Author: Drew Neisser

A really striking photo of Nicolas Cage in a Montblanc ad caught my attention the other day. But like most of us, I didn’t bother reading the copy and completely missed the message. It wasn’t until a colleague handed me the ad as a possible example of Marketing For Good that I read the headline “helping others gives success true meaning”. The body copy goes on to explain that Cage and Montblanc “have made a joint commitment to social responsibility” and are supporting the “Heal the Bay” organization which is focused on “saving” the Santa Monica Bay off the coast of California. I think this a smart tactic for a luxury brand when so many others focus on status, encouraging conspicuous consumption as a “you deserve it” reward. I wish Mont Blanc had revealed how much they were donating rather than saying “a significant donation” and that Cage announced that he was deferring all payment from Mont Blanc directly to Heal the Bay. Regardless, I applaud Mont Blanc for trying this approach and I hope they sell a lot of their TimeWalker Chronograph Automatics (that’s the watch Cage is wearing). Perhaps other luxury goods makers will watch this effort and wind up with Marketing for Good campaigns of their own. Time will tell.

During Roger Federer’s smashing victory at this year’s US Open, the camera swished frequently to Tiger Woods who was there supposedly as Roger’s guest. There they were, two of the best athletes in the world, possibly the best ever in their respective sports, sharing a cross-border, cross-sport, cross-race, moment of mutual admiration. Was this just the innocent actions of two famous “friends” or actually a brilliant product placement scheme by Nike? Only Phil Knight knows for sure but as we look ahead to the 2007 marketing arena, we should do so with both wonder and cynicism, cheering greatness and booing duplicity.

1. Instant Replay
Just as the new instant replay system at this year’s US Open kept the line judges honest, bloggers are bringing a new level of scrutiny to corporations and their marketing activities. Marketers must assume they live in glass houses and that consumers are armed with lethal stones. Create a fake blog like SONY did recently with AllIwantForXmasIsApsp.com and you will be flogged online and off. Ignore customer service and the world will know about it faster than you can say exploding computer (as Dell found out this year). Directness and honesty will not only help you win a lot of points but also recover from some bad shots. FaceBook discovered this when their recent “upgrade” caused an uproar among their stalwarts who decried a loss of privacy. Bombarded with negative emails and postings, FaceBook management was quick to respond and fixed the problem.

2. Service Returns
In a world of glass houses, the winners will be those companies that focus first and foremost on customer satisfaction. Expect more companies to redouble their efforts to improve customer satisfaction in 2007 at every point of contact. Online customer support will also improve radically as more companies offer “live” support along with improved search functionality enabling customers to find what they seek in a click or two.

3. Net Promoter Scores Big
As customer satisfaction moves to the forefront of business strategies, expect more companies to use new metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to assess event marketing effectiveness and reward customer-centric performance. The beauty of NPS is that it only requires asking one question “on a scale of 0 to 10, how like are you to recommend brand X to a friend?” Enlightened companies like GE have already made NPS ratings an integral part of their business, basing 20% of compensation on NPS scores.

4. Hit the Corners
In the 2006 US Open finals, Federer out-aced the more powerful Andy Roddick 17-7 trading off speed for increased accuracy. Similarly, foresighted marketers will seek out the corners, mining new niches with increasing accuracy and reward. Unilever created Small & Mighty detergent, packing a lot of cleaning punch into a small container. Panasonic recently introduced a stunning 103-inch Plasma TV that retails for $75,000 including of course, custom installation. Clearly, this is not a product for the masses, but it generated tons of press and reinforced Panasonic’s position as the plasma leader.

5. Green is Good
Although the US Open repainted its courts from green to blue, smart marketers will bake in eco-friendly “green” strategies across the board in 2007. Remarkably, Wal-Mart appears to be leading the way in this arena with its new “Embrace the Earth” mission that pushes “sustainability” on its vendors the way it used to push price slashing. Suddenly Wal-Mart is the world’s largest buyer of organic cotton, “fair trade” coffee and energy-efficient light bulbs. Because thousands of companies like P&G J&J and Unilever, sell 25% or more of their goods through Wal-Mart, most will be forced to examine the “greenness” of their manufacturing and distribution processes. In addition to the environmental impact, the sales impact could be enormous.

