nobodies who win silent auctions.

The solution is obvious. Every item in every gift basket should come accompanied by an endorsement contract. Be a little more business-like, folks. I’m not a tax accountant, but it seems to me that if you get the celebrities to sign something that says “I will wear your high-end urban apparel to assist in your promotional efforts,” then it’s no longer a gift. Perhaps there is another tax consequence, but since it’s an upfront exchange of value, I would guess it’s more favorable.

UPDATE:  Randi Schmelzer’s piece in PR Week (link for subscribers) straightens out some of my own confusion, as well as the Times’.  The IRS has determined that the swag baskets are not gifts, and that is why they will be taxed from now on.

If any organization is truly benefiting from this news, however, it’s the IRS. Focusing on both recipient reporting and the filing of Form 1099 by merchandise providers, the IRS’ outreach program includes letters to entertainment industry groups and tax professionals, an online FAQ, and plenty of media relations, according to Nancy Mathis, a DC-based public affairs specialist at the IRS.

“Any individual’s requirement is to pay tax on income,” she said. “You are not required to pay taxes on gifts, [but] our position is that these… are items given with the expectation of something in return, that use by a celebrity will enhance sales, and the products themselves serve as compensation.”

Okay, I’m a celebrity, and I get a gift basket that has some items in it I wouldn’t be caught dead using.  Can I return them so I won’t have to pay taxes on them?   And, if I return an item I don’t want, am I required to publicize that fact?  “Hi, I’m a celebrity, and for the record, I never wear Axe body spray.  The gallon of Axe body spray I was given in a swag bag went straight down the kitchen sink.” 

—————

On the same subject, I enjoyed PR Week’s Julia Hood’s humorous editorial on product placement in “Entourage.” You have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing, but here’s a taste:

As soon as a program becomes popular, it is apparently doomed to become little more than a platform for a parade of brands. Entourage in particular has transformed from a sly comment on the peculiar balance of power and egos in Hollywood into a fantasy camp for young guys who suddenly have unlimited sums of money to spend in the shopping mecca of the planet. Motorcycles, video games, flat-screen televisions, and Las Vegas have all been promoted through the adventures of our winsome foursome, and the producers are secure in the knowledge that their marketing partners are gleefully reaping the benefits of reaching their target demographic.

In truth, it probably doesn’t matter that someone like me is put off by the preponderance of stuff that Entourage, and many other programs, is awash with. I’m not in the elite group of 18- to 25-year-old boys these marketers covet. But this is an example of a program that is buckling under the weight of its own success, forgetting that consumers are savvier today than they used to be and will see right through those curiously blank beer bottles the boys of Entourage seem partial to, as opposed to the lovingly displayed wine label of choice.

I’m speculating that the “curiously blank bottles” are to be filled in later (perhaps for syndiction) with digitally-added brand names, as described here, and that I mentioned here.

“People Have Better Things To Do Than Make Videos About Cola. Duh.”

This is a funny riff on how some already soggy new media tactics are sloshing through advertising agencies at the behest of desperate-to-catch-up consumer companies. It’s from a site called Advergirl, which is worth checking out.

By the way, I don’t think only advertising executives should read good advertising blogs like hers. Don’t be so silo’d! It’s part of being a literate person in our culture to understand the whys and wherefores of advertising.

The Last Words

Looking at the list of Emmy nominations as posted by the LA Times’ “The Envelope” site, one thing stuck out. TV is supposed to be the writers’ medium. But the highest-profile writing nomination are at the very bottom of the list, long past the time when most browsers will quit scrolling.

Strangely, the first writing nominations to appear on the list are those for “nonfiction programming.” The “fiction” awards follow (among other things) Children’s Programs, two subcategories of Reality programs, all the sound-mixing awards, prosthetic makeup, and stunt coordination.

So in tribute to the writers of the writers’ medium, here are their nominations only:

Writing for a Comedy Series
“Arrested Development: Development Arrested,” Fox
“Entourage: Exodus,” HBO
“Extras: Kate Winslet,” HBO
“My Name Is Earl: Pilot,” NBC
“The Office: Christmas Party,” NBC

Writing for a Drama Series
“Grey’s Anatomy: It’s the End of the World, as We Know It (Part 1 & Part 2),” ABC
“Grey’s Anatomy: Into You Like a Train,” ABC
“Lost: The 23rd Psalm,” ABC
“Six Feet Under: Everyone’s Waiting,” HBO
“The Sopranos: Members Only,” HBO

Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program
“The Colbert Report,” Comedy Central
“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central
“Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” NBC
“Late Show With David Letterman,” CBS
“Real Time With Bill Maher,” HBO

Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries
Movie or a Dramatic Special: “Bleak House (Masterpiece Theatre),” PBS
“Elizabeth I,” HBO
“Flight 93,” A&E
“The Girl in the Cafe,” HBO
“Mrs. Harris,” HBO.

