just another blog pressed for words

…Kathryn Bigelow on her Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for The Hurt Locker – and in doing so share this TV commercial she shot for Modernista! a few years back. Enjoy, it’s quite fun: 

And congrats to producer Fisher Stevens and crew for their Best Documentary win for The Cove, distributed by Participant Media. Modernista! colleagues Nate Naylor and Geoff Lillemon did the titles for that one.

We New Englanders are a hearty bunch.

On the precipice of emerging from our winter hibernation here in Boston, we will soon be enjoying the delicious products from area farmer’s markets once again.

I am a huge proponent of supporting local businesses.  For the past few years, I have been a member of The Food Project, a terrific CSA that engages local youth in personal and social change through sustainable agriculture.  They distribute their products in local farmer’s markets, through weekly box shares, and to hunger relief programs.

The Food Project connects inner-city teens with their suburban counterparts, and their team-building activities instill meaning and purpose through farming, fresh food, and community service.  The labor involved with cultivating local produce transfers energy into my cooking like nothing else.  The final products are filled with nutrition and pride.

Every week, my weekly Food Project produce box was like a gift; an unknown variety of vegetables awaited pickup in Jamaica Plain.  Potatoes, carrots, swiss chard, basil, haruki turnips, golden beets, arugula, brussels sprouts, red onions – each week was a surprise.

The most peculiar inclusion in the CSA bounty has been the garlic scape.

Two years ago, we received 2 or 3 garlic scapes one week.  I didn’t even know what they were.  I had to use Google to help identify them.

Last year?  Different story.  I received 17 of them in one weekly box.

What was I going to do with 17 garlic scapes, I thought?

I remember arranging all of my new, fresh produce on the counter, carefully scrubbing the New England soil from the root vegetables and soaking the leafy greens, finding a peculiar inspiration in the garlic scapes, as seen here.

Garlic Scape Face

I enjoyed cooking with the garlic scapes over the following weeks.  Sautéed in butter, they made for a much milder garlic flavor in omelets and with chicken.  But for a brief moment, their flowing curls, pointed ends, bumpy protrusions, and gentle color screamed Garlic Scape Face to me.  Art finds inspiration in many forms.

Advertising supports the economy – and the economy, in the world commonly referred to as developed, involves getting stuff. The more stuff the better. The economy wants you to get stuff, and advertising cheers you on. Getting is the key concept here.

In 1497, Raimondo di Soncino, Milan’s envoy in London, wrote to his duke about explorer John Cabot’s return from New England. He said that according to Cabot,

The sea there is swarming with codfish which can be taken not only with the net but in baskets let down with a stone.

A little over 500 years later, New Englanders are well aware that the handful of cod remaining in Cape Cod Bay are shriveled, emaciated, pitiful creatures with large, saucer-like eyes emptied of all emotion by an unspeakable holocaust.

Clearly, all the getting required by our economy has not been particularly kind to New England cod. And as the global human population has tripled in a single generation, it’s now widely understood that all this getting has not been particularly good for our planet. Which is why, of course, most Americans felt encouraged when our new president began speaking of a New Economy rising on the rubble, waste, and trillion-odd cod-bones of the Old. A sustainable system he said, in which, at the very least, we replace what we use – an economy that involves not just getting but giving.

This is not a new idea. As Lewis Hyde points out in his book The Gift (1979), a number of societies (such as those of the Massim people of the western Pacific, and American Indian tribes of the U.S. Northwest) have based their economies on giving rather than getting. Societies in which wealth is measured by the amount of giving you do. Societies, in fact, in which mere getting is perceived as a form of death.

Hyde writes:

George Romero, the man who made the movie The Dawn of the Dead, set his film in a shopping mall near Pittsburgh; the parking lots and aisles of discount stores may be where the restless dead of a commodity civilization will tread out their numberless days.

As far back as 1996, some of the people who would one day come together at Modernista! began toying with an idea that they referred to as “Hopi Marketing.” They spoke of it half seriously, half ironically. What, they wondered, if advertising could actually involve giving, rather than getting? What would advertising in a gift economy look like? Would there be a “tag line”? Would there be “design”? Or would the ad itself, in effect, be a gift?

Or was the whole thing a non sequitur – a joke?

And for a decade, Hopi Marketing seemed just that: a joke. How could marketing be a gift? Marketing is for getting stuff! Marketing entices others to get stuff! Getting is the soul of the business, man! Forget about it.

