by Geoff Livingston

We live in a world where anyone can hijack a brand and put it on the Internet with their own views, positive or negative (image by Brent Nelson). Brand control no longer exists, in large part because of widespread fragmentation of traditional and citizen-created media. The resulting brand distortion creates a situation where communicators attempt to paint the abstract.

The abstract takes pieces and puts them together to create a larger picture. Sometimes the pieces are clear, other times they are not. In the case of fragmented branding, some pieces are issued by corporate, others are the expressions of stakeholders, positive and negative.

There’s no greater example than the current Pepsi Refresh campaign. A brief recap of the initial Buzz Bin post: Pepsi has opted out of the Super Bowl in favor of a $20+ million integrated campaign that features crowdsourced charitable giving, a contest form of corporate social responsibility.

Ironically, given the quality of this year’s ads, this may have been an incredibly brilliant coup. Both Richard Laermer and I dubbed the campaign an instant success on our podcast, simply because of the many conversations it has created. See Richard’s breakdown above in this video.

The conversations aren’t all positive. In fact, the nonprofit community has doubts and questions, many of which are legitimate concerns about the viability of the contests and the sustainability of the program choices. Pepsi acknowledges these criticisms and has engaged in dialogue. I like that they aren’t running, in spite of valid criticism.

And why should they? In spite of cause-based and marketing critiques, to the common American this is a huge investment in society and a big statement. The abstract brand picture, even with the smudges, is a pretty strong one for Pepsi. In fact, without the criticism one could argue that the conversation would be less believable and loud. Brand fragmentation in the form of generosity and community contribution works.

It should be noted that Pepsi did not just launch a social media campaign. The Super Bowl ads are missing, but the company has not left the abstract painting strictly in the hands of folk artists. There’s been serious PR as evidenced by stories like the CNN piece appearing in every major media outlet, as well as substantial advertising to notify citizens of Pepsi’s Refresh America attempts.

Welcome to the fragmented brand marketing of the 21st century: A combination of mass campaigns featuring traditional advertising and PR mixed with corporate social responsibility efforts as well as authentic social media that enables both good and bad conversations. There’s no call to action beyond doing good, because Pepsi simply wants to refresh its brand. And in this case, it’s a win. I guarantee you that people — as in the people who walk into Safeway with a grocery list — will think about Pepsi again, and in a new light. Fragmented branding measures the composite view — not the individual wins or Monday morning quarterback complaints — to determine success.

Three Additional Musings for Those About to Experiment

1) Pepsi is relatively early in the crowdsourced social philanthropy game, but not the first. What was notable in this project was the size of the purse, as well as the opt out of the Super Bowl. Copy cat marketing efforts are sure to arise, and less successfully so. Less money + me, too copycat = a yawn.

2) Corporate social philanthropy needs to be authentic to the core of the company. Customer-centric efforts with crowdsourcing efforts are cool, but ultimately represent a novelty especially for niche brands that are not serving mass markets. They will be better served building programs around the corporate culture or strategy. For example, if one is a software company, one might focus on digital freedom, transparency, developing programming jobs in the U.S., as well as technical education in high schools and universities.

3) Contest fatigue is setting in. And criticism of cause-based contests is also on the rise. Make sure this is the right tactic as opposed to engaging your community in a different, more sustainable way.

Google Trends shows how quickly the search has become a hot topic:

It’s not a matter of who is the journalist or news anchor in the case of social media, concern over ownership of retweets or information privacy is out the window. In the case of crisis the network moves the news in order to expand the communal concern rather than respond to ratings.

Recently, an interesting thought was raised about how Social Media has become the news to Traditional Media. In comparison to being a reactionary channel for branding I think involvement in social media has a way to push communication past a professional news pitch to something that hits closer to home. In the case of Haiti news, almost instantly there were charitable actions being shared through the community.

There is great potential for new tools to help maintain the momentum by showing where the money that is being donated is being used to enrich the community. So when the dust settles where will that leave efforts in Haiti? Does Social Media have the ability to extend past the flash of the news to create a sustainable relief effort? If it is to be successful there needs to be a connection past generating the buzz and awareness to continuing the action of support. The ability to store the data from the buzz even has potential to help with generating action plans for the future.

Companies concerned with social responsibilities are finding many new places to carry on their activities, and in the process of talking and doing, they are creating

Freedigitalphotos.net

value for all of their stakeholders. Add this expansion of business interests to the explosion of media and the advent of social networking, and you get very positive tools for boosting capitalism, as well as some strange phenomena.