Writing for Nonfiction Programming
“American Masters: Ernest Hemingway
Rivers to the Sea,” PBS
“American Masters: John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend,” PBS
“How William Shatner Changed the World,” The History Channel
“Penn & Teller: Bull–: Prostitution,” Showtime
“Stardust: The Bette Davis Story,” TCM

Who will win? I don’t know. The point is advertising and PR. If you get a nomination, there is some tangible benefit to the show’s ability to increase its ratings. If you win — even better. You can go into the fall season saying “Watch the Emmy-winning comedy, ‘Arrested Development!’” Except “Arrested Development” is cancelled. Maybe that was a bad example.

Is there a lot of wagering on the Emmys? Many words will be expended trying to predict the winners. I don’t know why. Does anyone remember the winners two days later?

If I watch the Emmys, I will root for the writers of “Six Feet Under.” That last episode, the one that got nominated, was magical. The rest of my viewing was too spotty for me to have an opinion. The shows I watched this year were “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” “24,” “The Office,” “House” and “Entourage.”

And, oh yeah, “Law and Order,” although a 10-year-old rerun is just as good as a new episode, and I often can’t tell the difference. My favorite “Law and Order” flavor is the one with the great Vincent D’Onofrio as a genius cop who spits in people’s faces like a rabid parrot. That program wisely stays out of the courtroom. The courtroom scenes in the original recipe are pathetic. I just spent a month in a courtroom. “Law and Order’s” writers might want to try the same thing.

Speaking of legal shows, “Boston Legal” was often good for an absurd laugh, although I notice the show’s nominations are all in drama categories. Do people really get caught up in the drama of “Boston Legal?” Maybe they put it in the drama category because at least one storyline per show has a politically correct angle that allows the actors to make speeches about public policy. Those speeches would not last two seconds in the courtroom I was in. Anyway, the point of “Boston Legal” is the clownish William Shatner waving guns around, puffing cigars, working around his approaching dementia, and pulling his pants down in court. You’d think he was auditioning to play Jack D. Ripper in a “Dr. Strangelove” remake.
My wife and I also liked “The Comeback,” but HBO told everyone who would listen that the network considered the show a failure. Well, we didn’t, and we’re glad Lisa Kudrow got nominated. Hers was the most cringe-making performance of the year, topping even Larry David.

I also hope the Emmy voters don’t give the comedy writing award to David Letterman’s show. I’ve been a fan of Letterman since the 70s, but his show lately has been bland and predictable. They always seem to get nominated for an Emmy and frequently win. Stop encouraging them, I say. Make them work harder to entertain us.

‘Greatest Generation’ Backlash

Whatever halo of countercultural glory shined over the late Dr. Timothy Leary dims to near blackness with the publication of the new biography by Robert Greenfield. According to reviews (here , here, and here), the world-famous avatar of expanded consciousness, who plotted with novelist Aldous Huxley on how to bring peace to the world through sharing their LSD stash with Kennedy and Krushchev, is revealed as a cold, selfish, drunken desperado who betrayed or sold out pretty much everyone everyone who helped him, including his own children.

In his review, the New Yorker’s Louis Menand, a favorite writer of mine, takes an incidental swipe at Leary’s highly praised age group, not all of whom fought in WWII:

Leary belonged to what we reverently refer to as the Greatest Generation, that cohort of Americans who eluded most of the deprivations of the Depression, grew fat in the affluence of the postwar years, and then preached hedonism and truancy to the baby-boom generation, which has taken the blame ever since. Great Ones, we salute you!

This is a new book idea for Tom Brokaw to add to his series: “Nobody’s Perfect: Misfits of the Greatest Generation.”

Menand sees Leary as having achieved his greatest influence through use of marketing messages that were immediately copied by Madison Avenue:

Leary’s immortal message to (his) audience—“Turn on, tune in, and drop out”—was quickly picked up on and widely pastiched. Greenfield cites a commercial for Squirt: “Turn on to flavor, tune in to sparkle, and drop out of the cola rut.” This is not very surprising, for a couple of reasons. One is that in the mid-nineteen-sixties the language of commercial culture was drug vernacular. Almost everything advertised itself as the moral, legal, and sensory equivalent of a drug experience, from pop music to evangelism. (Billy Graham: “Turn on Christ, tune in to the Bible, and drop out of sin.”) All sorts of products claimed to turn you on, get you high, blow your mind. But the other reason Leary’s phrase was adopted as an advertising slogan is that it was designed to be an advertising slogan. The inspiration came from a fellow pop visionary, Marshall McLuhan. In 1966, McLuhan and Leary had lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York City; there, in Leary’s account, the media-wise McLuhan offered the following counsel:

“The key to your work is advertising. You’re promoting a product. The new and improved accelerated brain. You must use the most current tactics for arousing consumer interest. Associate LSD with all the good things that the brain can produce—beauty, fun, philosophic wonder, religious revelation, increased intelligence, mystical romance. Word of mouth from satisfied consumers will help, but get your rock and roll friends to write jingles about the brain.”

