I don’t want to minimize the issue of alcohol abuse but it seems to me that most of us are sophisticated enough to understand that advertising is not a silver bullet. Kids don’t get wasted after school because of beer commercials and no ban is going to change that. In fact studies in both Canada and the United States find no significant link between restrictions on advertising and alcohol consumption. Additional research from around the world found that advertising has virtually no influence on consumption and has no impact whatsoever on either experimentation with alcohol or its abuse.

The BMA criticizes the alcohol industry for spending £800m a year promoting alcohol in the UK and suggests that rather than focusing on the behavior of teens to go after “those responsible for marketing alcohol”. The BMA is particularly concerned that, “The alcohol industry uses its prodigious marketing skills and massive budgets to promote positive images about alcohol, and back these up with incentives, branding, enticing new products and sophisticated public relations.”

Perhaps it is easier to go after advertising fatcats than it is to admit a national addiction to booze that is arguably more serious, if better hidden, among older adults than among the younger drinkers most marketers covet. Initiatives to fight for the youth of the nation are considerably better received than those aimed at promoting sensible drinking in adults.

Clearly Burger King understands its primary target (18-34 year old men or superfans as they call them) and they have created a bunch of campaigns which are intended to appeal directly to them. The campaigns are edgy, sexually charged and exhibit a comedy that is surreal, slightly subversive, and self-reflective. I would agree this sounds on brief for the audience but I wonder- is Burger King risking all its other segments to seal the deal with their target audience?

It is a good idea to segment your audience. It is a good idea to understand who your most valuable customers are. It is also a good idea to target that segment with unique, relevant and timely marketing. However segment specific marketing campaigns, while different, need to adhere to the overall brand personality and compliment each other.

According to the NPD Group, between May 2008 and 2009 Burger King experienced:

I guess BK has the financial model that proves out the profitability of Superfans because if these results are only because of the rising popularity of the Quick Serve segment in general (5% growth overall during the same period), BK will have a difficult time rebuilding the family aspect of their brand.

Check out some of the more spectacular BK marketing mis-steps below:

Ass Worship 

This widely criticized Square Butts campaign makes some sense for superfans but promoting the kids meal?

Anger

The Angry Whopper campaign (from Toronto agency Taxi 2)  includes radio, TV and online ads that direct to a micro-site that encourages users to shout as loudly as they can into their web cam in the hope of winning a free Whopper.  “Let’s see how full of rage you are,” it says. You can also send an Angry-Gram to let somebody know “they annoy the hell outta you.” Insults include: 

• You love yourself so much you would reply to your own personal ad.
• You are bitchier than a school bus of hormonal cheerleaders.
• Why do you always read my email? It’s like you are working for the FBI.

Pretty weak stuff but again it proves successful. The last time BK brought out the Angry Whopper in Canada it sold above expectations.

Masturbation

In 2007  Bleublancrouge Montreal took the double entendre to an interesting place with the Pleasure Yourself poster in the Metro, creating a mini-scandal for the brand.

Fellatio 

Burger King’s representatives in Singapore, Bon Foods, ran this campaign which is getting attention from critics everywhere.

Between the copy managing to slip the word ’blow’ in twice, the strategic use of mayo and the model’s “omigoodness” look, the Super Seven Incher makes the Angry Burger spots barely capable of causing mild heartburn.  

Nudity

In the good old US of A, where family values rule, Burger King has turned to ad agency, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky who are well known for edgy, attention grabbing ads. They worked on the campaign for Flame, a body spray inspired by The King.

 The body spray has it’s own micro-site as well, Fire Meets Desire, where users are given the opportunity to click a virtual bottle of “Flame.”  Each time you do, it sprays and reveals a new romantic image, culminating in this wonderfully erotic picture of The King:

This product is real and you can order it here for about $4.

Virgins

Another Crispin Porter & Bogusky campaign, Whopper Virgins had a production crew sent to remote places to conduct “Whopper-vs-Big Mac” taste tests among people who had never heard of a hamburger. The web documentary featured ‘virgins’ trying burgers for the first time and while some preferred Big Macs and one Greenland tester saying he preferred his native seal meat, Whoppers were the big winners.

Criticism was rampant againg including The Chicago Tribune headlined the campaign as a supersize flop and Adweek columnist Barbara Lippert suggested the ads were “culturally tone-deaf.”

Too Risky? 

I would love to hear from people – do you think BK risks it’s entire brand on this kind of marketing or are they brilliantly catering to Superfans?

Our system is not perfect. It is bloated and inefficient. Canadians report waiting up to 5 times longer than Americans for elective surgeries. With our current system, healthcare has to be rationed in some form as there are only so many doctors and so many MRIs to go around. This rationing typically exhibits as wait times. Hospitals with inadequate financing and overcrowding are also common stories. Doctors in rural areas are hard to get and seniors, especially diabetics, report eroding services as one of their primary concerns. Doctor’s strikes, once unimagined, are much more common as they seek higher fee scales. Patients are increasingly being asked to pay above and beyond for private rooms and other supplemental services.

