When Coke and Pepsi start being judged by their social responsibility as much as their taste (and their ads), you’ll know Responsible Marketing has arrived, right? Well, that time has come.

The Huffington Post recently ran an online poll pitting Pepsi’s Refresh Project Vs. Coke’s Live Positively campaigns.

The associated article does a great job laying out the differences between the campaigns, then left it up to readers to choose which campaign they preferred.

For marketers wanting to reach the younger generation, this makes sense:

This “conscious capitalism” has been a growing trend, and for good reason. A 2006 Millennial Cause Study by Cone Inc. and AMP Insights found that 69% of Millennials will consider a company’s social and environmental commitment when deciding where to shop, and a whopping 89% are likely to switch from one brand to another if the second brand is associated with a good cause. That’s powerful motivation for companies fighting for market share.

So, which campaign do you find most compelling?

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Image: Huffington Post

Here’s our deck from our Re-Brand event last Wednesday night.

Here’s our new logo and tagline:

A screenshot from our new Outsource Marketing website:

To see a little more of our new brand, here’s the deck from our event. View full screen for best results:

We know our goals for the new brand and what we’re trying to communicate. But of course, our intentions matter not.

The real question is, what do you think?

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• The Prius felt underpowered
• The Camry was nice, but felt too much like the Accord I’d just turned in
• The Insight was loud and somewhat disappointing
• And the Highlander Hybrid was so close in price to the Lexus, I chose the latter of the two

But the events of the last week have me second-guessing myself, and I have Ford’s social media marketing team (and a great product) to blame for it.

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, Ford contacted me “looking for fresh perspectives and feedback, something a little more engaging and authentic” from “non-traditional approach for bloggers and other content creators” and asked if I’d be interested in test driving the new Fusion Hybrid for a few days.

I agreed, and last Thursday, they delivered a shiny new one to my office, with the Michigan “Manufacturer” plate and all.

Here are few pictures I snapped with my iPhone:

I drove the car to work, to the beach, to Costco, to a Mariners game. Basically everywhere.

The fit and finish were good and the ride was really quiet. In fact, it put my both my high-energy kids to sleep on the ride back from their grandma’s house. Sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.

I got a lot of comments from neighbors “That’s really a nice car,” co-workers “I’d buy that” and was even given a special parking spot by a parking lot attendant after he said “Is that the new Fusion Hybrid—cool!”

What I liked most was the fact I nearly forgot it was a hybrid. The transfer from electric to gas is less obvious than it is with my Lexus, a fact that the press hasn’t missed, with USA Today calling it the best gas-electric hybrid yet.

Oh, and while I didn’t get the 81.5 miles per gallon achieved in a recent hypermiling stunt, I did get a respectable 39.5 MPG in a mid-size car.

All-in-all, an eye-opening experience.

Ford’s social media team is firing on all cylinders

You might have heard the buzz about the Fiesta Movement, Ford’s social campaign that put 100 “agents” (selected from over 4,000 applicants) behind the wheel of a 2011 Ford Fiesta for six months and how they’re sharing the results of their “missions” on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Ford is winning on the social web due to the aggressive approach that Scott Monty and Ford’s social media team have been taking to engage customers and build authentic conversations around their products and brands.

A return to the past?

Their bet is that if people actually drive a Ford, they might buy one. In fact, Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford, is interested in resurrecting “Have you driven a Ford lately?” campaign from the mid 1980′s.

Here’s an ad from that campaign that aired in 1984, the year I graduated from high school.

So, why didn’t I consider Ford?

Old attitudes and habits die hard.

Recent research from Nielsen puts Ford’s brand advocacy quotient below companies such as Kia, Pontiac and Chrysler.

While Ford’s branding and social media campaigns are good, I’ve become brand loyal to other manufacturers and it will take a lot to break that hold.

Ford’s dealers still publish absurdly noisy ads with prices the average buyer will seldom get (loyalty discounts, military discounts, first-time buyer discounts, etc)— and you’ll always have to haggle with the salesperson and expect them to bring in the manager when they can’t close the sale.