But Leary hardly needed this advice. Long before 1966, he made a point of giving then-legal LSD to intellectuals, writers, professors and other “influentials” who spread the word among kindred spirits, and then to their fans and followers. Musicians in particular proselytized by example, through the acknowledged influence of LSD on their work.

No different from putting a brand-name cigarette in an actor’s fingers, a bottle of beer in front of a ballplayer, or a designer outfit on a red-carpet regular. PR 101.

“Wake up, you sleepyhead, you can sleep when you are dead.”

Watch this.

This is X-treme creativity on the part of an advertiser.  Surely no green light for this ad a year ago, but now, I guess if you want to put your brand name in front of people, you can't mess around.  Your ad has to be something that will make people grab their friends by the collar and say "Look at this. Right now!"  

No More Goose, No More Golden Eggs

Advertising Age's Gavin O'Malley is disturbed that marketing managers are putting money in the pockets of supposedly independent editorial outlets:

Something's rotten with the state of media. Nearly half — 48.9% — of senior marketing executives admit to paying for editorial or broadcast brand placement, according to an industrywide survey just released by PRWeek and PR agency Manning Selvage & Lee.

What's more, the survey of 266 chief marketing officers, marketing VPs and directors found that half of those who haven't paid for placement said they would if the opportunity arose.

"This type of behavior is as harmful to PR professionals as it is to consumers and the media," said Mark Hass, CEO of the Publicis Groupe-owned public-relations agency.

While the publishers mixing editorial and advertising most likely are consumer-product glossies, Mr. Hass said he strongly believes their lax standards harm the image of media in general. "When people see the erosion of concepts like objectivity, they start to lose faith in any organization claiming to be objective."

Interestingly, when PR Week released the survey last month, this particular finding was buried at the end of its story (subscription required). But once they got to it, PR Week raised the same concerns:

But the rise of ad-driven editorial content in both broadcast and print media has led, some say, to a fuzziness of the line separating advertising and editorial. There is a difference between inserting a product into an entertainment property and paying to secure a mention of a product in a more sterile editorial environment – such as a newspaper – says Hass. He notes a survey by sister media firm Starcom MediaVest which found that 65% of consumers thought editorial mentions of a product had been paid for.

News executives might want to keep this consumer perception in mind when contemplating why newspaper circulation is dropping, and why so many ex-readers find the highly subjective blogosphere more reliable. PR and marketing executives might start wondering what kind of strategies they're going be able to sell clients when the "third party credibility" of editorial placements is no longer seen as credible.

It's akin to the issue of broadcasters' use of PR-generated VNRs. Editors have the First Amendment right to publish or broadcast content that someone has paid for. But you can't have it both ways. Either you're independent, or you're not. If you're not, don't pretend you are. Because you'll be found out.

Playwright Jean Giraudoux was the first (of many) to say "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made." But that applied to an era when phony sincerity was difficult to uncover. Maybe history will show that paid-for editorial content was the rule, not the exception in decades past. The future will be different. In our time, transparency isn't just a lifestyle choice. It's a law of nature.

This Property is Condemned

Jeff Jarvis today tells the story of Mattel shutting down its online American Girl club, and the grief this corporate decision has caused:

Companies don’t realize that starting a community is a commitment. You can’t get people to move in and hand over their time and attention and then just one day decide to close.

Mattel is shutting down its American Girl Club and our daughter is rightfully upset. She joined the community and made friends there and now Mattel is pulling up and leaving town. Because of the anonymity features of the community, this means that thousands of friendships are suddenly cut off; they communicate only through the club.

It's an interesting comment on our times. Marriages and contracts are made to be broken, but one dare not scuttle an online community.

A Jarvis commenter throws his support behind Mattel:

Perhaps third grade is a good time for a girl to start learning that there are friends, and there is business. Mattel is a business, and makes business decisions. It’s not nice, but it is reality. Networks of friends… will someone find the business model to make that good business? Mattel pulled the plug. It’s not a bad idea to know what the motivations are for our associations…networts, and friendships. It’s a lesson worth learning or beginning to learn anyway in third grade.

Icy!

When PR people tell their clients they "need to understand how to communicate and connect in a new environment in which you have little or no control," it's not just an airy concept. Once you've ceded control to your consumers, you can't just decide one day to — poof – take it back, without suffering damage to your reputation.

They Call it Issue Advertising. We Call it Boob Bait.

If you live in Washington D.C., you might want to check in on the Competitive Enterprise Institute. They've been saying some strange things lately. Maybe someone up there took the wrong medication.

The CEI has started a new issue advertising campaign to counter former Vice President Gore's global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." I'm not opposed to the energy industry or the business community having its say on global warming. The scientific consensus that the earth is getting warmer doesn't answer all, or even most, of the policy questions this "inconvenient truth" poses. We need a robust, informed conversation about it.