It is this contradiction to Medicare’s (sorry, the Canada Health Act’s)  founding philosophy that makes discussions of reform so difficult to do. Despite economists from both sides of the political spectrum presenting financial models that our system as it currently is constructed is unsustainable, few pols want to discuss the inevitable correlation between service levels and how we will pay for what we want. We all want excellent care but don’t want to pay more or higher taxes.

It is as if by suggesting we merely look at other options or discuss any alternative models that we are choosing to abandon universal care. Why can’t reform elements such as treating patients as assets rather than cost centres be part of the discussion? As it is now hospitals are given a set budget and as more patients come through the door, each essentially gets progressively less of the pie. Why can’t we discuss intelligent ways to pay hospitals for each person they treat and incentivize care quality? After all this is our money and our healthcare at stake. Why can’t we strive for universal healthcare that is both cost effective and high quality?

With this in mind, the vitriolic criticism about government sponsored health care one can hear in the current American media is a little bewildering. Almost every other modern country in the world has moved to a federally managed healthcare system and not one country who has initiated a single-payer government-run health system has moved back to privatization. According to a report from the Fraser Institute both the Canadian and U.S. governments spend about 7 percent of their GDPs on health-care costs. But when you include U.S. private healthcare expenditures that number balloons to about 16 percent. Put another way The United States spends more in total dollars, percentage of GDP, and per capita than every other country in the world on health care all while being the single largest reason for American bankruptcy and leaving some 40 to 50 million or so Americans (depends on whose figures you prefer) without coverage. As well despite reports to the contrary Canadians are covered for all medical care, plus some prescription drug costs and have complete freedom to choose their physicians. Canadians live on average more than two years longer than Americans, and have similar or better rates of survival after cancer diagnoses.

So while Canadians have better healthcare than many Americans we shouldn’t use that as an excuse not to strive for better and to demand Ottawa keep a dialog about reform going.

Narcissism aside, any chance to get behind the veneer of media training and prepared statements to hear what sports stars have to say in their own words (well their own 140 characters…) should be regarded as a god send. Twitter is a perfect platform for athletes to interact with fans and some of their best work comes when their guards are down. Authenticity like that can’t be faked it gives fans a much better sense what these stars are like than any glossy network produced profile might.

While most of the major sports have come down on Twitter use, it is a fantastic relationship building tool for their leagues and I suspect the marketers (not so much Corporate Communications) are secretly thrilled about it. Sure they would like to have greater control over the content but any forum for speaking to the fans that is initiated by the stars is pure gold. The lesson here for marketers is that your social media strategy needs to trust users to take the message and spread it throughout their community. Marketers need to learn to cede control and instead build relationships that move prospects from being merely interested to enthusiastic and ultimately advocates.

Maybe this is why the radio guys don’t like Twitter. It isn’t the narcissism but the ceding control to citizen (or in this case, athlete) journalists. Instead of placing professionals such as radio commentators at the top, social media eliminate the hierarchy, giving a more-or-less equal voice to all users. Or maybe they aren’t as interested in Alex Ovechkin’s pre-skate rituals as the fans are.

In the meantime let’s see if the major sports leagues can give up enough control to let us fans continue to get unfiltered access, both the good and the bad.

Here are a few of the most infamous athlete tweets:

Charlie Villanueva – tweets at half time of a tied game against the Celtics about having to step it up and play tougher. He puts his money where is mouth is and scores 11 of his 19 points in the second half to help Milwaukee get past Boston.

Kevin Love – tweets Coach Kevin McHale would not be back as coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves next season before the team officially announces it

Brian Ching – tweets that referees cheated his MLS club team out of a win while watching the game on TV. Ching was not playing because of U.S. national team duty for a Gold Cup match.

A campaign followed shortly including TV ads with the taglines “Passionate people, passionate about food” that show Maple Leaf microbiologists working with meat at the Toronto plant, and later serving it to their children at home. Visitors to the Maple Leaf Foods website have the option to visit a special Food Safety at Home section which encourages families to take precautions while preparing, cooking, and storing food at home and offers tips and checklists to do so.

And while many want to paint this recent recall as another Maple Leaf failure, it is in fact a good news story that supports their ongoing efforts to be seen as a leader in food service safety.  Given listeria is practically impossible to eliminate; we should be lauding the industry and government for the fact their mandatory testing and reporting requirements are working rather than screaming ‘not again’ when the CFIA is reporting there have not been any reported illnesses with this recall.

