December 28, 2004
lovemark detractors
Good NYT article on “The Determined Detractor”:
Marketers have become fond of recruiting friendly trendsetters to promote their products, but modern technology may now force them to pay attention to another kind of agent of influence making the rounds: the determined detractor. [Thanks to Adrants for the link.]
A month or two ago Johnnie Moore and I were having a good ol’ time detracting Lovemarks, but I wouldn’t say we were that determined about it.
I just think the Lovemark idea is trying to serve two masters: The “Love” Master and The “Big Company Shareholder” Master. Their needs are not the same. As a result the whole Lovemark concept is a bit schizo. Nice thoughts about “Love” fighting for attention amongst a sea of other, less transparent corporate agendae.
This schizo aspect is pretty common in corporate life. One of the main reasons is because in any big company (like Saatchi’s, the company that invented the Lovemark concept), parts of the company business are growing, and parts of it are dying. That is true in any business, in any organic collective.
But when you work for a large company, you invariably have to pretend to everybody that all the parts are gowing, that all the parts are absolutely spiffy, that the future is in a permanent state of Bright & Shiny. At least, you do it if you want to keep your job.
And that’s when the politics begin to take over.
Lovemarks’ author and CEO of Saatchi’s, Kevin Roberts’ biggest problem isn’t bloggers like me or Johnnie, or the people who read his book and didn’t like it, or even some of his clients who may not be “on board” yet.
His biggest problem is the detractors inside Saatchi’s, the ones clinging on to the parts of the business that are dying.
This is what I meant in The Hughtrain by “The future of advertising is internal.” Compared to selling to your own people, selling to the outside world is a piece of cake.
Reminds me a little about a piece I wrote on PSFk about how PR people don’t get the blogoshphere.
If companies are really going to create conversations with their consumers then they’re going to have to shake up this department (with their familiar way of working and their cozy network of journo contacts) and make them realise that they are essential in the new world order. They (alongside many other customer facing people within the company) need to be the acolytes of the company — when and wherever they are needed.
A brand, I believe, is a company’s soul and is therefore everyone’s responsibility in how this manifests itself internally and externally. But the PR department is an easy win… if only they ‘got it’. Roll on B L Ochman and her crusade (http://www.whatsnextblog.com)
PF
Hunker in the Bunker and toss the lawyers at ‘em
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2004/12/bunker_marketin.html
reputation terrorism indeed!
The Determined Detractor
Hugh at the Gaping Void brought to our attention the New York Times article about the ‘Determined Detractor’:
Aren’t the internal problems beyond resolution? Demographically I suspect most organisations have an active interface between the “clueless” and the “sociopathic” portions of your triangle depicting corporate structure. Due to the surfeit of talentless yet highly ambitious oleaginous benthos,there is a profound force toward the ruination of those with strong instincts and creativity. It is the filthy dog leg paradigm of Darwinism namely Survival of the Mediocre,the entropic accretion of sociophagic morons that crave what they can never have, while stamping it out whenever it is within their influence.
Welcome to Carnival of the Capitalists!
It is a pleasure and a privilege to be hosting the first Carnival of the Capitalists for 2005! We have a wonderful line up for you this week. First, though, I want to pass along that submissions for future COTCs