Based on the CEI's ad campaign, however, I have to assume industry fears this conversation and wants only to derail it.

"Carbon Dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life," has to be the most embarassing tagline I've seen since the "Join the Coffee Achievers" campaign celebrating caffeine overdose.

The two ads carrying the CEI slogan, which you can see here, attempt to bolster their challenge to the science of global warming by saying, essentially, that carbon dioxide should not be considered a pollutant, since we breathe it.

Out. We breathe it out. For us and our fellow animals, carbon dioxide is a waste product. Using the CEI's logic, we're wasting an awful lot of money on sewer systems, since the stuff that runs through those things is also, uh, natural. Plants use carbon dioxide. Plants use poop, too. But that doesn't mean we should all go s***ting in the forest like we used to.

Anyway, the theory of global warming doesn't equate carbon dioxide with smog. It's all about how earth's climate — which geological history shows to be inherently unstable already — is being transformed by the heat-trapping effect of excessive carbon dioxide.

Who are these ads for? Until now, I always thought of CEI as a conservative, free-market think tank, a respectable vehicle for scholars of that persuasion. No more. These disgraceful ads are "boob bait for the bubbas" of the right.

I Want to Grow Up to be a Politician…

I want to grow up to be a politician
And take over this beautiful land
I want to grow up to be a politician
And be the old U.S. of A.'s number one man
I'll always be tough but I'll never be scary
I want to shoot guns or butter my bread
I'll work in the towns or conservate the prairies
And you can believe the future's ahead
– The Byrds, "I Want to Grow Up to Be a Politician," by Roger McGuinn & Jacques Levy

When former Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler changed his registration to independent in 1971, he said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me." Ronald Reagan, another ex-Dem, repeated that phrase so many times, everyone thinks he coined it.

Well, to paraphrase Mr. Chandler via Mr. Reagan, "I didn't leave politics; politics left me." I say that because it took two weeks after the jury's verdict for me to realize that, if the verdict stands, I will never be able to run for political office.

Once upon a time, losing that right would have meant a lot to me. I was one of those kids who memorized all the U.S. presidents and could recite their names in order. At some ridiculously young age, I read Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1960." I kept track of elections avidly, and volunteered for campaigns all through high school. The political system, especially elections, was where the great issues of the age were addressed, by some of the largest personalities of the times. I saw myself as part of that debate, and thus part of that process — someday. Like Norman Mailer, I was always "running for President…in the privacy of my mind."

As my career unfolded, the idea of running for office kind of fell by the wayside, but it was something I thought I might do after I retired — run for a local school board, say. But I stopped even dreaming about that many years ago without even noticing the dream was gone. I still like arguing issues, but the political process seems like the very last place where an honest discussion of anything truly serious will take place.

The just-concluded primary election, and the 2006 political season generally, make it abundantly clear what's wrong with the process, and why everyone who ever dreamed of transforming the world via the political system should try to replace their cynicism with the kind of rage that will lead to "creative destruction." Just to pick a few items:

Proposition 82. It was an open secret for years that the California Children and Families Commission would spend millions in public dollars on selling the "preschool for all" idea in order to prepare the groundwork for an this initiative. This was a much-desired PR and advertising contract, so anyone who had a serious notion of competing for it was told what the client was looking for. Despite all the spending, the Preschool for All measure got killed in yesterday's election — losing by more than 20 points in an election where Democrats were disproportionately represented among the paucity of voters.

The public, apparently, could tell they were being played for fools; that Rob Reiner and his allies believed voters would respond to the three-word concept, "preschool for all," and not notice in fine print that the measure represented a state government takeover of preschool education — and not preschool for all!

I hate initiative campaigns like this — measures that try to cram a lot of special-interest agendas into an attractive package, and sweep the unappetizing trade-offs under the rug. Back in 1990, I argued with friends about "Big Green," which bundled many different, arguably good environmental programs into one initiative, and one up or down vote. The public voted "down" because they had an intuitive sense that this is not how we make decisions in America. The legislative process might be broken, but in its slowness, it is flexible enough to react to unintended consequences and new information. Initiatives like Proposition 82 are take-it-or-leave-it measures; you have to buy all of it or none of it, and once it's approved, you're stuck with every word of it. Mostly, Californians say no to such propositions, but activists like Reiner keep trying. Why?

One reason why might be that California's legislative and congressional districts are completely gerrymandered, with the result that meaningful political discussion has all but died here. If Rob Reiner perceived that Sacramento could never deliver something as sweeping as preschool for all, he was right.

You could count on one hand the number of competitive legislative races in California. When the maps were drawn in 2000, Democratic and Republican leaders both claimed it was fair because the result would be a legislature that reflected the state's political profile.

But what that means is, California's legislative races are virtually all devoid of issues. The only competitive races are in the primaries, between two or three candidates of the district's dominant party, all of them striving to appeal to the party's bedrock base of voters and special interests, and to outdo each other in showing fealty to their special pleadings.

