Brand Immersion: Damon Endorses Indelible Waste

In today's issue of Brand Week, Kenneth Hein has written an article about how Coke and Pepsi are suffering a "beverage backlash." Bottled water growth rates are slipping into the single digits, down from double digit growth experienced for the last decade.

To accelerate demand, these beverage giants are signing up celebrities to hawk bottled water by offering part of the proceeds from bottled water sales to various charities that are organized around clean water initiatives.

I'm all for supporting philanthropic giving and believe that making a profit while doing so is just fine (ala RED). This giving, however, comes with a price that is unacceptable. This giving is attached to the propagation of indelible waste.

Wake up Coke and Pepsi and shame on you Mr. Damon! Stop trying to justify trafficking bottled water by stimulating demand and cloaking its purchase in celebrity endorsement and good causes.

Brand Immersion: Making Sustainability Personal

I'll start this post by stating that I am NOT a WalMart shopper. I've actively avoided shopping there because this is a retailer that has a long history of imposing the founder's politics on communities and treating employees badly.

That said, WalMart's efforts in the last 18 months to embrace sustainability are laudable. Their pressure on suppliers to reduce packaging, their actions to reduce the carbon footprint of their retail environments, and now, their efforts to educate 1.3 million employees about personal sustainable commitments are all active and progressive steps in making sustainability a mass market, main stream imperative.

Take a look at this video (and pardon me for subjecting you to the ridiculous interviewer) about WalMart's Personal Sustainability Practice initiative.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185071587/bctid1415631111
that are organized around clean water initiatives.

I'm all for supporting philanthropic giving and believe that making a profit while doing so is just fine (ala RED). This giving, however, comes with a price that is unacceptable. This giving is attached to the propagation of indelible waste.

Wake up Coke and Pepsi and shame on you Mr. Damon! Stop trying to justify trafficking bottled water by stimulating demand and cloaking its purchase in celebrity endorsement and good causes.

Brand Immersion: Meet Me at SXSW Interactive

Brand Immersion: Water for All

Water. Vital to our existence. In the United States we've elevated water to being a status symbol. There are those who feel compelled to spend handsomely on bottled water. And others who understand the folly of that. But what happens when access to water makes it a very dear and scarce resource? Here's an amazing and beautifully designed innovation for those in third-world countries who must travel for their water and contend with sanitary storage of it.

Brand Immersion: Brief for Ad Agencies

I was having dinner recently with one of my favorite people who just happens to be the head of a major advertising agency. As we were chatting about the dire need for innovation in agencies, from their sense of purpose to the product they deliver, it suddenly dawned on me that instigating massive change might be a fairly simple process...

Any work delivered to clients must be able to live and work beautifully within the confines of an iPhone.

There isn't a Web site, a television spot, a widget, or a viral application that can't be expertly captured, displayed, and broadcast by this magical device; from voice, to text, to images, to full length feature films.

It is here at last. We live in a fully mobile, IP-based world and advertising, marketing and branding that does not take this into consideration is work not worth creating, selling, or buying.

Full disclosure - I don't own an iPhone (yet) but there isn't a project I'm working on that isn't optimized for one.

Brand Immersion: Shoe Shopping

I know what you're thinking. "Shoe shopping...what could this possibly have to do with branding and marketing?" So I'll tell you...

A few months ago inMotion (inMotiononline.org - an organization, on whose board I sit, that provides legal services to women without means) had a fund raising event at a shoe store called Te Casan. Brilliant. I buy shoes and they get money. No rationalization necessary. Guilt-free shopping. I bought three pair. But it wasn't altruism alone.

This was one a completely unique shopping experience. It started with an amazing environment. The store has three levels, each with its own intimate and unique vibe. Then there is the help. People who understand shoes, feet, and fashion. They care about how you feel, how your feet feel, and how your feet and their shoes marry up. And finally there are the shoes. I swooned when I saw, on the velvety leather bottom of a pair of delicious black suede pumps, "Limited Edition: 30." Only 30 other feet the world over would be wearing my shoes.

I left with three pair of beautiful shoes. I felt like I had scored a great prize or a great work of art. My feet would sport shoes more limited than the Miro print on my wall.

I haven't stopped talking about (or recommending) Te Casan since that evening.

This is an example of a flawless merchandising strategy. Great product, great experience, fair price, good service, and an impression of scarcity (or limited supply). No advertising necessary. This hits every hot button a shoe lover has and begets immediate and continually recommendations. There's no better or more efficient media plan!

Thanks to my friends at PSFK for the reminder. Time to go shopping for spring!

http://www.psfk.com/2008/01/inspirational-shopping-te-casan.html

Brand Immersion: Clean Up Your Act

Long a fan of Kenneth Cole's provocations, I find my admiration growing. While many a brand has gone guerrilla with wild postings, street painting, chalking and other forms of commercial graffiti - Cole takes it one step further. To get their point across, they power washed city sidewalks using stencils. Rather than add to the mess - they chose to clean it up. And how 'bout that contextually relevant messaging...