Tom Fishburne: The Management Cartoonist

green fatigue

The other day on the tube, I saw an ad for a new 50% recycled range of pens from Pentel.  It showed a photo of a polar bear stranded on melting ice.  Next to the polar bear in distress, there were cartoon ice bergs and ice caps drawn by Pentel pens.  The implication was that buying these pens could help stop global warming, halt the melting of the ice caps, and save the poor polar bear.  It was only missing a tearful Sally Struthers.

Pentel's move to 50% recycled content is a pretty big step (particularly at the same consumer price).  But they flubbed the story.  By promising an unrealistic connection between their product news and the global warming epidemic, they come across as completely phony. 

Pentel isn't alone.  That tube car was filled with ads in the same eco-preachy vein, as were the tube stations, as were the billboards outside.

I think it turns off consumers more than it turns them on.  And can lead to them not doing anything.  Or worse, like my cartoon this week.

Contrast Pentel's story with that of Remarkable, a little brand that simply promises to "recycle UK waste and make it into exciting, fun, and innovative products".

I then came across a great AdAge article with 7 Steps to Avoid Eco Fatigue. One interesting quote: "Green is a fad. Sustainability is continual improvement."

The article also mentioned another good reference point from Patagonia, called The Footprint Chronicles.

how to be interesting

Next weekend, I'm off to Cardigan in West Wales to join the The DO Lectures put on by howies.  I'll certainly have plenty of blogging fodder after the weekend (and some good cartoon material too). 

I'm excited to finally hear Russell Davies speak, who I've long admired from afar.  Doing a bit of research turned up this wonderful essay from Russell called "how to be interesting".  It's a handy top-ten list geared for any creative business person.

#3 Keep a scrapbook

post 2 post book tour

I'm glad to share that my new book, This One Time, at Brand Camp, is ready at last.

Just in time for the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour, where my book is the featured book this month.  Hosted by Paul Williams (from Idea Sandbox), I'll visit 5 marketing blogs over the next week. Kind of like a real book tour, but I don't have to travel and I won't need a Sharpie.

The tour kicks off with this nice interview with Chris Wilson at The Marketing Fresh Peel and continues through the week at some of my favorite blogs:

Mon, Aug 25th: Marketing Fresh Peel by Chris Wilson
Tue, Aug 26th: Church of the Customer by Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell
Wed, Aug 27th: Brand Autopsy by John Moore
Thu, Aug 28th: Digital Roam by Dan Roam
Fri, Aug 29th: Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

Thanks to all of the bloggers for reading the advance copies and hosting a stop on the tour. 

If any one else would like to review the book on their blog, just email me and I'll post you a book.

evolution of marketing

This cartoon was inspired by a question from Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell.  Jackie and Ben are interviewing me as part of the Post2Post blogging book tour I'm doing this week.  They asked: " Is branding dead and if so, where do we bury the body?"

I definitely don't think branding is extinct, but I do think it's evolved.  So, I decided to use the evolution metaphor to play with a couple stereotypes in the noble profession of marketing.

Doctors have Hippocrates.  Even lawyers have Atticus Finch.  But, ask most consumers what archetypes they think of for marketers and the snakeoil salesman comes to mind.

I think that's because much of the history of marketing and branding has been about concocting a story consumers wanted to hear, even if the story was a wee bit phony. Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, famously quipped: "In our factories, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope."

Nowadays, consumers are often in the marketer's seat.  Consumers have always been the best source for what your brand means (not what's on a brand architecture tacked up in the office).  But, the power used to be with the marketer to sculpt and shape that message.  The question to ask now is no longer how your consumers play back the message you told them.  It's what message are they spreading to others.

With rise of social media, consumers are quick and empowered to share brands they like.  But, they are also quick and empowered to point out hypocritical stuff they they don't like. (Jackie and Ben wrote about this phenomenon in their book, Citizen Marketers).

I think the key is to tell an authentic brand story (but careful that you don't overdo that like the authenticity hawker in the cartoon).

And then find ways to enable your consumers to advocate on your behalf. 