Everyone comments on the fact that the one-party districts empower the activists of both parties, and leave moderates on the outside looking in. I would argue the damage is worse than that. Election campaigns between two ideologically similar, ambitious, well-funded opponents end up being terrible advertisements for democracy. All you get are throroughgoing attacks on character, a fervent search for scandals — and no discussion of anything controversial. Does anyone seriously think Cindy Montanez would vote much differently from Alex Padilla? Or Jenny Oropeza would vote much differently from George Nakano? Well, that was your whole choice in those districts. The winners (Padilla and Oropeza) will face token opposition from the other party. And all you got to really know about them was through anodyne biographical brochures mixed with nasty attacks.

You saw this tendency writ large in the Westly v. Angelides race. One set of so-called "positive" ads had both candidates claiming that they love the environment (Westly even claimed California "might be God's greatest creation," unfairly slighting the contribution of plate tectonics), that they will defend a woman's "right to choose." (In Democratic political speech, "to choose" has morphed into an intransitive verb), and that education will be their "highest priority" (under the state constitution, that's a given.) The other set of "negative" ads try to tie the candidate to horrible misdeeds. Usually, these horrible misdeeds, even if they're true, are not revealing of character, and have little to do with the real issues that voters want politicians to address.

The environment, abortion and education are important matters, but they aren't presented by the candidates as issues. Don't you want to know how they intend to protect the environment? How much they're willing to spend on it? How will they address an issue like wind energy where environmentalists are fighting each other? In my opinion, the biggest environmental question currently is whether California should allow liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants to be built offshore. Political ads were silent on that timely issue. Likewise with education. Does "highest priority" means you would be willing to break all the teachers' union contracts if they stand in the way of better schools? Do you think Mayor Villaraigosa should take over LA Unified? Now, there's an issue. But how many candidates took a stand on it?

It is almost surreal: There is a total disconnect between what's in the news and what's being discussed on the campaign trail. During this primary season, millions of people marched in the streets of Los Angeles and other California cities regarding illegal immigration. Meanwhile, the Minuteman movement and other manifestations of hostility toward illegal immigrants, gained strength. Illegal immigration presents great complexity, issues of law, economics, national security and compassion. It is roiling Congress, and threatening the Bush presidency.

But somehow, illegal immigration is a non-issue in California. Based on his advertising, I have no idea what Phil Angelides thinks about this issue. No surprise why. The dumbest political consultant in the world would have told Angelides not to discuss a "hot button wedge issue" like illegal immigration. It's about conventional as conventional wisdom gets. But if that's the kind of politics candidates are willing to accept, they shouldn't be surprised if most people stay home on election day.

The candidates are choosing to deal with the issues on top of voters' minds by ignoring them. So voters, quite reasonably, ignore the candidates.

Looking at that landscape objectively, I wonder why any smart person would want to be a politician. I have friends who are elected officials, and they are all smart. In fact, most politicians I know do carry at least a touch of idealism, although they can only expose it to the light of day on rare occasions. I think the smarter politicians know as well as any voter how unsatisfying and unproductive our political system has become. They just can't figure out how to change it.

Like many other elements of our communications environment, politics is ripe and ready to be overcome by something new. As with the newspaper business and the PR and advertising industries, the legacy form of politics cannot survive; because it is no longer serving its intended purpose of resolving important issues. But it's not so clear what will replace this broken-down political system we've got, and whether what's next will be an improvement.

Lonely At The Top

You've seen all those Apple TV ads where the poor, hapless, Bill Gates'-tubby-nephew PC gets ragged on by a cool, Jimmy-Fallonesque Mac. All the cliche problems about PCs form the basis of these ads — the need for frequent reboots, the viruses, the poor interconnectivity. Very cute. You'd never know that PCs outsell Macs by something like 10-to-1. Apple's got the rep.

But Apple better wipe that smug smile off its face. In the market where they dominate, portable MP3 players, the company's getting quite a PC-like reputation. From a consumer column in the Guardian:

Apple iPod owners love their sleek machines. That's when they work. When they don't, they enter a twilight world where they discover their prized music player is considered by its manufacturer as nothing more than a throwaway item.

It doesn't matter that iPod lovers can spend up to £300 on their gizmo. Apple operates on the basis that the iPod life expectancy is a year, and that's it.

Complain that your £200 or £300 could have bought a fridge or TV that would be expected to last five years or more, and a customer services assistant will explain that a one-year warranty is just that, and no more.

Last month Guardian Money explained how the Sale of Goods Act sets out a series of basic customer rights. These are fleshed out by guidelines from the Department of Trade & Industry. The key in all discussions with retailers, which are the first port of call, is that goods should last up to six years, depending on their cost and expected durability.