Still, that happens with most dealers and Ford’s product is good and worth a look.

People like me have been saying “Once American manufacturers catch up with Japanese and Germans, I’ll start buying American cars again.”

Well folks, has that time come? Ford’s product quality and the way they’re communicating with customers has me reconsidering their offerings.

Comment below to weigh in.

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Skittles, the chewy, fruit-flavored candy from Mars, Inc. has jumped into social media in an innovative new way: They have coded their website so their navigation now floats over three of the most popular social media websites.

Skittles.com is now nothing more than a navigation box floating over the Twitter search results for the term “skittles.” Essentially, this is capturing all the Twitter conversations regarding their brand (and their new marketing tactic) right on their homepage. Click the the Friends button, and the nav will float over their Facebook Fan Page. The Media button floats their nav over their YouTube channel.

“Skittles” has been the number one search topic on Twitter and in social media since Sunday, and as you might expect, most commentators love it. It’s bold, innovative and its helping drive word of mouth regarding the Skittles brand with people who love to share ideas.

The company has been criticized for abdicat[ing] their brand voice and failing to filter the feed, resulting in competitors links, profanity and some unsavory tweets from pranksters.

Whether the failure to filter was intentional or not, I don’t know, but by not filtering visitors get to see the authentic conversations regarding the brand. Still, all tweets aren’t suitable for children.

So, do you think Skittles new social media play is responsible or not?

Comment below to share.

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Few professional athletes have ever been bigger than George Herman “Babe” Ruth.

His achievements on the baseball field were epic, garnering him the nicknames “The Sultan of Swat,” “The Colossus of Clout,” “The Titan of Terror,” “The King of Crash,” and of course, “The Great Bambino.”

Arguably, the greatest player in the game today is Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod has a few nicknames, too:

• After leaving Seattle for a “contender,” he signed the largest contract in baseball history to play with the Texas Rangers—a team that has never contended—he became “Pay-Rod”
• He’s known as the “The Cooler,” since teams go cold when he joins them and hot when he leaves
• Several nicknames I won’t repeat due to his philandering, most notably with Madonna
• In light of the recent steroid revelations, he’ll forever be known as “A-Roid,” “A-Fraud” and “Alex Roidriguez”

Still, prior to the steroids news, baseball fans held out Rodriguez as the one person that might be able to remove the asterisk from Barry Bond’s home run record.

What does all this have to do with Responsible Marketing?

Baseball has a trust problem, and last April I asked the question, Can Responsible Marketing save baseball?

In it, I was hopeful that some of the things the MLB was doing might be able to help baseball regain its footing.

But as the highest paid player in the game, A-Rod’s irresponsible and fraudulent actions have a reverse halo effect (also known as the ‘devil effect’) on the MLB brand.

So, now I’m left asking the question again, do you believe Responsible Marketing can save baseball?

What’s your take?

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We all know smoking is bad for your health, but is it bad for your business, too?

Here are three examples where, at the very least, the customer experience was damaged by a company’s lackadaisical smoking policies:

1. Yesterday, two of my co-workers saw a cool bakery truck that caught their attention. The driver had on a nice uniform, and clearly his employer had invested in their brand.Then they saw the driver puffing away on a cigarette in his truck.

   The thought of the smoke getting to the baked goods and then him handling the product, well, grossed them out.

2. At a restaurant I frequent for lunch, one of the cooks takes a smoke break in front of the establishment then comes back in, washes his hands, and gets back to work.The smoke wafts in often, and when he walks by he smells like a stale pack of smokes. Let’s just say it’s not very appetizing.
3. My family stayed at a decent hotel right across the street from the main gate at Disneyland last year. The hotel had gone to great lengths to make the entry an experience—with one exception: The pickup and drop-off area featured a bench and a couple of ashtrays.The first time we walked into the hotel, we were treated to a dose of second-hand smoke that took about five years off my life. I thought this was a one-time occurrence, but nearly every time we walked into the hotel, we had to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

I know, this isn’t the Responsible Smoking blog. It’s about marketing.

