 | I have three things to say about Jackson Pollack, the mad king of abstract expressionism and drip-meister supreme whose birthday it is today. And I didn’t say any of them. An architecture professor of mine once said: “It isn’t what the splashes on the canvas look like. It’s how he splashed them.” A book I read once said: "Before Jackson Pollack was a painter, he had a job for the New York City Parks department cleaning bird droppings off of statues." Jackson Pollack himself said: "When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through." I have nothing to add. |
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Sponsorship is a hallowed and ancient brand-building tool. Align yourself with an event or cause and you can drink in all the meanings and values inherent in that event simply through proximity. Sponsorship is a subliminal third party endorsement.
But a recent TV commercial by Fiat pushes the bounds of sponsorship to its creaking limits. Not to mention chutzpah. The spot will not be shown in the US because, of course, Fiats aren’t sold in the US. (Fiat, someone once told me, stands for “Fix it again, Tony.”) But the commercial has run in no fewer than nine European countries. As a PR move, in a tough economic climate, Fiat agreed to sponsor the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Paris. Are you with me so far? The Nobel Peace Prize Summit…and Fiat cars. OK, so the Nobel laureates are driven to the event in a Fiat Lancia Delta. Then the agency films those attendees getting out of the car at the Summit: former Polish leader Lech Walesa, South Africa’s Frederik de Klerk, Northern Ireland peace Activist Betty Williams, former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who isn’t a Nobel laureate, but what the heck. Then they film Mikhail Gorbachev looking down on their arrival from a window. Now they shoot the car empty with one door open, and the script announces one important activist won’t be there: heroic democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi who has been jailed for 12 years in Myanmar, the former Burma. The script closes with her photograph and a title that reads: “Lancia supports Aung San Suu Kyi. Free her now.” Isn’t that nice of them. Of course, the activist didn’t give permission to be in the spot because she’s in prison in a jungle. But Fiat claims that her representatives in the west gave their approval. The spot cost $80,000 to make; the lunch budget for most shoots. And because Fiat claimed it was a public service announcement, TV networks throughout Europe are running it free of charge. Fiat has contributed not one dime nor an ounce of help to free Aung San Suu Kyi. But maybe they’ll sell some cars. What’s my point? Sponsorships should be coherent and organic with the brand personality. When I was a creative director on Volvo, I once suggested that the car sponsor a world prize for great contributions in various fields: The For Life Prize, coming off my two-word contribution to that brand, the global tagline: Volvo. For life. This sponsorship seemed to harmonize with the values and commitment of Volvo, without going overboard. Fiat, on the other hand, fraudulently mixed up public service with private service, capitalized on a tragedy with no intention of alleviating it, and took advantage of a bunch of heroic people who frankly probably don’t have much else to do these days. Fix it again, Tony.  Technology confuses as often as it clarifies.
Take blogs. A bizarre word that only the Internet could have given birth to, blog is a shortening of the word Web log. Meaning it is a log, or diary, or personal commentary that happens to take place in a digital medium. But no matter where a piece of copywriting appears, the rules and demands of persuasive and vibrant writing are the same. So while their odd name and the digital medium make blogs appear something exotic and special, demanding some sort of newfangled writing rules, they’re not and they don’t. They’re just copywriting. And they obey all the rules of copywriting. All copywriting must use living language rather than dead language. That means – OK I’ll make it real complicated – fresh, colorful, precise and unexpected words: GOOD. Dead, clichéd, tired and imprecise words: BAD. All copywriting must be animated by a clear purpose and a central theme. Flabby writing means flabby thinking. A central theme organizes writing the way iron filings line up in a magnetic field. You start the reader with a premise at Word One, you take them on a trip, then you kiss them goodbye, and you’ve led them on a clear and single-minded journey. That is good writing. Finally, all copywriting must have the reader in mind. And that’s where a blog can get a little complicated. We all know that an ad or brochure has the mission of persuasion, so it’s obvious it must be about the reader. When an ad is about the writer having fun, enjoying creative freedom and delighting in the whimsy of words, he or she is writing an ad that fails. So why would a blog follow the same rule, when a blog isn’t an ad, with the mission of persuasion? A blog is a personal “log” or commentary, right? The answer is: a blog is an ad. Wow. That is a profound thought. Everything you write is advertising something. It may be your point of view, your belief, your argument, your experience, but you are advertising it, because you want to control the reader’s experience. You are intended and precise about the takeaway in the reader’s mind. And so, the content of the blog is about you. But the writing must be about the reader, or they will get blogged down. And leave. The laws, rules and secrets of turning words into lethal weapons are described in entertaining detail in my book Maximun Strength Copywriting. But one of the central revelations must be stated here: media may vary. But the laws of persuasive writing don’t. So go ahead and blog away. Talk about your day, your dog, your political opinions, your experiences as a whitewater kayaker, anything you want. You will be joining what blog search engine Technorati estimated as 112 million blogs by the end of 2007. Everybody’s got an opinion, and everybody’s got a story. But as you write your blog, keep your emphasis on the writing part. Because a blog is writing. With a funny name. America plods from catchphrase to catchphrase, spiraling onward through news cycles to the last syllable of recorded cliché.
