Melodies in Marketing

Corporate social and environmental responsibility has been a hot topic lately. More and more consumers indicate knowing that a company is mindful of its impact on the environment and society, makes them more likely to buy its products, services or stocks.

A recent GMI poll shows that 36% of all consumers worldwide were boycotting products. Among the keenest boycotters were China with over 50% of the respondents, with Denmark and France placing second and third. When asked what factor was the most important in determining if a business is socially responsible, Americans placed the highest value on corporate community involvement (sponsorship, grants, and employee volunteer programs). On the other hand, all of the other countries surveyed (India, Canada, Australia, Germany, China and Japan) selected environmentally preferable practices (recycling, using biodegradable products) as the top factor.

The poll surprisingly found that only 42% of all Americans are willing to spend more for products branded as organic, environmentally friendly or fair-branded compared to 91% of the Chinese consumers and 71% of the Indians.

The study definitely shows that the US has a long way to go in raising awareness of its social and environmental impact if it is really serious about sustainability.

The question then is: Who should be responsible for sustaining the dialogue and creating the right incentives for the business, government and NGO communities to make the inconvenient decisions and take the difficult journey of sustainability?

I believe that the ultimate responsibility lies with us, the consumers. Not Wal-Mart, not the Bush administration nor the Gates foundation. We the people decide where we shop, we eat, where we invest and who we elect. We have the power to make each and every one these decisions a socially and environmentally responsible one.

Now the tricky part is: How do we raise people’s awareness of these responsibilities???

What do you think?

Share with:

That’s Italian for intermission and is something I’m taking until July.

Right now, I need to fully delve into the final four weeks of delivering a fantastic website for my client. This involves a LOT of copywriting on my behalf, designing info graphics, and delivering the best experience on time. What’s it all about? New product development and launch services for healthcare consumer products. That’s my evening/ weekend job, after working days in admin for an aerospace project mgmt consulting firm (for another 6 weeks).

In the interim period I also plan on:

• Catching up on the design and business mags piling up in my office
• Exercising, hiking, and meditating according to a planned schedule
• Developing a photo slideshow solution for an national nonprofit’s event
• Participating in the June MP Bookclub event
• Joining a chamber of commerce (thanks to Lewis)
• Catch up with old pals, network associates and perhaps some new folks through Upcoming.org and Meetup.com

Taking my place will be Jalal Bourgana, a former colleague and good friend. He’s a Moroccan-born Supply Chain exec with an alcohol and home decor manufacturer, and is transitioning to new product development. He thinks a lot like me, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy his style.

Please give him a warm welcome.

..

Tanti cari saluti con un senso di sincera amicizia,

Mario

Share with:

Going hiking tomorrow then hopefully meeting up with a friend and going to a concert. In the meantime, here are some things that have caught my eye and I wanted to share:

Cameroid - If you have a webcam, you or young kids can have a fun time making faces and have silly fun with this app. My niece was having a blast with this.

Green Paper - An article from HOW magazine on eco-friendly paper

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know - Interesting

iSketch - An oldie but goodie. Try the Expert English rooms - a real treat

Share with:

Laura Ries wrote an excellent article after having come back with Al from a trip to Beijing…go check it out.

Some excellent points are made in her court…and I’m on her side for most product/service categories. I once thought heavily extended store brands might prove to be an exception. Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand sells extremely well (although that’s a special story of its own), in addition to Target and IKEA’s brands. But in the end, if retail shoppers are willing to purchase items where price & economy are not strong purchasing influencers…they’ll often choose the items with the unique brand name and packaging.

But back to China. I think Theory A is vastly superior and just plain more exciting from a buyer’s point of view, especially in the realm of FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods). I think electronics however, is a unique category where the normal rules don’t easily apply; buyers want to trust a brand they’re forking out more money to. Would you like a Sylvania or a Samsung?

Time will tell what will happen in China. I can’t make any educated guesses yet, but I’ll toss in some change after I finish reading China Inc. by Ted Fishman (highly recommended!).