In the article we told how a reader took a broken ClickwheeI 40Gb iPod back to the Birmingham Apple Centre. Staff said the cost of repair would exceed the value of the £300 model and refused a free replacement. Arguments that iPods are designed to be portable and take a reasonable amount of wear and tear fell on deaf ears.

Which? – formerly the Consumers Association – says consumers should argue strongly with retailers. While the DTI guidelines do not define how long specific products should last, a survey by Which? of manufacturers into how long they believe electrical appliances should last (not including Apple) found that all reckoned five years or more.

Apple has sold more than 2m iPods in the UK and it would be unfair to expect all of them to work without any problems. But judging from the postbag at Guardian Money, while it's easy to fall in love with the design and ease of use of iPods, they can at times be highly temperamental.

The 40Gb Clickwheel, now discontinued, appears to have suffered more than its fair share of problems. Apple says not. Its response, however, captures the dilemma faced by customers offered an extended warranty. Either the product is robust and the rare failure can be absorbed by the seller, or there is a widespread reliability problem which the manufacturer should deal with.

Apple, like most other manufacturers, refuses to accept responsibility for repairs even when machines break down within weeks of expiry of the one-year warranty.

You get the worst of both worlds: A balky product, and an arrogant attitude toward customers.

For all I know, the iPod's many competitors have the same problems. But I never read about them.

Political Consultants in a Gilded Cage

I've already written about political writer Joe Klein's plea to rid politics of consultants who, he claims, have hijacked the quadrennial national dialogue that our presidential campaigns are supposed to be, and made them into bland, pointless and unspontaneous exercises that fail to engage voters.

Reviews of his book, Politics Lost, have been mixed. Some reviewers have said Klein is merely stating what everyone already knows, while others say he's wrong to blame the consultants and should instead blame the weak-willed candidates who listen to them. In his Washington Post review, Peter Beinart (a next-generation Joe Klein type who edits The New Republic) suggests that the consultant problem is just a mask for the Democratic Party's larger confusion:

Klein rightly flays Gore and Kerry for not being true to themselves. But he is also harshly critical of the old liberal orthodoxies that Democratic political consultants devote so much time to camouflaging. All of which raises a large and difficult question that he never quite answers: How can contemporary Democratic candidates be personally secure in their beliefs when their party is not? Even if Democrats could liberate themselves from the intellectually and morally stifling grip of consultants like Shrum, would they have any coherent ideology to espouse?

Beinart and Klein both point out that the successful Republican candidates of the past 30 years have not been so in thrall to their consultants. The GOP treats consultants like hired hands — professionals who produce and place the ads, write the press releases, put message points in the hands of surrogates and organize get-out-the-vote campaigns, but who wouldn't dare tell the candidates to say things they don't believe in. So, it would appear, the consultant affliction is something Democrats will have to address. If they do, Klein suggests, they might find their lost souls.

However: Left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas (Daily KOS) has been writing in Slate this week about Klein's book in a epistolary debate with Republican media guru Stuart Stevens. In yesterday's entry, Moulitsas suggests Democratic candidates are helpless against the power of party-approved consultants:

(C)onsultants run the Democratic Party bureaucracy. Party officials dole out contracts to well-connected consultants, knowing full well that the happy beneficiaries will be running the show themselves in the next cycle, similarly handing out contracts to those who took care of them during the previous election. So, when Democratic candidates go to the party looking for financial help, that party money comes with a very big string attached: They can get the millions they need, but only if they hire the party's chosen consultants as well.

We can kvetch about the politicians and their penchant for hiring these consultants all we want, but for the average candidate, there isn't much of a choice. Our party establishment foists these losers on their campaigns. And this dynamic is just as true in 2006 as it was in 2004 and earlier. This system isn't going to change anytime soon, unfortunately.

So, according to Moulitsas, John Kerry was given no choice but to listen to Robert Shrum's ill-conceived advice. It was part of the deal that got him the nomination. Kerry rival Howard Dean was done in by the same consultant mob, not because he was a bad candidate, but because he threatened their stranglehold on the party.

Klein wants the next Democratic candidate to be someone who ignores focus groups and polls, takes at least one unpopular position and is willing to be himself. Moulitsas suggests that such a candidate has no hope of prevailing "anytime soon" — due to the greed of consultants who both control the inflow of campaign funds, and insist on their cut of the money raised. Hmm, what to do, what to do?

I know: The next Democratic candidate who will really earn not just the nomination but the White House will be the one who agrees to hire all the consultants — and then ignores them! If all Shrum and co. really want is their payday, let them have it. To a consultant, the commission on an advertising message heavily tenderized by focus-group is the same as the commission on an ad that the candidate him-or-herself writes. It's a perfect solution: Hire the consultants, then trap them in a gilded cage!

