Big Thinks Little Thinks

Celebrity endorsers - the soul of the brand?

2009-02-26T18:59:00.000-08:00

The recent hullabaloo regarding photos of Michael Phelps doing bong hits at a party got me thinking about the real value that celebrity endorsers bring to a brand. Phelps seems to have escaped relatively unscathed--the police aren't pressing charges, Speedo's CMO Craig Brommers came out with a ringing affirmation of their ongoing sponsorship of Phelps, and Kellogg's is actually taking heat for having dropped their sponsorship due to a conflict with what they see as their moral duty to the kids in America (or something like that).

The last time there I can recall that there was such a dustup and moral conflict over celebrity behavior was the Kobe Bryant sexual assault scandal in the Summer of 2003. In that instance, only two of Bryant's sponsors cancelled his contract over a morals clause - Nutella (that's right, the tasty chocolate-hazelnut spread loved by anyone who's ever been to Europe) and McDonald's. And who stayed the course with their rising-star athlete? Nike and Spalding.

So, why do the food companies seem to be the conservative Protectors of The Faith, and the sporting goods companies the laissez-faire Friends of The Ethically Questionable? Perhaps celebrity conduct has a subconscious impact on our sense of food quality and safety. They've (allegedly) done something bad and they don't want people to think that they'll make our food bad.

As for the equipment companies, I see differing motivators: Speedo is a relatively small company with a narrow target audience. How many people can really benefit from, and afford to pay for, a $550 performance swimsuit? And how many other endorsers are there for Speedo to choose from -- how 'bout that guy who was second place in the (--name the event here--) or perhaps one of his relay teammates? Go ahead, name even one of them...I dare you! I double-dog dare you!

Nike, on the other hand, plays in lots of sports so has many more candidates for their stables. I find it interesting that adidas probably breathed an audible sigh of relief that Nike had couriered a check across town from Beaverton to Portland, OR a couple of weeks prior to the alleged incident so as to buy out Kobe's contract. Talk about selling at a peak in the market!

There is a lot of attention very early for athletes and entertainers, and it seems that few of these otherwise fortunate folks get advice from any of their inner circle as to what they want their own brand to be. It seems that a lot of celebrity scandals could be avoided if they each asked themselves one simple question before doing something they knew just wasn't right: "Would I want to hear my name in the news tomorrow if this were to get out somehow?" Maybe that little thought would have given Kobe pause before engaging in sex with the young women (whether consensual or otherwise), or would have caused Michael to think for another second before picking up the bong, or at least look around the room for anyone holding up a cell phone.

Sponsor's lesson: it's not just about the newest, hottest celebrity. It's also about who's aligned with your company's missions and values, and will live and breathe your brand as you and your team do everyday.

My new job! (and other thoughts on jobs and the economy)

2009-01-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

I've been hinting at it on Facebook, so here it is: I've got a new job! Starting Monday, I'll be Marketing Manager - Trade and Consumer Promotions with Caribou Coffee, based here in Minneapolis. I'm very excited on many fronts - the company, the space (CPG, or Consumer Packaged Goods marketing) and the opportunity. I'll be the lone marketer on the Commercial Sales team: while most of Caribou's marketing efforts focus on bringing people into the retail shops to buy everything from great drip coffee to fru-fru drinks to take-home coffee beans to gifts and coffee apparati, my group's focus is on selling ground and whole-bean coffee to the consumer via the Grocery, Mass, and Club channels.

I left ConAgra Foods just over seven months ago as a result of the new CMO's re-organization, aptly labeled "Project Streamline". No ill will here: I think that ConAgra has both great people and great brands, and I'm very hopeful that the new structure will enable those assets to be everything that they have the potential to be. I'm certain that the company could not foresee the additional economic challenges ahead, and I had not anticipated that it would take quite so long to locate and accept the right opportunity. Along the way, I was fortunate to have received two other offers to join great marketing companies, one a small promotional agency and one a large regional bank. However, I had a vision for the next position on my career path, and my amazing wife Jeanne was very supportive of my declining the first two offers on the way to this new opportunity. For a great take on evaluating a job opportunity on your own very personal terms, check out my friend Adam Kmiec's TPRP model for determinig workplace value: http://www.thekmiecs.com/misc/my-tprp-for-determining-workplace-value/ . Simply put, it's brilliant.

