My sensitive (gums, that is) husband recently purchased a tube of Tom’s of Maine natural toothpaste. What caught my eye was not the tube, but a stuffer inside the box that highlighted a particular employee and her volunteer with with animals. Her title was listed as “consumer dialogue specialist” and the volunteer work in question was done on Tom’s company time (5% of paid employee time is spend volunteering and 10% of profits are reinvested in the community).
In the midst of the alarming number of “greenwashed” commercials that we were all forced to watch last week as every company and industry tried to get on the Earth Day bandwagon, I was inspired to read a little bit more about Tom’s. As you might imagine, they don’t just live their values for Earth Day – it was the core of the company’s founding in 1970 and one of the reasons they are the top natural care brand (now an independent subsidiary of Colgate Palmolive). The factory, packaging and products themselves are all as green as you would expect a product with “of Maine” in the title to be.
Check out the website to read more about their success in building a values-based business and the Boston Globe’s enlightening “Office Invasion” tour of the Tom’s of Maine offices.
I ended the week with a complete change of scenery – flying to New Orleans to spread the word on Word of Mouth Marketing at the New Orleans AMA. I knew that I would enjoy sharing the WOMM stories that inspire me with a new group of people. What I didn’t anticipate was how much inspiration I would find in the Big Easy. Dinner at K-Paul’s with some fabulous hosts, a morning walk through the Quarter and breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, and some fabulous conversation with the resilient marketers of this extraordinary town put new wind in my own sails.
The night before the presentation, as we were walking down a pretty-full-for-a-Wednesday-night Bourbon Street, Malcolm Schwarzenbach told me not to be afraid to discuss “the storm”. Being a lifelong uptight WASP, I had no intention of bringing up any such thing. Malcolm saying that it was OK to acknowledge the elephant in the room changed the next 24 hours for me. I spoke with my hosts about property valuations, tourism, and the unique challenge of recruiting talent to the marketing and advertising companies within the city.
Before I left, Malcolm shared a recruiting card for his company Trumpet Advertising with this image 
on the front and the Ernest Shackleton challenge on the back: “Men (and women) wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” It is a unique touchpoint that highlights Trumpet’s attitude and creativity. Based on the amazing New Orleans tourism video that they produced below, it looks like their efforts to recruit talent have been quite successful. I hope it gives you a taste of how I felt after my brief stay. Enjoy the video but be warned, you may want to book tickets to the Big Easy immediately…
This is cross posted from Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Blog.
Check out some wonderful examples of small businesses getting a boost from the blogosphere in today’s WSJ. Bean Bag chair maker Sumo Lounge International was able to work with technology uber-blog Engadget to achieve a chain reaction of business success that that $60k in trade show exhibitions hadn’t produced – getting exposure for his product with the audience that would most appreciate it. 2 years after the initial deal with Engadget, Sumo Lounge has been reviewed by 250 bloggers and has tripled profits.
The article maps tightly to our evolving Blogger Code of Ethics, but also illustrates the golden rule for blogger outreach efficacy – inviting a blogger to participate in an experience is infinitely more powerful than sending a press release. Inviting a blogger to review your product, attend a demonstration, live chat with your engineers, enter your contest, tour your headquarters, etc, is a better course for blogger outreach for 3 major reasons:
- An experience is something that the blogger/social media creator can capture and interpret in their own style, chosen medium, and on their own time.
- Experiences provide bloggers with conversational capital that they can in turn share with readers.
- The final benefit of inviting bloggers to participate in an experience is that, because it is more involved than sending a press release, it will force you to tightly focus on building relationships with the bloggers most relevant to your offering.
What type of remarkable experience can you offer your key constituents?
Yesterday, brand Husband (also my blog stringer) called in a tip from our Georgetown neighborhood that a van with Aaron Eckhart’s photo on it, and campaign signs reading “I Believe in Harvey Dent”. He suggested I check out the faux campaign website.
I then mentioned this to the Catch Up Lady who clued me in to the elaborate online program surrounding Harvey Dent’s campaign that has been tiding over moviegoers for months. I am not conversant enough with Dark Knight mythology to recognize that Harvey Dent is Gotham’s crusader DA, but Husband knew immediately that this van was all about Batman. So like, the commercials for Oceanic Air that led to a website priming the enthusiast audience for the return of Lost, Harvey Dent street teams are popping up in neighborhoods in big cities all over the country, building buzz among insiders on the grassroots level – and confusing the heck out of a lot of other people in the meantime as I Watch Stuff amusingly chronicled in NY. This will be clutter to many, but powerful for the core few.
Maybe the Batman movie will get a boost out of this week’s news of Client 9. After becoming the supervillain Two Face, Harvey Dent, the former crusader against police corruption flips a coin to decide whether to do evil or fight it. Maybe that’s how the former Governor of New York was setting his daily agenda too. To quote Harvey’s campaign platform “Too many cops have become criminals themselves.”
I’ll admit it. I have not yet read Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin. Frankly, I haven’t read a whole book with a title other than some variation of “How not to screw up your kid” for quite a while. I know I will read Meatball Sundae, however, because I am so sold on the concept of the book, Seth’s easily digested writing style, and by the fantastic marketing that has surrounded it.
For “something completely different”, check out Jackie Huba’s Meatball Sundae video review/demonstration live from Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin Texas, John Moore from Brand Autopsy’s Seth Godin-Action Figure pull quote art slides and the piece de resistance, Seth’s very own Will it Blend? video.