It strikes me as  just a little odd, for instance, that a company can now attract a “fan” for good customer service, when it really was Bob in customer service who provided the heroics that resulted in getting what should be expected and given to every customer. Have we lowered our standards to the point where getting a normal result is exceeding expectations?  Also, I don’t think company fan pages is a trend that bodes well if too much celebrity is attached to companies. Many of them simply don’t deserve all the attention — and certainly not our adulation. (But, I digress.)

One very interesting frontier for this new dynamic is what’s being called the post-carbon economy. What previously sufficed as measures of good citizenship will no longer, as companies will have to show us their costs to society so that we can compare those costs to the benefits they bring us.  Customers are increasingly focused on this from the perspective of water, waste, energy use and other previously uncounted impacts. Other stakeholders are able to get their contrary perspectives before large audiences via social media. Good public relations demands a game plan for this new CSR environment, and, with a nod to CRO Magazine, here are a few ways to address some of the challenges they covered recently:

1. If you are in a traditional industry — energy, mining, chemicals, heavy manufacturing and the like — get carbon savvy in the same way your process improvement teams are doing it. Be conversant it all of the measures being used in your company.
2. Learn how employee health and safety, sustainability, governance, risk and compliance activities in the company are being conducted, specifically how they are having an impact on profit, and build this knowledge into your plans for various stakeholders.
3. Track peers, competitors and best practices in Corporate Register or in CRO (link to sign-up page). There is a wealth of information on what others are doing to create value for their companies with the new capitalism.
4. Help your company move from defense to offense. The public relations function is ideally situated on the “border” between a company and its stakeholders. There is going to be increased transparency by regulation, and the public relations function should be in the business making the transparency serve the business. It will be particulary important to translate business practices into benefits for stakeholders. Sometimes this will mean kudos for the company, but more often it will mean making and communicating changes that will allow the company to improve its citizenship over time. (This is tough work.)
5. Don’t be sucked in by the “going green” mantra prevalent in so many businesses. In this age of increased transparency, it won’t be about the labels of “green” versus “dirty.” It will be about innovation in product, services and in citizenship.
6. Move away from the “campaign” mentality altogether. Quarterly themes of green, sustainable, diversity, human rights, etc. must move out from the realm of messaging and into the realm of exchange of ideas. PR is ideally situated to help nurture the values that foster these principles in conscious capitalist companies.
7. Consider a more interactive online presence, built by your Web consulting team or available through such products as Report-Works.
8. Follow your peer group online if they are posting information about their programs. A good example is McDonald’s “Values in Practice” Blog, “through the eyes” of VP Bob Langert, who has posted, for instance, on “The Eighth Sin of Greenwashing,” among other topics.

I may never get used to companies having fan pages, but if just some of the coming challenges in this new social and media world are handled well, there will at least be a reason to salute the top practicioners of conscious capitalism. Corporate Responsibility Officer recently reported, btw, that the best companies in CSR outpoint their competitors in profits by 26%.

That’s certainly enough to create some shareholder fans!

 Wind Power. Renewable Energy. Green Economy. There is an awesome amount of momentum in the America right now around all of these topics. We’re on the cusp of real change in how we create the gobs of energy we increasingly consume in a manner that is kinder and gentler to Mother Earth.

One problem – we have a power grid infrastructure (i.e., those big transmission lines that cut across the landscape), once the best in the world, that has gone neglected for many years. The current system was built for few big energy on-ramps (like coal-fired power plants and nukes) not a lot of small, variable energy outputs like the on ramps needed for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass. Expanding and updating the transmission system is perhaps the most contentious project you could ever undertake. They are often ensnarled in protests and lawsuits so it takes decades to build even small additions to the grid. And the current transmission grid is far from smart right now.

We’re making progress. Last week President Obama cut loose $3.4 billion dollars worth of stimulus money to roll out the American smart grid. Realistically, $3.4 billion is just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a move in the right direction.

According to ABB, one of the major players in the power transmission game, North America is “not close” to developing a true smart grid. ABB CEO Enrique Santacan, cut a YouTube video where he says:

• The process of developing and implementing the smart grid is just starting in North America.
•  Lots of old equipment will have to be replaced.
•  And, many new automation technologies will have to be deployed in order to get there.