Wouldn't they grumble to the press? Don't these consultants have friends at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times that they could whisper to? Sure. In fact, my dream candidate would encourage them to leak like this. Get a story placed on how the candidate is ignoring his consultants, and the whining consultant gets another million dollars in media-buy money to play with. The public would be thrilled, the press would be amazed, when the next Democratic candidate tells the conventioneers, "I spent $25 million on the top-priced political consultants our party has to offer–and I didn't listen to a word they said!"

Verify, Then Trust

Sounds like Elizabeth Albrycht gave an good talk about Web 2.0/social media at the Demos conference in London. She puts her speakers' notes on her blog today. Albrycht is a specialist in corporate PR, and her talk is focused on the ever-higher bar of transparency that corporate communications of any kind — advertising as well as communications about corporate decisions — must meet.

Albrycht's metaphor for transparency is scientific inquiry and the way scientific facts are validated:

In order to test the potential fact constructed by the original researcher, other scientists perform the same experiments in an attempt to duplicate results, confirming the fact, indeed, exists. In order to to that, they must follow the same paths as the original researchers, provided by the latter through references, data translations, and so on.

I don't want to get into all the gory details here, but the basic idea is that the reason facts are credible is that they can be traced backwards to their origin, and re-constructed.

In order for our messages to be received with some degree of credibility and trust, in today's questioning, distrustful atmosphere, we need to move away from the message delivered as a fait accompli, but embrace communications as something to be tested, then provide the instructions and/or information needed to make those tests. You could even call this process a conversation.

So, what would transparent corporate communications look like? The questions we as professional communicators have to ask ourselves is what information do we need to provide so that others can reconstruct our decisions. Everything from minutes to meetings to interviews with the participants could be made available. They might not agree with the decision we took, but they will at least understand the reasoning, which might buy some goodwill, for one.

We also need to decide when to provide it and how to provide it. Is it only made available when a problem arises? Is it easily searchable on the website and available via a link? Or does the person inquiring have to jump through a variety of hoops?

It's all far more compelling than any comment I could add to it. PR people, especially, should take a look.

Stop Underestimating People

"The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything."

This is one of the best-known quotes from "the father of advertising," David Ogilvy. And one of the most forgotten.

I was reminded of Ogilvy's philosophy when reading today's column by political pundit Joe Klein. There are a lot of "now he tells us" anecdotes about the 2000 and 2004 Democratic presidential campaigns, whose failures Klein blames on political consultants. Consultants told Al Gore not to talk about the environment. Their research told them swing-state voters didn't care about it. Al Gore wrote a pathbreaking book about global warming in 1992, but in 2000 told voters by his silence that a potential global catastrophe was no longer on his radar screen.

Four years later, consultants told John Kerry to be cautious in addressing Abu Ghraib, because focus-group research strongly suggested voters were in a forgiving mood about torture. John Kerry achieved fame–or infamy depending on your point of view–for accusing American soldiers in Vietnam of atrocities on the battlefield, but by 2004 could not be roused to criticize atrocities committed against defenseless prisoners.

The consultants must have thought their counsel was so wise, so sophisticated. Why didn't it work? Because voters made the connections the consultants didn't think they were capable of making.

Everyone knew Gore was a "green." Avoiding the subject made him appear surreptitious about it. Everyone know Kerry was a controversial war protester in his youth. By not carrying that aspect of his character forward into the campaign, it seemed like Kerry had conceded that critics of his past anti-war stands were right — including the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth his campaign was busily trying to discredit. Letting Kerry speak his true mind was a luxury his campaign consultants didn't think he could afford:

"We're going to meet the voters where they are," (Robert) Shrum had told me early in the Kerry campaign, which sounded innocent enough—but what he really meant was, We're going to follow our polling numbers and focus groups. We're going to emphasize the things that voters think are important. In fact, Shrum had it completely wrong. Presidential campaigns are not about "meeting the voters where they are." They are about leadership and character. Mark Mellman, Kerry's lead pollster, figured that out too late. "If you asked people what they were most interested in, they would say jobs, education and health care," he later said. "But they thought the President should be interested in national security."

I'm really not trying to revisit Democratic disasters for the masochistic joy of it. Neither is Klein. He's trying to look beyond the consultant-ad buyer complex. He predicts, or hopes, that in 2008,

(the) winner will be the candidate who comes closest to this model: a politician who refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense. Who speaks but doesn't orate. Who never holds a press conference on or in front of an aircraft carrier. Who doesn't assume the public is stupid or uncaring. Who believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less than 40% support in the polls. Who can tell a joke—at his or her own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason … but only if those emotions are real and rare. Who isn't averse to kicking his or her opponent in the shins but does it gently and cleverly. Who radiates good sense, common decency and calm. Who is not afraid to deliver bad news. Who is not afraid to admit a mistake.

I don't know if there are any Democratic candidates out there confident enough to blow off high-priced consultants' advice so calmly. To me, the lesson from all this is should go out beyond the political community. Anyone doing PR, marketing or advertising–if you think you're fooling anyone, you're only kidding yourself. If your client has hired you to put one over on the public, try to talk them out of it. If they won't listen — walk away, because you can't succeed, and when you fail, the client will blame you.