I love how the gDiapers brand has found a way to recruit consumers to even do in-store demos and go to local events on behalf of the brand.  Now that's powerful.  If you want to know what the gDiapers brand means, just ask these moms.  You can be sure they're not snakeoil salesmen.

If you'd like the full interview, Jackie and Ben are posting it on Tuesday on their Church of the Customer blog.

pavlov's promotions

With the credit crunch brewing, there's a lot of pressure to ramp up your price promotions.  There certainly is a short-term argument (sales are down, consumers are increasingly price-sensitive, and price promotions are a predictable way to drive volume).  But, in the long-run, I think it can start to train your consumers to only buy you on deal (like the Pavlovian response in this cartoon).

It reminds me of my time on Haagen-Dazs.  Years ago, Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's had a good thing going.  They co-existed peacefully (promotion-wise), rarely promoting like the less premium ice cream brands in the category.  They didn't have to.  They were superpremium brands, and people bought them for reasons other than price.

Then, an upstart superpremium brand called Dreamery came along with an aggressive price promotion strategy. It was classic game theory.  Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's ramped up their promotions so they didn't lose volume to the new threat.  Soon, they were promoting like everyone else.  Dreamery eventually went away, but it was too late.  Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's had become Trade Deal Junkies.   They effectively trained their consumers to wait to buy until they were on deal.

This same realization prompted this related cartoon a few years ago.

hot off the press

Hot diggity, it's nearly ready.  I'm launching my new cartoon book in a couple weeks, and just received a few advance copies.  As you can see, my 5 year old was particularly excited by her choice in bedtime reading.

I set aside a signed advance copy to the reader who can write the funniest one-liner ending to this sentence:

"This one time, at Brand Camp, I ... "

Think about a true marketing-related example from your experience in brand team or agency life that shows how bizarre marketing can sometimes be.

Just post your answer as a comment to this blog post by August 20th, and I'll send a signed book to the best response.

I already sent out a few advance copies to some nice bloggers who will be writing about the book as part of the upcoming Post2Post Virtual Book Tour. Here's the full tour schedule.  Email me if you'd like to blog about it too, and I'll post you a copy.

Mon, Aug 25th: Marketing Fresh Peel by Chris Wilson
Tue, Aug 26th: Church of the Customer Blog by Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell
Wed, Aug 27th: Brand Autopsy by John Moore
Thu, Aug 28th: Digital Roam blog by Dan Roam
Fri, Aug 29th: Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

the fishbowl

We all work in a fishbowl.

I was thinking about how my favorite brands are marketed from the inside out.  There's a philosophy at the core that becomes ultimately reflected through everything they do.  These brands view everything as marketing and everyone in the company as working in marketing (even if they work in the mailroom).  When consumers poke and prod, it all hangs together consistently.

If you visit Fruit Towers (the headquarters for innocent), which they invite you to do on every bottle, it feels exactly as you'd expect from them.  And everyone you meet seems like a voice of the brand.

This is different from historic branding and marketing, where a brand persona is concocted for a 30-second spot, often by an ad agency.  Or a brand architecture is written to be shared with other marketers and marketing agencies only.

When I worked on Green Giant years ago, I stumbled across a thought piece that someone from Leo Burnett had written back in the 60's on the mythology of the Green Giant.  It was fascinating, with lots of intriguing stuff about how the Green Giant was related to the old pagan gods, etc.

No wonder these ads were so meaningful to consumers in a world of 30 second spots.  And most American consumers over the age of 50 can finish the theme song, "up in the valley of the Green Giant..."

In today's hyper-connected world, consumers choose how they interact with your brand, not the other way around.  And they're more apt to look through or around the brand "persona" to the real deal.  And then share what they find with others in blogs or other social media.  We're all in a fishbowl now, and we're all held up to a different standard.

Which is why it's important to think of everyone in the company as working in marketing.  And to be authentic about it.  How refreshing if a brand architecture were written not just to be shared with other marketers and marketing agencies, but with the whole company.  It would cut out all the incomprehensible lingo and make it easy to understand for everyone.  So that everyone can be a voice of the brand.

Not just the one guy in the equity costume.