According to Dean Anderson’s blog  the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory defines a smart grid as having the following characteristics:

• Self-healing from power disturbance events
• Enabling active participation by consumers in demand response • Operating resiliently against physical and cyber-attack
• Providing power quality for 21st century needs
•  Accommodating all generation and storage options
• Enabling new products, services, and markets 
• Optimizing assets and operating efficiently

If you saw this weekend’s 60 Minutes broadcast. we should all be greatly concerned about creating a smart grid that is resilient to cyber-attack. In typical 60 Minutes style, our electrical grid was “exposed” as a prime target for cyber terrorism potentially dropping our nation into darkness and confusion. More alarming was the interview that pointed out that some of the components damaged in a cyber or physical attack could take four months to replace. (I once spent 11 days without power due to an ice storm. I can’t imagine what four months would be like!) Remember that in 2003, a simple tree limb on a power line in Ohio resulted in a power failure that in mere seconds enveloped the Midwest to Broadway in darkness.

It will take time to develop a smart grid system designed to be more like your office and home wireless LAN but less susceptible to hacking.

Patrick Mazza’s blog on Grist from more than 27 months ago  pointed out that “It’s time to bring the grid into the foreground because it positions at the exact center of the world’s most crucial issue, global climate change.”

Two years later, we’re enthralled with harnessing wind and solar, but all that excitement won’t get us far if we don’t address the much more mundane but essential infrastructure needed to turn all that excitement into real progress.

Photo: voxefx

 I have lived in several places throughout the east and Midwest, but I spent my formative years (8 to 18) in the garden spot of the Garden State and I have now lived in Richmond, Va., for the past 19 years (my longest stint so far in one city/location). So I have a special interest in the odd fact that New Jersey and Virginia have the only two gubernatorial races in the country this year.

And they are pretty telling races. Historically Democratic “blue” New Jersey has incumbent Jon Corzine running neck-to-neck with Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney (who apparently has little respect for copyright law).  The polling difference between the two candidates falls within the statistical margin of error making it’s anyone’s race.

In Virginia, which as a one-term limit state never has an incumbent candidate for governor, Attorney General Bob McDonnell has a commanding double digit lead in the polls over Democrat Creigh Deeds, a long time state politician. A Republican win would end two back-to-back Democratic administrations in a traditionally Republican state.

What national implications should we read into these two races? Has Obama lost sway and, in turn, Democratic candidates? Well, according to the SmartPolitics blog, there’s a far less knee jerk story to all this. To quote the blog “A Smart Politics analysis of historical election returns in the Garden and Old Dominion States finds that the two states have voted in tandem during the last five gubernatorial elections dating back to 1989 - and always electing the party which is not in control of the White House. (If it’s not too late, find a bookie and put all your money on Christie in Jersey!)

From a social media standpoint it is interesting that in Virginia McDonnell has outspent the Democrat Deeds 5-to-1 in social media (a number which far exceeds the Republican spending advantage in traditional media.) As blog site bluevirginia  reports, ”That’s inexcusable…that the McDonnell campaign has blown Creigh’s campaign away in new media.”

But perhaps the most telling statement here is the naïve assumption that social media is the domain of the Democrats. The success of the Obama campaign taught both parties a lesson. If the Democrats want to learn something valuable this November for the 2010 midterm national elections (especially for U.S. House seats), it’s that social media, like liberty, is accessible to all.

by Mike Mulvihill

Photo by Laban West.  Lightning over Muskogee Power Plant, Muskogee OK.

Last week the number of the week was 30,000  –  that’s how many servers support Facebook’s operations.  (No wonder, Facebook produces 25TB – yep, tera-bytes – of log data per day).  The numbers comes from Jeff Rothschild,  the vice president of technology at Facebook, who discussed the company’s infrastructure in a presentation last week at UC San Diego.  BTW, this is a pretty rapid ramp up from the 10,000 servers  Facebook has been claiming since April 2008. 

At 30,000 servers, Facebook data operations now consume somewhere in the order of 3,800 MW of electricity,  including cooling and power distribution costs,  just so we can stay connected with our friends.  (Since I don’t know exactly what servers Facebook has in use, this number could be slightly lower or a lot higher.)  To put 3,800 MW in perspective, that’s about five power plants (big electric generation plants of 750 MW a piece).  Not an insignificant footprint. 

Social media is a great tool for spreading information and mobilizing people on lots of topics and issues. Here’s an issue to add to the pot – at what point does the fantastic rise of social networks create enough harm to offset the benefit?    

In a world looking to reduce the impact of energy generation by using less energy, our social media jones is one of the drivers behind the doubling of servers in use in the U.S. (from 5.6 million in 2003 to 11.8 million in 2007).  An individual data center consumes somewhere in the area of 5 MW of energy – the equivalent of 5 million houses of electricity.  Some data centers consume as much as 30 MW.  (I have even seen plans for a 50 MW data center that proudly points out that it would be a very green 50 MW data center.)  In 2005, it is estimated that 1.2 percent of al U.S. electricity was consumed by servers, a 100 percent increase from 2000.  IDC projects another 40 percent to 76 percent increase by next year, which would be about 2 percent of all electricity in 2010.  