But considering smoking is on the decline in the U.S., and 80.2% of the people in this country are non-smokers, can you ignore the potential damage your smoking policies may have on your brand?

Can you afford the negative word of mouth?

Am I overreacting, or is this a legitimate concern?

What do you think?

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. . .

Image: Current

I love it because of it’s simple, it’s funny and it’s true.

But I hate it because it perpetuates the myth that marketing, advertising and PR are all in some way equals. They aren’t.

Let me explain:

You meet two people at a holiday party: Beth works in the marketing department of a mid-sized business focusing mostly on public relations, and John is sales rep at the same company.

Here’s how they introduce themselves:

John: “I’m in marketing at ABC Widget.”
Beth: “I’m in marketing and PR at ABC Widget.”

One of introductions above is technically incorrect. Can you guess which one?

Did you guess John?

Sorry. Wrong answer, and here’s why:

Marketing is the interdisciplinary umbrella advertising, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion and direct selling—the five elements of the promotion mix—all reside under.

So the fact is, John is technically right—Beth isn’t.

John is in sales, and personal selling is one of the elements of the promotion mix. It’s the equivalent of saying “I’m in law,” when someone is an attorney specializing in estate planning. That works.

But when Beth says, “I’m in marketing and PR…” it’s like saying “I’m in law and estate planning,” “I’m in medicine and cardiology,” or “I’m in accounting and auditing.” That doesn’t work.

This is a common practice. When I instructed the IMC course at the UW, I was surprised how many marketing practitioners cobbled together discipline and sub-discipline.

Perhaps from the standpoint of explaining what you do, it’s not that important.

But each element of the promotional mix plays a different role in making marketing work. Without an appreciation of the differences or promotional cost effectiveness of each element, your marketing won’t work—no matter what you call it.

Thoughts on this? Share them below.

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Image courtesy of Neutron, LLC via Ads of the World.

But you don’t need to be a lover of marketing, history and politics to appreciate the following videos describing the birth of the Obama brand by Sol Sender, the creative director who led the team hired to develop of the brand.

View Obama logo design, part 1 on YouTube

View Obama logo design, part 2 on YouTube

Don’t miss the “explorations” section on the first video to see some of the logos rejected by the campaign.

Seeing the other logo concepts, do you think the Obama campaign picked the best option?

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They’re back on brand with the King and Burger King Flame, the “body spray of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

Yes, it’s real, but it’s sold out.

Of course, it’s not about the body spray, it’s about creating buzz and getting people to interact with the brand, and in the campaign site, you’ll do just that.

A crackling fire, a full moon and a romantic rubdown are just a few of the scenes you can experience in full-screen video.

Make sure you view all of the videos—you won’t want to miss the “royal treatment.” Believe me, you won’t want to miss it.

So, is Burger King back on brand, or did you appreciate the Whopper Virgins campaign more?

What say you?

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Thanks much to Melissa Griswold for sharing this with me.

The dreaded 404 Not Found message. Not quite the blue screen of death, but definitely unwelcome when you are trying to find something on the Internet.

The 404 page isn’t something you are looking for—it’s a web page you typically receive when you land on a page that’s been deleted or removed.

From a marketing perspective, why should you care?

The 404 page is actually an opportunity for you to turn a negative into a positive. An inspired 404
improves usability, can reinforce your brand and turns something unwelcome into an informative, even entertaining contact point at a time when a site visitor least expects it

My favorite 404 is The North Face’s 404 goat:

+enlarge

The copy:

THE PAGE YOU REQUESTED WAS EATEN

Goats do all sorts of nifty things to keep humans off the mountains, such as sabotaging your favorite gear and apparel website by eating our links and pages. These pages contain valuable information related to state-of-the-art gear, the very gear vital to an athlete’s survival in the harshest of conditions.

Don’t let the goats win, and report to our Web Administrator.

Quite a contrast your typical 404, eh?

For more on creative 404 error pages, check out the following posts from Smashing Magazine:

They’re chock full of creative 404 examples and will give you all the creative inspiration you’ll need.

If your company has an inspired 404 page, or you’d like to share one you’ve seen, please comment below.

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