6. No More Lines
For years, marketers have been dividing their communication budgets into “above the line” and “below the line” buckets. More recently, the division has focused on offline versus online activity. Hopefully, 2007 will be the year that marketers say “forget the lines” and look at their communications as one continuous conversation that seamlessly weaves across media turning prospects into customers and ultimately into brand advocates. To achieve this, marketers will need a new approach to strategy development and product management, creating briefs that embrace multi-channel ideation and brand managers that seek ideas not tactics. And agencies will need to be able to serve up ideas that work across the lines (the recent Burnett/Arc merger certainly anticipates this need.)

7. Innovation Triumphs
Part of the genius of both Woods and Federer is that they successfully execute shots that their competitors can’t even imagine attempting. This kind of innovation will propel select marketers and select agencies to new heights in 2007. On the client side, companies can’t afford to keep pushing the same products while competitors rush to market with less expensive knock-offs. Apple continues to be the poster child for innovation, bringing out new iPods and Macintoshes that are faster, cheaper, smaller and cooler before competitors can even respond to previous iterations. Agencies have an opportunity to use their considerable skills in both understanding consumers/culture and producing remarkable ideas to help organizations change the way they operate. The opportunities for innovation abound, the only impediment is the will to go for it.

I never ceased to be amazed that really busy professionals still find time to make a difference outside the office. A client of mine told me last night that he has helped run a homeless shelter for the last two years “in his spare time” (which is mind-boggling given his work responsibilities). The shelter, Moravian Open Door, focuses on helping elderly homeless (50 years old and up) get their lives back together and preparing them for living in a place of their own. With a full-time staff of three including the custodian, they house 49 people for stays of up to a year on a shoe-string budget. They don’t take city funding because they would have to open their doors to all comers which would distract them from their specialized mission. Old at fifty, elderly homeless have specialized health needs and tend to avoid city shelters where they are often preyed upon by younger guests. Raising money is always a challenge for Moravian Open Door given the small staff and the enormous competition among NYC non-profits for charitable donations.

We discussed creating an outreach program to solicit corporate sponsors. Talk about an opportunity for Marketing for Good! All these companies like Ameritrade, Pfizer, Prudential, and Carnival Cruises are trying to connect with baby boomers–a generation that really wants to leave the world a little better than they found it–what better way could there be to appeal to boomers than by helping out some less fortunate ones? And we aren’t talking huge money either–$5k provides shelter for one elderly homeless person for a year. Expect to hear more about this MFG opportunity.

Like many of you, I was traveling last week and spent some of my airport time searching for outlets to charge up my laptop, iPod and Treo. The New York Times picked up on this almost comic travel ritual in an article called the Socket Seekers that ran this morning.  If you have ever been a socket searcher, you are probably familiar with the strange looks you get (“no lady, I’m not looking under your dress…”) as your hunt gets increasingly desperate.  Clearly there is an opportunity for Marketing for Good here.  True to form, at least one airline seems to get this notion and that’s JetBlue.  Being the first to provide free WiFi at many of their terminals, another example of Marketing for Good, JetBlue realized they’d also need to provide extra outlets.  So whether you are in their JFK or Long Beach terminals, the two I visited last week, your socket seeking mission is quickly rewarded. Providing this little convenience simply reinforces all the other little things JetBlue does well like their easy online rsvp system, their fast answering help line, extra leg room after row 13 and providing my favorite Terra Blue chips for the princely sum of free.  If you don’t think these little pleasantries add up to big loyalty, consider the fact that I am “lifetime Gold” on American and will choose JetBlue over American everytime if they both fly to where I’m headed. Marketing for Good in this case means making the whole travel experience a little less painful.  I suspect other airlines might not being singing the blues if they paid a little more attention to the whole experience instead of trying to figure out how much to charge for a miserable Ceasar Salad (yeah, I’m talking about you Delta!).