I’m not picking on Facebook or even social media, but the point is we all have behaviors that impact our environment, some are just more self evident than others.  Plasma TVs that consume as much as 9 percent of a home’s power consumption mostly in standby mode.  More and more devices consuming more and more energy – if we’re going to try to reduce the number of power plants needed to feed the beast (us), then we have got to change our ways.  Change our behaviors. Do things differently. Energy efficiency – it’s great to talk about.  But are we really having any impact or is all that talking just adding more servers to Facebook?

Perhaps you’ve seen the controversy over Seth Godin’s “The problem with non” post. Nonprofit leaders like Beth Kanter and and Peter Panepento are rightly calling Godin’s position to task.

Beyond the whole purple cow argument about the name of the biz (zzzzz, PASS), the real issue is calling to task nonprofits for not engaging in social media, that the mainstream commercial market is surpassing the cause industry. He points out new brands are rising up to take their place, but that the traditional nonprofit industry has taken a pass. In general he laments, “When was the last time you had an interaction with a non-profit (there’s that word again) that blew you away?”

My response to this is when was the last time Seth Godin did actual work in the field? Because I work with both nonprofit and commercial entities, and I can tell you which sector is getting it faster: Nonprofits. Much faster. If Seth did actual field work — instead of promoting his personal brand and ideas — he might have practical experience to cite in his lament. Instead, we have an uninformed opinion.

Consider the Humane Society’s efforts or LiveStrong’s or Live Earth’s and the National Wildlife Federation. These are all big brands that I’ve talked to in the past two weeks! Then there’s the CDC actively engaging to combat H1N1.

Further, in the 100 Twitter brands Seth cites as an example, almost all of them are personalities or media outlets. Only a handful are actual brands, mainstays like Dell and Whole Foods.

Seth’s defense in a comment on a critical post by CauseWire’s Tom Watson :

I was actually overwhelmed with mail (about ten times more than I usually get) and every single piece from a frustrated person inside of a non-profit.

Well, of course you were, Seth. When we complain, all of the complainers get on board; when we focus on the positive, we are joined by the positive. And everyone in social knows that negative comments — while often representing a minority — tend to greatly outweigh the positive.

But, in reality big nonprofit brands are engaging, and while they are struggling — just like the rest of American entities — successes are emerging. In reality, I see them making a lot more progress than Fortune 500s. They have much less for-profit baggage, like hard-selling, or a psychotic need to control the message for brand image purposes.

Why We Need to Practice

Seth’s erroneous post demonstrates an increasing weakness I’ve seen in his writing (in fact, I took him out of my reader for this reason), and other senior executives in the business. Without actual field experience people are just citing ideas. So what’s the difference between a thought leader and a so-called social media expert if neither of them have pragmatic field experience?

Parroting and/or reporting what you see on the Internet does not equate to actual savoir faire. Nor does it make someone fit to offer insights or counsel.

In his book Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy noted that he always maintained one account to keep his skills fresh. It’s for this very reason that I, too, stay engaged with actual field work. With such a rapidly moving media landscape, how can any of us claim to be of service to our organizations, clients and readers — much less “thought leaders” — unless we are doing actual work.

As part of the social media team at Live Earth, I am thrilled to announce the “Love, the Climate” campaign launching today, and continuing through Friday, the 25th (landing page coming later this week). Before the Climate Bill goes to the Senate floor, Live Earth is calling upon Americans to set aside partisan politics, and join together for a fun, positive and mind?changing effort. For more information on the Climate Bill, see this Huffington Post article.

Ace Blogger and Thought Leader David Armano agreed to help, and created this fun alternate logo for the effort.

We need your help, too! Please, demonstrate your optimism and faith. Make our senators feel like environmental rock stars. Encourage and motivate them to support a greener future!

Here are three ways you can Love the Climate:

• Leave us a voicemail thanking a senator for improving the world and letting everyone know how much you love the climate. Call 347.422.6392 now to leave your message on the Live Earth message line (this is not a toll?free number) or go to www.liveearth.org and we’ll call you! Live Earth will highlight the best voicemails on our website and forward the best ones to the senators to whom they’re addressed.

• Add to the “Love, The Climate” Facebook Page with a note, a message, a photo, or a link to content that shows how fantastic the climate will be after senators have taken action by passing the Climate Bill.