Talk About Zen P.R.!**

I know I was going to shut up for most of April, but this is too interesting to overlook:

At first glance, the video looks like a typical 30-second car commercial: a shiny sport utility vehicle careers down a country road lined with sunflower fields, jaunty music playing in the background.

Then, white lettering appears on the screen: "$70 to fill up the tank, which will last less than 400 miles. Chevy Tahoe."

The commercial is the product of one of the advertising industry's latest trends: user-generated advertising. On March 13, Chevrolet introduced a Web site allowing visitors to take existing video clips and music, insert their own words and create a customized 30-second commercial for the 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe.

In theory, the company was hoping that visitors to its Web site would e-mail their own videos around the Web, generating interest for the Tahoe through what is known as viral marketing. By the measure of Chevrolet Tahoe videos circulating the blogosphere and the video-hosting Web sites like YouTube, that goal was achieved. But the videos that were circulated most widely like the commercial that attacked the S.U.V. for its gas mileage, may not be what Chevrolet had in mind.

Nor was the ad using a sweeping view of the Tahoe driving through a desert. "Our planet's oil is almost gone," it said. "You don't need G.P.S. to see where this road leads."

Youtube.com is full of examples of these user-generated Chevy Tahoe ads that attack the whole idea of Chevy Tahoes as responsible for global warming or imminent oil shortages. But they're not all environmental lectures. This one takes a Freudian perspective on the whole notion of conspicuous consumption, as does this one, albeit more crudely.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about the potential for a Maybelline cosmetics site to be hijacked by those who hated the product. It appeared to me that the Maybelline people had probably accounted for that possibility, and figured that since negative comments were going to be made anyway, why hide from them? Chevrolet's advertisers have apparently come to the same conclusion, according to the New York Times:

A spokeswoman for Chevrolet, Melisa Tezanos, said the company did not plan to shut down the anti-S.U.V. ads.

"We anticipated that there would be critical submissions," Ms. Tezanos said. "You do turn over your brand to the public, and we knew that we were going to get some bad with the good. But it's part of playing in this space."

Drew Neisser, the president and chief executive at Renegade Marketing, a New York agency specializing in nontraditional marketing that is part of Dentsu, said companies had such a strong desire for user-generated advertising that they were willing to accept the risks. "There's this gold rush fever about consumer-generated content," he said. "Everybody wants to have consumer-generated content, and Chevy Tahoe doesn't want to be left behind."

Is it just that they're "willing to accept the risks?" Or are marketers finally deciding to participate in the real conversations about their products, the ones that say "yes, but…?"

Wouldn't it be great if political ads were opened up this way? Where, instead of shoving a message down your throat, a candidate would allow voters to express themselves about their platforms? And why are only advertisers of consumer products taking this alleged "risk?" Wouldn't a smart PR campaign also make room for critics and for, y'know, reality?*

I'm confident the people at Chevrolet are aware that some consumers will never buy an SUV strictly due to environmental concerns, and that others are conflicted and would appreciate some respect being given to their hesitancy. Letting customers joke about it shows the company is in touch. Going a step further would be to say, "We hear you" and respond in a way that treats these concerns thoughfully.

*(The best example is, of course, Amazon. If you put your product on Amazon, customers can review it. Many people, before buying a product, will check to see if it's on Amazon — not only to buy it there, but to see what other consumers think. Consumer reviews on Amazon have been decisive in many purchases I have made, both positively and negatively. Marketers obviously think it's worth "the risks" of having their products trashed in exchange for having them sold through Amazon. So why shouldn't you take the next step, and let consumers have their say on your own site…and then get into a conversation with them?)

**A few additions and edits made on 4/5/06.

“G-L-A-M-O-U-R-O-U-S”

Blogger and columnist James Lileks has cornered the market in digging up old display advertisements and other printed reminders of the best-forgotten. Readers in LA should not miss his parsing of the 1977 Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue, which used to be something only people in this city knew about.

Page after page after page of big hair, big zippers (or, as they call them "unzippers"), and copy written by a genius of sleaze and strategic capitalization.

DRAPE SHAPE Draped-and-shaped cowl neck adds fabulous FLATTERY to your bustline. Back-zipped TUNIC and pull-on flare PANTS in Chevacette Acetate knit.

CLING THING Cuddle your curves in a SUPER-SMOOTH clingy dress. Slight gather add extra emphasis. Slips on and OFF in an instant. Peach or mint polyester knit.

Most of the graphics are drawings, but almost every page has one photo of a woman with a humongous pile of hair on her head with one word next to it: "WIG!"

If you're my age, 1977 didn't seem like so long ago. But now I know for sure, it was a way way long time ago, because I don't remember meeting anyone in those clothes…maybe you had to be this guy.

(Thanks to Boing-Boing's Mark Frauenfelder.)