Duuuuh. Is this a bad thing? Don’t go there. Is this a good thing? I don’t thiinnnkkk, so. Catchphrases are labor-savings devices. They pre-wrap meanings and eliminate the need for fresh thinking. Read my lips. Which leads us to the reptilian part of the brain, the old brain, the deep recesses where raw, pre-civilized passions hold sway. It is there in the reptilian brain that the archetypes of culture lurk. Wake up and smell the coffee. In the American reptilian, according to archetypologist Clothaire Rapaille, the smell of coffee signifies home, with all the sensations of comfort and safety evoked by the meaning called home. Even more than the taste, it seems, the smell of coffee has a deep reptilian meaning to the mind of Americans. Enter Starbucks, home of the smell of coffee, meaning, in archetypal terms, home of the reptilian feeling of home. This caffeinated global leviathan, named from the first mate of the original Leviathan, Moby Dick, sits at the pinnacle of the world’s business without haven’t relinquished a dime to advertising. Coffee, as any financial page can tell you, is a commodity. But your green logo doesn’t ascend to domination of the earth, your stores don’t become official offices to the vast population of free lancers in the digital economy, by serving a commodity. As CEO Howard Schultz explains: “We’re not in the coffee business. “We’re in the people business and happen to sell coffee.” Starbucks isn’t selling coffee. It’s selling a meaning. That meaning has been called the Third Place, the place you go that is not work and not home. Europe has long known of the Third Place, a long tradition of public life and public living, the socialist heart of Europe and its devotion to community. But the Third Place is far more novel to America because America is home to the private life. In American iconography, the cowboy rides off alone into the sunset, and the American sits alone at home watching the movie. Doesn’t Starbucks make great coffee? Of course. And that would explain why a cup of coffee at Starbucks costs thee times more than at a coffee shop in New York? Except Consumer Reports, in an impartial evaluation, rated McDonalds coffee higher than Starbucks. The problem is, Consumer Reports researched beans and water and flavor and forgot to research meaning. If it had, it would have realized only a third of the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks goes for taste, and two thirds to meaning, to the reptilian, to the Third Place, to the smell of Starbucks in the morning, to the smell of coffee and the sensation of home. Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Technology confuses as often as it clarifies.
Take blogs. A bizarre word that only the Internet could have given birth to, blog is a shortening of the word Web log. Meaning it is a log, or diary, or personal commentary that happens to take place in a digital medium. But no matter where a piece of copywriting appears, the rules and demands of persuasive and vibrant writing are the same. So while their odd name and the digital medium make blogs appear something exotic and special, demanding some sort of newfangled writing rules, they’re not and they don’t. They’re just copywriting. And they obey all the rules of copywriting. All copywriting must use living language rather than dead language. That means – OK I’ll make it real complicated – fresh, colorful, precise and unexpected words: GOOD. Dead, clichéd, tired and imprecise words: BAD. All copywriting must be animated by a clear purpose and a central theme. Flabby writing means flabby thinking. A central theme organizes writing the way iron filings line up in a magnetic field. You start the reader with a premise at Word One, you take them on a trip, then you kiss them goodbye, and you’ve led them on a clear and single-minded journey. That is good writing. Finally, all copywriting must have the reader in mind. And that’s where a blog can get a little complicated. We all know that an ad or brochure has the mission of persuasion, so it’s obvious it must be about the reader. When an ad is about the writer having fun, enjoying creative freedom and delighting in the whimsy of words, he or she is writing an ad that fails. So why would a blog follow the same rule, when a blog isn’t an ad, with the mission of persuasion? A blog is a personal “log” or commentary, right? The answer is: a blog is an ad. Wow. That is a profound thought. Everything you write is advertising something. It may be your point of view, your belief, your argument, your experience, but you are advertising it, because you want to control the reader’s experience. You are intended and precise about the takeaway in the reader’s mind. And so, the content of the blog is about you. But the writing must be about the reader, or they will get blogged down. And leave. The laws, rules and secrets of turning words into lethal weapons are described in entertaining detail in my book Maximun Strength Copywriting. But one of the central revelations must be stated here: media may vary. But the laws of persuasive writing don’t. So go ahead and blog away. Talk about your day, your dog, your political opinions, your experiences as a whitewater kayaker, anything you want. You will be joining what blog search engine Technorati estimated as 112 million blogs by the end of 2007. Everybody’s got an opinion, and everybody’s got a story. But as you write your blog, keep your emphasis on the writing part. Because a blog is writing. With a funny name. |
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