When Mother Nature gives you a blizzard…

Chicago is still digging out from one of Mother Nature’s reminders that we aren’t in control of everything: 20 inches of snow and 50 mile an hour winds, followed by subzero wind chills.  Making something positive out of those brutal conditions is a beautiful thing to behold.

And to see a great example, head on over to the Lincoln Park Zoo’s website.  The Zoo’s response to the storm is featured throughout the site, from a cover story describing the Zoo’s preparations and response, to a beautiful slide show of the snowy Zoo, commentary by animal care staff and a letter of thanks to the Zoo staff from Kevin Bell, Zoo President.  The Zoo faced a challenge and used its response to reinforce its core messages of conservation and animal care.

Who else has turned The Blizzard of 2011 into a positive?

Pork, milk…and now baby carrots

Following in the impressive footsteps of “The Other White Meat” and “Got Milk”, a group of baby carrot producers are launching a new campaign to position the tiny bits of carrot as junk food.

“Eat ‘Em Like Junk Food” launched in Cincinnati and Syracuse and gradually will go nationwide.  For Halloween, the carrot farmers are producing Scarrots, specially packaged just in time for trick-or-treating.  While we lament the need to call something junk food to attract youthful attention, replacing less nutritious snacks with carrots can’t be all bad.

Kineo advocates a campaign approach to marketing and communications and the carrot producers clearly agree.

Their “Junk Food” campaign includes TV, print, billboards, special packaging reminiscent of snack food bags, and a strong social media campaign.  The campaign website, babycarrots.com, has a carrot-crunch-powered video game, music, random carrot characters (we like the Viking), a tease for the new TV spot and links to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Of course, carrot-appropriate puns abound (Snacktacular TV).  All brought to you by – are you ready? – A Bunch of Carrot Farmers.

Nonprofit Compensation

A recent Chicago Tribune front page article revealed the CEO salaries of the top Chicago museums and, while it didn’t say so directly, it implied that the salaries are unusually high and out of line with where they should be.   This is one of many articles that frequently pop up about nonprofit salaries and frequently they take issue with the level of compensation.

What they rarely do is compare the size, market and budget of the nonprofit organization to equivalent for-profit corporation CEO salaries.  Because these leaders work in the public sector, it seems to be assumed they should be willing to accept lower salaries because they are quasi-public servants who get psychic income from “doing good”.

It is time for reporters who delve into nonprofit executive salaries to get smart.  If they focused the same amount of research time investigating the demands of a museum CEO job, we might find that these salaries are not excessive and are in line or under those of their corporate counterparts.

Not Your Father’s Blue Jeans

Blue jeans were born on May 20, 1873, when Levi Strauss and a partner received a patent for pants that were held together with rivets at the points of strain, like pocket corners. Originally called “waist overalls” (whoever did that rebranding was a genius – ok, I really wanted to say jean-ius but didn’t dare), the design for that first pair looked very much like the Levi 501s that you can buy today for $50 or so worldwide.

What Mr. Strauss certainly wouldn’t recognize is where Levi Strauss & Co. is going these days. The Wall Street Journal reports that Levi’s is opening lavish boutiques such as an 8,500 square foot shop on London’s pricey Regency Street. They’ve hired designers from high-end fashion houses such as Ralph Lauren, and started distributing to nontraditional outlets like Barneys New York. All of this in an effort to sell their higher-end and edgier Made & Crafted $198 jeans, $148 corduroys and Vintage Clothing line, which reproduces items from Levi’s archives.

The Journal quotes the president of Levi’s Europe division as saying “Luxury is the antithesis of Levi’s.” We’re all for brands reinventing themselves to stay fresh and current. It’ll be interesting to see how fashionistas respond to high-priced denim from the home of Dockers.

Nike Does it Again

Living up to their reputation as a brand that courts controversy and attention, the new Nike/Tiger Woods TV commercial has added a new dimension of debate to the Woods scandal.

In the black and white :30 spot, the camera focuses on Tiger who looks, almost unblinkingly, into the lens. The voiceover is Tiger’s late father, Earl, asking – among other things – if Tiger learned anything. Fade to black – and white, the Nike swoosh prominent both on Tiger and in the closing seconds.

How’s the ad being received? In today’s Chicago Tribune, Teddy Greenstein of the Tribune said it gets the job done. Paul Doyle, of the Hartford Courant, had a few choice descriptors for the ad: creepy, awkward, inappropriate, callous, shameless, cynical, wrong.

Does it get the job done? Within a day of the ad’s first airing, it had almost two million views on YouTube. Google Tiger Earl Commercial and you’ll find more than 800,000 hits. There’s already a parody spot out (Nike, being Nike, has already quashed that one).

Does it get the job done? Hey, we’re talking about it, aren’t we? What do you think about Nike’s latest?

Crisis Communication

As Tiger Woods begins to re-emerge from seclusion, Toyota continues to deal with fallout and Southwest Airlines has an angry Tweeter on their hands, we are reminded yet again of the paramount importance of crisis communications. Whether or not you agree with how Team Tiger dealt with his personal issues, or if you felt Toyota might have moved too slowly to respond, there is no denying that their brands took an enormous hit from the media outcry.

While your company’s crisis may not make worldwide headlines and be fodder for the supermarket tabloids, there is no denying that a crisis of any size can seriously damage or even destroy a company’s reputation. The crisis may be slow in coming (such as a governmental investigation) or immediate and shocking (your headquarters is on fire – right now). Regardless of the cause of the crisis, your paramount priority should be in communicating the right messages to your stakeholders. You can’t do that if you are scrambling, trying to figure out what to do, what to say and how to do so.