Here’s my cheesy video ;)

• Make a video for the climate demonstrating to senators how amazing life has become in a future where the environment is protected. Submit your video at video.liveearth.org. Live Earth will promote the most creative entries, and forward the best videos to the senators to whom they’re addressed.

Your creativity can help you as well as the climate: all participants who register for the campaign will be entered into random drawings for one of our awesome “Climate Love Packs,” as well as our grand prize, a Schwinn road bike. In order to be eligible for the prize drawings, you must submit an entry form to Live Earth at http://joinliveearth.org/page/s/lovetheclimate.

With causes, we seek to create movements using word of mouth tools, and in particular, tools within social media. It’s very easy to get stuck in the mindset of a single track effort, such as Twitter, or even an online multichannel effort that involves several tools. Yet, to be truly successful cause-based movements bridge social media, traditional media, as well as good, old-fashioned, brick and mortar offline life.

No one eats their dinner and says to their partner or self, “Hmm, I think I’ll go play on social media for an hour tonight.” They just go online and surf. Social sites are part of their lives, but so is their favorite magazine, the office bulletin board, tschatkes they pick up at events that they attend, perhaps church or synagogue, etc., etc.

A movement means they do more than click on a tweet! They bring it into their life and talk about it. They tell their friends, both on and offline, and their friends tell more friends!

At the heart of creating movements are word of mouth marketing (WOMM) principles. Social media represents just part of the mix; some — not all — of the tools that facilitate conversations and discussion about our special movements. Andy Sernovitz in his soon to be released entertaining light read, “What Is Word of Mouth Marketing,” notes tools are just part of the five Ts of WOMM. Those Ts also include Talkers, Topics, Taking Part and Tracking.

Read the whole post, including a case study about Bat Nha Monastery on the Case Foundation blog. And if you feel so inclined, please participate in the discussion on Thursday. Here’s how.

DC Twestival organizers did more than just organize an event to benefit Miriam’s Kitchen for 9/10. We did a morning shift at the kitchen yesterday. Please register today.

We’re coming up on the anniversary of 9/11, now a national day of service. Employers throughout the country are encouraged to let their employees participate.

For me, I still remember watching the plume of smoke above the Pentagon as it burned from my office tower in Tysons Corner. It’s great to see the day is now encouraged as an opportunity to give back, and I’m proud of my employer CRT/tanaka for encouraging the entire staff to participate for a half day.

What’s great about 9/11 is that it gives causes an opportunity to harness goodwill and convert a few more people to regular work. In that sense I love it.

What’s bad is that people may feel like, “Well, I gave my day of service. I’m good for the year.” And that’s the tragedy, because there are so many causes that need support throughout the year.

Authenticity in service really means (at least in my mind) doing more than giving for one day.  While helping others may be the new black, organizations and people need to actually sustain being helpful for it to be authentic and believable.  A true commitment needs to be maintained over time.

That’s why Mashable’s Summer of Social Good meant more than one day of service or  a blog post from one of its competitors.  That’s why DCTwestival organizers did more than just organize an event for 9/10 (a great way to kick of your day of service, please register today). We actually went to Miriam’s Kitchen and served a shift, to see what/how the funds help feed hundreds of homeless people every month.

This is not to dismiss the effort of one day. We all start somewhere. I remember when my old boss Larry Rosenfeld started dragging me to Jewish Federation meetings ten years ago because it was a mitzvah, the right thing to do (looking forward to riding motorcycles soon, Larry!). What started as an ember has become a roaring fire within me.  Not all will become change advocates, but one can hope that a day a year will turn into a day a month.

To Affect Change, One Must Change Within

On a deeper level, I’ve come to believe that there’s more to consider on the topic of authenticity in service. It seems to me that to become an advocate for green causes, a company must in actuality evolve to become more sustainable in its consumption of materials, or as an individual one must live a green lifestyle. 

From a humanitarian standpoint, I recently had the pleasure of helping the monastics of Bat Nha raise more than 5,000 petition signatures on Care2 (petition is still open until tomorrow, please sign). As this was an obvious thing to do it was a pleasure.

At the same time it caused me to step back. Can I truly claim to be humanitarian when I create discord on Twitter, or if I lack peace in my personal life? We all have our character flaws, but this really made me pause and think about mindfulness and change in my life. 

I enjoyed helping the monks, but it helped me more. See, it made me want to be a better person because the greatest humanitarians, the MLKs, the Gandhis of the world, are truly peaceful inside.  I’ll never be MLK or Gandhi, but there’s definitely room for more compassion and mindfulness in my words.

How can you bring more authenticity to your organizational or personal service efforts?