Going Green

Three years ago, BrandVenture showcased the launch of the new Ford Escape Hybrid and how it was the catalyst of the new wave of the environmental movement.

The Ford Escape moved environmentalism from a cause to an experience… and one that essentially required little-to-no behavior change on the part of the consuming public.

Just this past Sunday night, HGTV featured its new series “Red Hot and Green” eco-friendly design show in the showcase 9pm time block. An hour -long program on how you can build, design and energize a home in a way that makes our Mother Earth smile… and you, the home-owner be cool!

From a business and brand perspective, it is not about the Green Peace Movement…

It is all about moving your brand and getting a piece of the green ($$$’s that is)!

We are currently working with a county in the state of Georgia that has a population of less than 30,000 people in which old and young, native and new, Republican and Democrat all rally around the aspect of “Green Development” in forward growth and planning.

We also are working with a healthcare group that is converting a time-worn old mall into a green-designed “sustainable healthcare resource center.”

I will bet you can go to a dozen ad agency websites and you will find at least 10 out of the 12 that use the phrase “integrated marketing communications”…

That is so 90s!

Today, the new movement is “sustainable brand marketing”… and how much greener you can get!

Tics, Quirks and Eccentricities That Fuel Innovation!

A wave of news articles recently focused on how high school education is centered on SAT test performance versus true education. How any questioning of what is deemed as the answer is discouraged…even penalized!

The current issue of Newsweek magazine (9/17/2007 Issue) is running a story titled “You and Your Quirky Kid” that focuses on how parents, educators and society-at-large is dealing with kids who “break ranks and begin marching to their own tunes.”

The article states…”Unconventional behavior may not sound like a big deal, but how do you determine the difference between a nonconformist and a child with more serious issues that may need to be addressed?”

The article goes on to showcase the 80s and 90s surge in ADHD assessment and treatment and diagnoses of “sensory-integration dysfunction,” “dyspraxia” and “pervasive development disorder.”

Really?

Perhaps the most pervasive development disorder is the recent fixation on controlling anyone who may stray outside the boundries of what is defined as “normal.”

Think about the destiny of these individuals each with their tics, quirks and eccentricities… Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Chad Hurley and Stephen Chen (YouTube), Larry Elliston (Oracle), Richard Branson (Virgin Enterprises), Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Woody Allen, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln… all are school drop-outs and a couple even were assessed as mentally handicapped!

I was once assessed as having an IQ below 75 because my answers did not fit in with the “bell curve” of response!

Whether it is global warming, war, poverty, energy, education…or the next wave of Podcast entertainment…the mother who is quoted below in the Newsweek article might be the mother of the next great university president, entrepreneur or corporate CEO…

“My son is a whole person, the sum of all his average, stellar and quirky parts. And I can’t wait to see who he becomes, this boy in the bright yellow canary suit, who insists on dancing to his own tune!”

Endangered Species

The news headline of the day… “The 1 Millionth iPhone Sold!”…74 days after its introduction on June 29^th.

It took more than 2 years for the iPod to reach the same sales level – 738 days… just about 10 times as long!

WOW!

I got an iPhone about 10 days after it initially launched. When I showed mine to friends and clients, many quickly told me that the batteries don’t last long like the ones they have on their BlackBerry “CrackBerries” –

Ahhh…. yeah, that’s true, but does your “CrackBerry” broadcast YouTube, have a built-in iPod, link into the NYSE, Google map or open attachment files? When was the last time you heard about a pro football player consuming a Slimfast before the Sunday game?

And while it is news that I million+ iPhones are now out there… there is something far more news-worthy and something marketers need to embrace…

The new promotion and broadcast campaign of the 8GB iPod nano that “let’s you enjoy TV shows, movies, video podcasts and more.”

Think about it. On April 9^th of this year, Apple sold the 100 millionth iPod. 100 milliion! That is a more than the population of Canada, England and France combined. And the conversion to an iPod nano is like trading in your 2004 Honda Civic for the new 2008 Honda CR-V… how many iPod people out there will soon be enjoying mobile broadcast links on YouTube?

YouTube also announced this week that more than 100 million videos are viewed on YouTube each day… 100 million!

I remember when I was with Time-Warner if TBS increased its rating from 2.9 to 3.1 they popped the corks and celebrated. That means that out of 111.4 million Nielsen estimated television households in the US, TBS got 222,800 more households to tune into TBS.

God love the media buyers and planners. God love the broadcast networks.

The iPod nano may bring new meaning to the phrase “soon-to-be-extinct.”