So, please indulge me a few moments on the soapbox to share some musings on the job market and the economy: in short, having had the opportunity to network with hundreds of talented and similarly unemployed folks, employers are being short-sighted with regard to hiring experienced, brilliant business thinkers and leaders. The economic tailspin has led companies across industries to slash-slash-slash expenses, payroll and hiring included, at the opportunity cost of top-line revenue and strategic growth. Mid- and long-term growth plans have been interrupted to conserve cash, which will only serve to delay recovery once the financial system is on solid ground.

As I see it, the coming challenge to employers is this: companies need to continue to staff/train/develop new young talent from every function from marketing to accounting, however in my 20-some years in the business world since college I've worked through various corporate up-sizes, down-sizes, mergers, acquisitions, leveraged buy-outs, initial public offerings, boom times, recessions, airplane crashes, terrorist incidents, labor strikes, advertising budget growth and shrink, to name just a few. The ingrained knowledge that these various "episodes" imparts becomes a compilation of of skills that we call EXPERIENCE. This is something that cannot be learned on your feet, but can only be cultivated over time. Faced with a business crisis, a more junior manager might have more of a knee-jerk response than a more senior leader would have based on their imprinted experience and intuitive response.

The additional issue of concern to employers is that the recent hiring environment challenges the concept of loyalty between employer and employee. I know several people who spent the first 25 years of their career with a single employer, and have now had multiple one- to two-year stints as companies seek to find their way in the new world. Loyalty is a two-way street, and I'm very hopeful that once the economy rights itself and moves forward, this trust will be restored such that we don't each become restless every 18 months and look for the next best thing.

On balance, senior leaders can't simply rely on their experience but need to continue to expand and develop their skillsets. We don't all need to be able to write HTML, but need to understand all ways of connecting with customers and consumers. Billboards and Burma Shave signs just don't work like they used to. Another great advantage that experience gives you is a larger network of contacts--if I knew then what I knew now, I would have been more proactive in cultivating and maintaining contact with my own connections before the gentle nudge and opportunity that LinkedIn and Facebook provided.

To my own network (family foremost), I am exceedingly grateful for your support (both active and moral) over the past several months. To my friends who continue to look for that right next opportunity, I with you luck and would be pleased to help in anyway I can.

Thank you for indulging me my Thinks. Here's wishing everyone a prosperous 2009!

"So this is Christmas..."

2008-12-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

"...and what have you done?" So begins John Lennon's song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)".

It makes me think a few things: What have you done? Have you done anything to make a difference in the world? To improve the lot in life of anyone who is less fortunate than you? To bring peace one step closer?

The sight of falling and new-fallen snow is often described as peaceful, and it does have a magical way of calming the spirit. In one sense, it only covers up what's beneath, but it also sequesters the promise of spring green and new life.

So many people are looking for peace in many places in their lives: jobs in turmoil, finances under fire, so much of the world literally fighting to live one more day amid fear of war, poverty and disease. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a gentle snow could fall and allow new life to grow beneath?

"A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Let's hope it's a good one without any fear."

Make-up or re-make?

2008-12-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

Total guy perspective here, but why do women spend so much money, time and effort on make-up? What really gets my mind spinning on this is that it's such a circular phenomenon.

Women started using blush to re-create that youthful natural rosy hue in the cheeks...originally just some berry juice, later compounds including clay or copper (I Googled and Wikipedia'd this so it must be true! Let's take it on faith for now.). Ditto rubbing berries on the lips to look more youthful and tantalizing. Egyptian women would draw lines with ashes to accentuate their eyes (the birth of eyeliner and mascara, apparently)

So, OK, I get it: let's spruce things up a little bit to look youthful and draw attention. Who doesn't want to do that? Here's the circular argument part that I can't figure out: young women (even young girls--they seem to start at 9, 10, 11 these days) have been using more and more make up for years so as to look more like the grown-up women...who are using make-up to look like young women!

First Thinks

2008-09-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Why is it that polite conversation precludes discussing politics, sex and religion? At the heart of it, aren't those the three topics we most want to talk about?

Isn't that what most interests us about Sarah Palin? We get all three topics in one fascinating persona, and none of them to anything less than an extreme degree.

And, in an odd twist, doesn't that make Barack Obama look comparatively dull at the moment? Despite the fact that he's differentiated himself as a highly-educated African-American man and elected public servant whom many see as the personification of CHANGE simply because he looks so different from the status quo (read: John McCain and Joe Biden), he becomes almost vanilla when you hold him up to Palin.

Let's get off our perches, not just in this election year but from here forward. Let's talk about it all--politics, sex, religion, money...eveything...no holds barred! The more information that's on the table the more transparency we'll have in all areas and the better decisions we can make.