But during that decade, things were changing. Al Gore and others demonstrated that our relentless pursuit of getting threatened to burn us alive. The Internet emerged, then social media, a virtual environment held together by not getting, but sharing. Not talking “at,” but talking “with.” Seeing this, marketing pundits envisioned a world in which gifts and marketing aren’t necessarily incompatible. (Enter “social object theory.”) And in 2008, Barack Obama began sharing a vision of a culture based on sustainable energy, ecological stewardship, and, in general, doing good. And a generation of young people looked around, didn’t like what they saw, and began trying to help out in droves – without getting anything in return.

In a Hopi world, giving is a circle. As long as a gift keeps moving, it delivers wealth. When it stops moving, it dies. I’m reminded of the tides of social exchange on the Web. I recall that word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing. I think of marketing as not persuading, or conditioning, but as social intercourse. And I wonder if a Hopi attitude toward life and commerce might be possible after all.

There is reason for hope. A typical female cod contains about 9 million eggs. In 1873, Alexandre Dumas, in his Grande Dictionnaire de cuisine, wrote the following:

It has been calculated that if no accident prevented the hatching of the eggs and each egg reached maturity, it would take only three years to fill the sea so that you could walk across the Atlantic dryshod on the backs of cod.

That was over 100 years ago. These days, it might take a bit longer to fill the Atlantic with cod. But not so long.

Recently, the Art Institute of Boston came to Modernista! with a unique opportunity. They wanted to bring artists together in a digital space, so we joined forces and created www.i-got-framed.com. This online art gallery invites artists to post their work, link their portfolios, and engage with each other.

The day the site launched, Glovebox, a local non-profit artist organization, tweeted, “Get framed! We love this! Check it out @Modernista made this website for the Art Institute of Boston.”

See for yourself, and get framed, if you dare.

http://www.i-got-framed.com

You can see a lot from our office windows here in Chinatown. And while most of it isn’t PG enough to blog about, this sighting was.

Now Peter can finally do something useful with those TPS reports.

Check out the full article.

from the New Yorker, Jan. 25th, 2010

So many times I hear the words: “What are the chances of this happening?” And I think to myself: “Well, zero, if that’s the way you want to look at it.”

What could be more devastating to a person’s ambitions or dreams if the first thought is “I doubt it” or “That could never happen to me”?

In a world that is up for grabs, so to speak, it seems that anything is possible, but so many of us lead our lives thinking this isn’t the case for us. Too many times these types of thoughts and words limit our success, yet we continue to allow them.

These days, it’s almost impossible to display optimism and a belief in yourself without being called an egomaniac. We are constantly qualifying our statements with the negative response to a positive idea. Do we do this because we fear failure, or because we ultimately fear success?

Personally, I tend to err on the side of being way too positive and optimistic. So much so that people sometimes see me as naïve and unrealistic. Certainly I’ve been called a dreamer! And sometimes it does make you pause when you see that “Are you serious?” expression creep across someone’s face, just as you are pontificating about the possibilities and opportunities you see in front of you.

It’s a wonder that anyone achieves any of their dreams. Even as the president of the United States gave his State of the Union address last night, I saw him plead with our country and its leaders not to create excuses for doing nothing.

What fun is life’s adventure if you already know the journey? Do you want to know the ending to a movie before you watch it?

I’m convinced that if we see a positive outcome in front of us – visualize it with all our might – we will succeed.

Peace.

Great planners can take a client’s business apart, then put it all back together again, except in a new way that makes it better. Any old fool can take someone’s business apart, but very few can put it back together in a different and better way. And clients respect that hugely.

Great planners can connect the intellectual challenge posed by a brand with a brief that offers the most compelling and inspiring way for creatives to turn it into a real cultural expression.

Great planners take really complex issues, process them equally complexly in their heads, and then talk about them so simply that my mother (who isn’t a planner) can understand them.

Great planners have the confidence to search for the right answer, not necessarily THEIR right answer.

They often wear Bape trainers.

They see themselves as communicators more than intellectuals.

Great planners never sit on bean bags, ever.

They have the confidence to say when something is off brief.

They get to very good, very fast.

They believe in effectiveness and will poke around at quant methodologies for hours to prove it. (Only for the client to refuse to give them the data! But they try and try again.)

Great planners see the world as not round but triangular.

They are more connected than anyone else on line in the agency.