Share with:

Picturetown is a microsite from Nikon, that first caught my attention from a recent commercial. I couldn’t remember the web address nor name, so I searched extensively. Finally, I called MWW on Friday and a gentleman named Kevin pointed it out to me. This post is a quick rundown of the site and my thoughts about it. Note: I am a proud owner of a Canon Rebel XT.

- - - - -

Picturetown opens with 2 concise sentences
Benefit: Simple to use
Proof: Large sample audience (200 residents)
Invitation to explore the story

The Homepage displays a random background photo and centered in the screen is a navigation menu with 4 primary site sections, divided by expandable panes.

The Story
Well executed video about the program

The People
7 stories of people’s lives and their experiences with the camera. Includes video, some photos taken, comments, send-to-a-friend, and photo download option.

The Picturetown Gallery
7 brick walls (pages) with various participants photos.

The Nikon D40
7 main features each linked to one of the 7 people’s stories (very cool)
—–

In all, it’s one of the best microsites I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed the stories and the social features of emailing and commenting on photos. My only concern is the visibility of this unique campaign. Without the name Picturetown and its address, it was difficult for me to find using Google and navigating Nikon USA’s website. There should at least be some reference to Picturetown on Nikon Digital’s official D40 page. How about better visibility with either standard or sponsored results on a Google search on Nikon D40.

What do you think?

.

UPDATE: Official commercial added. This has to be cropped though because the URL is missing at the end.

Technorati Tags:
interactive marketing, nikon, d40, picturetown, photography, flash, microsite, nikon d40

Share with:

Apparently many of my favorite authors’ posts weren’t coming through in my reader (Grrrrr!! grumble grumble) and then noticed I had their standard feed addy provided by their platform. After updating around 30 feeds last night, I realized I should do the same. How could I be so off the bandwagon?

Well, now I’m on and available at this address:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MelodiesInMarketing

So who are the 17 Hippies? One of my favorite bands, straight outta Berlin. Here’s a press release snapshot:

They’re an eclectic mix of folk music, polka, brass and pop. The vocals are in German, French and English. The following videos will give you a little slice of musical pie. Enjoy!

Share with:

After this delightful reading of “Made to Stick“, I’ve come away with a lot of great insight on how to improve my communication across ALL channels. There’s no way to summarize the main points of this book without reading it yourself. So I’ll just refer you to the authors’ official blog and Cam Beck’s posts about it (one, two, three, four). But I will impart some recommendations on why this book is important.

Beginning with my enlightenment into the humanities as a teen and always having a passion for the intellectual (perhaps it’s the German in me), I’ve appreciated the abstract and Subjective. However, after being introduced to Ayn Rand and Objectivity (especially applied to leadership) in my twenties, I saw the distinct values in being direct and focused.

Well-rounded individuals will appreciate both schools of thought and apply them appropriately to various aspects of their lives. This book explains how to integrate both philosophies into our communication with others, so that our messages will strike a subliminal creative harmony that well…sticks. But most importantly, the techniques and methods Chip & Dan describe can be applied by ANYONE. Good and Poor communicators exist across all levels of our society. We all have the potential to more effectively deliver our messages in an effort to elicit the responses/actions we desire.

Share with:

I first picked up this great story Thursday evening from NPR’s All Things Considered, titled “Networks Control of Debates Rankles Pundits“, by Laura Sydell. Listen to the story - it’s an interesting 4 minutes.

On May 3rd, Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards both wrote letters to network execs and party national committee chairs asking for videos to be placed under a creative commons license.

CNN decided on Saturday to be the first to jump in with its official announcement that beginning in June, “CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate”.

I expect more movement from other camps as well and am interested in which licensing options will be used. I’m suspecting networks will take the safest route and use Attribution + Non-Commercial + No Derivatives. If they do that, they’d at least better break up the video into segments so distributors and their audiences can quickly jump around to topics that interest them, so they could forward video links and discuss topics in a more organized fashion.

For the networks to do it right, they should offer premium content (high bitrate video, transcripts, commentary) on their websites. With the freely licensed content, they should proactively place lower bitrate videos on the various distribution sites with information and links to the premium content.

—————————–

What do you think? How can networks effectively create a better product offering with a dual approach? Interactive Marketers, I’m calling you out…Recess is now in session.

[photo design by me]

Share with: