Author: Drew Neisser

Robert Ludlum is dead. Long live Robert Ludlum. Or at least that’s the way his publishers would have it. Since Ludlum’s death, over 12 books have been published in his name according to a New York Times article. Ludlum’s publishers claim that the author “did not want to be forgotten.” Well, there is certainly no risk of that, with a posthumous “Ludlum” book climbing to #8 on the Times Best Seller list and hit movies fueling demand for all things Ludlum. There is, however, risk that a major deception is being played out on an a epic scale.

Consumers could easily be fooled into thinking that these books were actually written by Ludlum since his name appears above the title in letters that are twice as large as the real author. My guess is that many readers don’t even know that Ludlum is dead and just assume that he is playing the role of editor much like Tom Clancy and James Patterson do with their “co-authored” book. The publishers claim that consumers don’t really care as long as the quality is maintained. Perhaps they’re right assuming readers know they aren’t buying the work of the original author.

Ludlum’s estate compares these efforts to the licensing deals struck by the estates of Elvis, Marilyn and and Babe Ruth. This is laughable. If someone records a song in the spirit of Elvis and then releases it as Elvis Presley’s “New Song”, there would be a huge public outcry. Or perhaps the Bambino’s estate decides to license his name to a young player so that Mr. Ruth can reclaim his home run record. I suspect the Commissioner of Baseball would have an easier decision here than he does determining whether or not to show up for Bond’s record breaking, controversy-rich 755 home run.

What is to stop new “Picasso’s” and “Van Gogh’s” to be released by their respective estates? Surely they could find talented painters to work in the spirit of these painters, all in the name of keeping their visionary talent alive. The publishers of the new Ludlum books make no bones about the fact that this is good business and that it is much easier to sell a “Ludlum” than develop a new author. Of course its good business. So is selling pirated DVDs.

I don’t have a problem with continuing stories of dead authors. Caleb Carr wrote an interesting, albeit modest, continuation of the Sherlock Holmes character, exploring the relationship between Holmes and his brother. I knew full well I was not reading the work of Arthur Conan Doyle. That is not the case with the above the title works by Ludlum among others. It is tricky enough when living authors like Clancy and Patterson do it. In the case of Clancy and Patterson, you can’t be sure what role these authors played, other than to put their names on the cover. I’ve read only one of the Tom Clancy’s “co-authored” books and it paled in comparison to his solely authored efforts. In fact, it was down right awful, so bad in fact that it pretty much turned me off from Clancy altogether.

The Ludlum Conspiracy is dead wrong. Consumers are being duped and publishers are pawning off pages under false pretenses. Brand names are about building trust. Brand names are a contract between the seller and the buyer that name on the product is what it says it is. The shameless practice of putting a dead author’s name above the title in huge letters should be stopped before Bourne loses his real identity for good.

Noah (thanks NB) forwarded a stirring article from The Guardian (how does he find this stuff?) about how green is becoming a new status symbol propelled by eco-baloney. The author’s premise is that few people are willing to make the sacrifices required for real eco-progress and that most green products are simply giving the rich a new way of flaunting their success:

Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing – one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk.

The author goes on to make a lot of really smart observations and I tend to agree with him that most of the so called green products, including many I write about on this blog will hardly dent the global warming challenge. For example, the GE green card I wrote about yesterday is more of status symbol than a genuine instrument of change. That said, I disagree with the author on a couple of critical issues.

In any marketing campaign, the first step is generally building awareness for that particular product or service. All of the ecojunk, as the Guardian reporter calls it, while not necessarily doing good in and of itself, adds to the green buzz, keeping environmental concerns top-of-mind, reminding us all that we can make a difference as individuals. This level of noise is required to achieve real change, sacrifice or otherwise. Everyday people are confronted with simple eco-choices like putting soda cans in the recycling bin or just tossing them into the garbage, or using the store’s plastic bags when you could reuse your own cloth bag. Usually it takes a little more planning, a little more effort, to make the greener choice, AND all the green noise provides the constant reminder needed to propel most people to make the extra effort.

Secondly, I’m not sure that asking people to make real sacrifices is the only way to achieve dramatic change. Admittedly, my view on this may be completely naive but frankly, I’m not interested in living like No Impact Man and I think few people are. Real change will occur as the result of AND not OR. When hybrids cost the same as regular cars, the result will be better transportation AND better fuel economy/less emissions. When compact fluorescent bulb prices dropped, the result was better lights AND energy savings. Competitive advantage will be gained by those truly green products that offer the same price/performance AND less environmental impact. All of the ecojunk is simply paving the way for real ecochange. I, for one, am not giving up on the market.

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My wife and I are surprisingly loyal to particular clients we’ve served over the years. For example, I still rinse twice daily with Listerine, a brand I worked on more than two decades ago
at JWT. And she is quite partial to the American Express card, a former client of hers at Ogilvy. And when I say partial, what I really mean to say is that–pause–she never leaves home without it. For her, there will only be one green card-it is her card of choice-end of story. So, I suspect that GE’s announcement yesterday about a “green” card will not make much of an impression on her. For me, however, it is worth at least a little scrutiny.

Here’s the basic info on the GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard, as reported by the New York Times yesterday:

…allows cardholders to forgo a 1 percent cash rebate on purchases and earmark that amount for projects that reduce greenhouse gases. In months when they feel short of money, cardholders can opt to contribute half and take half in cash.

G.E. will keep a running tally of the amounts, and each Earth Day it will use the total to buy offsets of greenhouse gas emissions. The offsets will be purchased by GE AES Greenhouse Gas Services, a joint venture between GE Energy Financial Services and the AES Corporation, a power company.

So, is this Marketing for Good? Let’s consider the pros and cons. On the pro side, we all use credit cards anyway. Many of us select the card based on mileage points (American in my case) or some other direct monetary gain like cash back (Discovery) or product discounts (GM card) or access (AmEx Platinum). But can we find it in our hearts to give up the points/discounts/access and donate a couple of carbon offsets? Hmmm. I’m going to need some time to think that one through, after all, credit card mileage has funded the airfare for our last two family vacations. As Mae West would say, “I’m no angel.”

I can tell you that the card is quite nice looking and if GE spends enough on advertising, then everyone will recognize it and commend you when you pull it out of your organic leather wallet. (Recognition is important in “green” land and helps explain why Prius continues to sell well and Honda can’t give away their hybrids.) Also, GE will send you your bill electronically thus avoiding unnecessary paper waste which for most people should be a good thing. This service is offered by most other major credit cards and as long as you stay on top of the emails, you won’t have a problem with those nasty late charges which is what happened to me when I switched to electronic billing!!

On the con side, frankly, it feels like a con. Carbon offsets are a very squishy area to me. I’m still not sure how they work and if the end result is truly green. When I use my mileage card, at least I have no doubt what I’m getting. Then there’s the fact that the last thing most people need is another credit card, especially those who are struggling to pay off their credit card debts. The interest rates on this GE card seem to be industry standard which means if you have a good credit rating your interest could me in the low teens and if you have poor credit it will be in the high teens. Unlike some of GE’s other green initiatives (including some that I’ve written about), this one feels a bit small and superficial.

The verdict–give GE credit for being to first to market with this particular concept and trying to extend their stated commitment to the environment. GE has made the card easy to get–it took under two minutes to apply online–and free to own. Every time someone uses the card they will be making a statement, “I’m trying to do good, how about you (you mileage hog)?” What remains to be seen is if this green card will make green for GE and displace the other green card. My wife for one says, “don’t bank on it.”

Got a tip from Victor (AllDayBuffet.org) about Blackle.com, a clever response from Heap Media to a blog post by Mark Ontkush that calculates how much energy would be saved if Google switched its background color from white to black. Even though this savings only applies to CRTs (if you have a laptop or stand-alone LCD screen then this doesn’t apply for a technical reason I can’t really explain), the global savings would actually be significant (about $75,000 per year). Here’s a little more background on Blackle:

Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002

Kudos to Heap Media for making this happen and Google for not shutting it down. It may not amount to a huge amount of energy saving but it is another example of how a little effort by a small group of people can have global impact.

NOTE: Here are the details of Mark Ontkush’s analysis from way back in January:

As noted, an all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. I thought I would do a little math and see what could be saved by moving a high volume site to the black format.

Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.

It’s a big world and most of us are bit players. That said, whether in a corporate role or as private citizens, I never ceased to be amazed at how much good inspired individuals can actually do even in their “spare time.” One new organization that is hoping to inspire some good will in younger people (as in younger than moi) is AllDayBuffet.org. A fellow Dukie (thanks Victor) told me about them a few months ago and I have been watching with interest as they get things off the ground. The blog Eightfold provided a nice description:

This Good Magazine meets Flavorpill inspired online forum is intended to help young adults and social entreprenuers (which they haven’t capped by age – so if you’re young at heart, this could be a site for you) have fun while gaining awareness, taking action and making social change.

I think AllDayBuffet.org is one of those sites worth watching. Their virtual army is based out of two hubs New York and New Orleans and is creating a much needed centralized location where influential subcultures around the world can interact, share and create ways to transform any activity from BMX biking to Zoology into a world-changing platform. This makes AllDayBuffet.org a great investment for youth culture brands that are trying to identify strategic ways to “do good”.

Speaking of Eightfold, if you haven’t been there, it is worth checking out. It is a very interesting site with some great thoughts on marketing. I was particularly impressed with the following definition of “what is good?” since this is certainly something I wrestle with all the time on this blog:

What is good?
Doing good shouldn’t be an obligation or a responsibility. Being responsible implies looking at the past to make up for what’s been done, minimizing damage rather than maximizing value and supplementing or offsetting behavior rather than fundamentally improving behavior.

Doing good should be about looking into the future with an impassioned belief that a company or brand lives, breathes and rallies behind. It transforms a company or brand into an active member of society – not just another philanthropic arm.

To do this a company must act on a mutually beneficial vision for society and company where social, economic and environmental growth are intrinsically tied. The improvement of one should lead to the improvement of the others.

So, this provides an interesting transition into the question raised by another blogger, Anastasia on Y Pulse, “can indulgences do good?” She asked this in the context of Jones Soda’s online promotion in which they will give 25 cents (up to $250K) for every stream [e.g. video view on YouTube] to an organization called Vitamin Angels. Her conundrum centered around the fact that Jones Soda was essential “not good for you” yet the sales of that product could result in some good. My feeling on this is simple: let’s celebrate the good wherever we find it. Every little bit helps.

Just finished plowing through Business Week in search of MFG. It was slim pickings indeed. As such, I pulled out three marginally notable ads just to have a little fodder for further discussion.

The first from Visa Signature offered an interesting list of “things to do while you’re alive.” I am a sucker for this approach as I also enjoyed it 15 years ago when BMW offered its list of “20 things to do before you die.” Among the 21 items there were only four that I had done and at least ten more I would like to do including heli-skiing in British Columbia, celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans and visiting the Taj Majal. This highly engaging ad offers a not so subtle reminder to in the words of Mel Brooks from one of his first movies, The Twelve Chairs, “live while you’re alive, no one will survive, life is sorrow, here today and gone tomorrow.” As we toil away at our jobs, being reminded of the brevity of life is not a bad thing. It is worth pointing out that this ad only offered two items on the list that were not completely self-indulgent, the first being “take your parents on a vacation” and the second “find peace, love and understanding.” Visa Signature certainly has an insight into this blogger;-)

Speaking of self-indulgent, M&M’s ran a cheesy looking ad with a sweet offer to customize M&M’s for business. Just goes to show you that a good offer can overcome a lousy layout any day of the week. Having already customized M&M’s for personal gifts, I am well aware of the fun this little product enhancement can bring. Being able to put logos and other words on my favorite little chocolate candies opens up a world of possibilities. Now some of you out there may struggle with the idea that M&M’s could fit into a Marketing for Good column but keep in mind that chocolate is not all bad and some studies even suggest that it can “keep high blood pressure down, your blood flowing and your heart healthy.” Even if these studies are completely fallacious and funded by the chocolate industry, I for one always feel smarter after eating chocolate. And that’s as good as it gets.

Now I told you at the beginning that I was stretching but this last ad truly qualifies as Marketing for Good. It is one of a series from Allstate that offers relevant and important information for parents of young drivers (which of course includes yours truly). The intriguing headline asks “Why do most 16-year-olds drive like they’re missing part of their brain?” and then answers with “because they are.” The ad goes on to explain that the part of the brain that controls judgment simply isn’t as developed in 16-year-olds, something any parent of a teenager could have told you even before the wheel was invented. What’s great about these ads is that they explain the magnitude of the problem (a staggering 300,000 teens are injured in car accidents each year) and then go on to demonstrate how “graduated driver licensing” laws are reducing teen accident rates across the country. The ad concludes with “let’s help our teenagers not miss out on tomorrow just because they have something missing today.” This is profound stuff not the usual trivial fluff. Hope it is good for their business too.