Great planners like Charlie Mingus and may well have appeared on a children’s quiz show when they were very young. And they probably won a prize, like a holiday.

They have more patience than account people.

They look scruffier than creatives.

Great planners provide the marketing credibility to be in the boardroom and not the playroom.

Great account directors operate at the very heart of the agency and the very heart of the client. At the same time. They find ways to harmonize both agendas without compromising either. And they gain the trust of others to let them do this. It’s a fundamental skill. And their colleagues should demand it.

Great account directors make things happen, creatively and strategically. They are not there to carry bags or back slap. (Most of us have two arms and hands, and using them is not such a special skill.) They know about craft, about directors, about music, about photographers, about designers, about who is hot and who is not. They know about research and strategy, and they know about client business issues that need fixing and know exactly how the agency is going to do it.

Great account directors are interesting to be around. People are always pleased to see them. They are extremely well briefed about the industry and life. They have clear, interesting views. They are never dull.

Great account directors can play in a team but will always step up and take the shot if needed. And if the team gets stuck , they get it unstuck through their own ideas and creativity. They inspire others to think on. They take responsibility and keeps things moving forward. Always.

Great account directors use relationships for the greater good of the creative work, not the bank balance.

They lead, never manage.

They refuse to believe things can’t be done. “Life is more malleable than you think. It’s amazing what you can get away with.” (Bono.)

Great account directors never account manage people internally – they just talk straight. In fact, they rarely account manage anyone. (Most people find it insulting.)

“100% confident, 0% arrogant.” (Jean-Marie Dru.)

Great account directors hire truly bright people because “they are progressively more valuable.” (Michael Heseltine.)

They are generous with their time to those beneath them.

They can be invisible one moment and ten feet tall the next.

They do what is right for the brand. Nobody ever got shot for that, and if they did, it’s not a place where you want to work.

Great account directors have a nose for the future. They have a sixth sense about where consumers, brands, technology, and media are all going next.

Great account directors don’t make – but they make a difference.

I have been reading with interest the ongoing debate over P&G’s introduction of the new Pampers Cruisers with Dry Max.

No, really, keep reading.

Yes, I am into diapers.  Really into diapers.  I have two children ages 3 and 20 months.  But I am also in corporate PR, and any time loyal consumers get riled up and launch a Facebook page to complain about corporate marketing practices over one of their favorite products, I feel greatly divided.

One side of my brain  (the mom and consumer and spender of large amounts of cash on Pampers Cruisers) says: You Go, Informed Consumer, Speak Your Voice! The other side of my brain (the marketer and corporate PR gatekeeper) says, Yikes.  What Would I Do?

To sum up:  P&G launched a great new diaper technology (Dry Max) that is more absorbent, thinner (i.e. more comfortable and better for packaging), and more environmentally friendly than their traditional Pamper Cruisers brand.  The product was endorsed by President Clinton at the recent Clinton Global Initiative.  The problem?  The new Dry Max Pampers were introduced in existing packaging for Pampers Cruisers – with no marketing or other method of informing consumers about the change.

Parents opened the familiar purple box and saw a thinner and (what they assumed was) cheaper and less comfortable diaper.  It was missing a whole layer!  Never mind that tests had proven Dry Max to be more absorbent, with a superior technology.  Never mind that Dry Max diapers were thinner (meaning you could stuff more into an exploding diaper bag).  Never mind that they made less of an environmental impact than traditional Pampers Cruisers.  And did I mention Bill Clinton loves them?

Hell hath no fury like a Mom spurned by a Corporation.  Consumers reacted strongly.  Many felt they were outright deceived; some were just angry or confused; while others went so far as to launch a Facebook page in support of the old Cruisers.

Ad Age’s Jack Neff did a great job reporting on the story here.

You can get the short version at the parenting blog, strollerderby, here.

P&G says the complaints and feedback were within the ranges of what they expected, and that marketing communications for Dry Max, including sampling, are set to launch this month.  Fine.  But at this point, the PR becomes an animal hard to control. That beast has got to eat.

Personally, I’ve tried all the diaper brands out there (well, not me personally but you know what I mean), and the Cruisers are the best.  To me, as a mom and a marketer, there is only one way to address my current questions, and that’s the holy sample.  I’ll be looking for mine in the mail or at my favorite retail outlet.  I just think, as does Neff, it should have arrived about 6 months ago.

And the forgotten voice in all this?  I’ll ask my kids what they think.  They’re the final vote.