While most businesses have operational contingency plans, not as many focus on the critical communications that must occur when crisis hits. There is empirical data that shows companies with a formally created crisis plan will fair better in a crisis than those without. A crisis by definition has many elements that can’t be anticipated so no plan can be followed to the letter. But those companies that plan have a positive crisis preparedness mentality and are quick to act with specific best practices.

Creating and maintaining a well documented crisis communications plan, and ensuring that your management and communications teams are well-versed in how to implement that plan, should be a top priority. Before the alarms go off.

Help Save The Life of a Child – For $1

Worldwide, waterborne illness is the second leading cause of death of children under five. Of the 900 million people in the world who lack clean water, half are children.

Each day, more than 4,000 children will die of water-related illness.

You can help reduce these horrifying statistics.

March 21 – 27 is World Water Week. UNICEF, which helps provide clean water in more than 100 countries around the world, is sponsoring its fourth annual Tap Project.

Thousands of restaurants around the country will be asking their patrons to donate $1 for the tap water they would normally enjoy for free. That $1 will provide safe drinking water to a child for 40 days. Please join The Kineo Group in supporting the Tap Project. Learn more about the project, and make a donation, at TapProject.org.

On behalf of the children of the world, thank you for your support.

Brilliant—Don’t you Think?

Entrepreneur.com has compiled their choices for ten of the most brilliant marketing ideas of the last seventy years. These are the breakthroughs, the ideas that changed everything. See if you agree:

10. T-Mobile’s “Life’s for Sharing” campaign – the first effective use of mob sharing. If you’ve missed mob sharing, check out the video here.

9. Change We Can Believe In – the readers of AdAge voted the Obama campaign as 2008 Marketer of the Year – before the election – as a new era of social marketing was launched.

8. Coke and Mentos – c’mon, you’ve always wanted to try it! One of the first and most successful viral videos.

7. 1984 – broadcast only once, 1984 laid the groundwork for Apple’s game changing marketing techniques that continue to be some of the best in the business.

6. Absolut – by introducing the iconic bottle shape, and through consistent and creative use of the shape and name, Absolut convinced people to pay a premium price for a product that wasn’t all that different than the competition.

5. Beauty Mist –the one name from these 10 brilliantly conceived campaigns that is no longer a household brand, Beauty Mist elevated celebrity endorsement by putting its pantyhose on none other than Broadway Joe (yes, I age myself).

4. Think Small – Volkswagen took a risk to sell its Beetle in an era of big cars. They embraced what they had and sold it honestly.

3. Does She…or Doesn’t She? – It was 1957 and Clairol introduced the girl next door who might have a secret – does she color her hair? At the time, it was a shocking concept for selling a product. And now we have GoDaddy.com.

2. Marlboro Man – In 1955, Marlboro was marketed to women as a premium, filtered cigarette. By introducing the rugged outdoorsman, Marlboro brought us image advertising. They also became the biggest selling cigarette in the world.

1. A Diamond is Forever – In 1938, the diamond business was faltering. DeBeers brought us the romance of diamonds and convinced us that true love required an investment of two months’ salary. Hey, I bought in to it…

Interestingly, numbers 1 through 7 are all at least 20 years-old. Only the bottom three on the list are from more current campaigns. Are there less brilliant campaigns now that marketing is spread over multiple channels? Or is the vintage work more impressive due to its ability to survive and thrive over forty, fifty or more years? Are there icons that Entrepreneur missed? Let us know what you think.

So, That’s Why it’s Called a Service Station!

With young adults in the house, I find myself checking the gas gauge often and yesterday, as is often the case, it told me that I was yet again buying a tank of gas. I try to buy local when possible, so I drove past the big, multinational gas station and stopped by a neighborhood place. I was amazed to find three employees immediately by my side, one cleaning the windshield, one checking the washer fluid and the third asking if he could fill ‘er up. Service at a service station? It was delightful!

And just to top things off (gas tank pun intended), I had a chance to enter a Valentine’s Day drawing, keep the pen I used to fill out the slip, and was given a small bag of pink and red candies.

With all of this attention, I was of course convinced that their prices must be well out of line with the competition. So, I drove around and checked two nearby stations whose prices were the same or a penny higher.

The moral of the story and the reason for the posting? The station owners have found their point of differentiation: service. Gas is a commodity product and competing on price is difficult. Differentiating your product or service from the competition can be challenging but it can also be key to standing out from the crowd. And, in the case of my new favorite service station, they are using a powerful tool to market themselves: word of mouth. A very good, or very bad, experience will prompt customers to tell others about what happened. It certainly worked in this case – I’ve been telling my story to anyone who will listen. Or, in your case, read.

The De-evolution of an Icon

Scientists at the University of Utah have taken a mouse back 500 million years in time by reversing the process of evolution. The Walt Disney Company is de-evolving their own mouse, albeit back only 80 years or so. Tampering with Mickey? Dangerous business, especially given the $5 billion in merchandise sales attributable to Disney’s lovable rodent. Why mess with success? Brooks Barnes‘ column in the New York Times points out the pitfalls – and potentials – of tampering with one of the world’s favorite icons.

We happen to agree with Disney and what makes eminent sense to us is Disney’s rationale and approach. They know Mickey has gone from character to corporate, from a mischievous mouse to a staid symbol. They want to bring Mickey back to his historic roots as a real personality, a character who can be both charming and a little bit roguish. To bring life back to Mickey will be a delicate balance, but it reminds us of an important branding principal: brands – and icons – must evolve. Companies like Dell, Cadillac and Hyundai have listened to Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Tell us what brand evolutions you think have succeeded (or not…)