What does this collection of trivia have to do with anything? Not a lot other than I was reading about sage, growing sage and being informed I was growing sage all within a couple of days. Coincidence? Random occurrence? It doesn’t really matter because I love these strange intersections of seemingly unrelated events and the act of relating them. The lesson from my sage discovery is that sometimes the universe offers up the information you need when you need it. I needed to know my basil was sage before I ruined a pasta sauce.

It may be fanciful to suggest the universe cares about what I need but I also try to make chances for the universe to provide me with info by absorbing information from as many sources as possible. This has been very useful to me as I work to solve problems for my clients and in my own life because inspiration can come from the sources you least expect. The mind, as they say, works in mysterious ways and oft time creative answers to nagging problems come from unusual sources.

I would like to be able to tell you I have actively cultivated this information collection methodology but the truth is I am just a nomad wandering through the vast wilderness of information available today randomly picking up anything that seems interesting. With that in mind though, since realizing this practice is quite useful, I have worked to keep it up and I encourage others to try it out. As a marketer it is easy to get tunnel vision and only consume marketing related information. What I have found though is that I end up seeing and reading many takes on the same ideas. This doesn’t mean the material isn’t valuable but that I can afford to consume less marketing info and still be as informed all while leaving time to expand my information pool.

Here are some ideas that might be useful to help you expand your information pool:

• Try a news source that offers more context and commentary rather than just headlines and breaking news. I like The Christian Science Monitor and The Walrus to name two.
• Waste a little time. See what the worlds of sport, gossip and pop culture are up to.
• Watch documentaries. PBS, National Geographic, CBC, TVO – these are just some of my favorite places to watch television which is both entertaining and thought provoking.
• Ask people what they are reading, watching, surfing and discussing with friends and family and make the effort to look up some of their suggestions.

Expanding your information pool will help you to explore new ideas and may even help you prevent problems before they happen. It certainly helped make sure my sage infused pork wouldn’t cause hallucinations or other unintended conscious-expansion.

I will continue to blog about the unintended impact of colliding ideas.

My bank and Visa know a lot about me. They have years of transactions, a customer profile not to mention that I purchase several services from them and whether they know it or not, we have a relationship. Re-upping me for a service I cancelled with out my permission is a serious detriment to that relationship. Credit is not as easy to get as it once was but I could replace both my bank and Visa. Why don’t companies get this? Is $70 odd dollars today actually worth more to them than my future business? I understand the pressure to meet short term goals but isn’t this just a little too short term?

All companies need to remember customer relationships are the lifeblood of their business. To help them I am starting a 10 Commandments of Customer Relationships. Please send me revisions, additions and comments. 

1. Thou shall not charge me without my permission.
2. Thou shall take time to anticipate and understand my needs.
3. Thou shall send me timely and relevant messaging.
4. Thou shall remember service is your most powerful marketing tool.
5. Honour and respect my loyalty.
6. Thou shall give me a forum for feedback and actually use it.
7. Treat your employees as you wish they would treat me.
8. Thou shall accept you are only as good as your last interaction with me.
9. Thou shall not ask me for profile information and not use it.
10. Thou shall surprise and delight me by following the previous 9 commandments.    

I love this answer for a couple of reasons. One, who can’t appreciate the chain of logic which sees the elimination of the school as the key to not having to go. This is pure reasoning at its best. The other reason I love this answer is because though it isn’t the best solution to the problem, it is highly creative. Too often when faced with problem solving we are conditioned to exclude ideas which we think can’t work. This selective filtering prevents us from truly exploring creative solutions and hampers the process.

As ridiculous as it may sound, when we brainstorm we need to include everything, including the ‘crush the school’ ideas. Brainstorming can be done in many different ways but there are four basic ideas which should be followed:

1. Get as many ideas down as possible. Don’t worry about the feasibility or quality.
2. No judgment. Brainstormers are encouraged to suspend criticism and instead focus on getting as many ideas out as possible.
3. Encourage ‘crush the school’ ideas. Radical and ridiculous ideas may provide new ways of thinking about a problem and encourage better ideas.
4. Group and combine ideas to create better ideas.

Once the crazy ideas are allowed to see the light of day, some of them stop looking so crazy and start looking like solutions.

What really caught me was his describing Twitter as a change agent. Here is the quote, “Twitter has been criticized as a time-waster – a way for people to inform their friends about the minutiae of their lives, 140 characters at a time. But in the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent. Even the government of Iran has been forced to utilize the very tool they attempted to squelch to try to hold on to power.”

I am intrigued by this because to some degree Twitter didn’t make a difference at all. The elections in Iran were won by the incumbent and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded Iranians accept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President. We don’t really know, and many seriously doubt, if the election results are legitimate. Not to mention the ruling party still rules. It would be impossible to deny however that Twitter did not as Pfeifle say become, “…a window for the world to view hope, heroism, and horror.” Twitter may not have ensured a fair election but it did provide a tool which empowered people who had not before felt empowered to stand up for democracy. They did so hoping the world was watching and hoping the outcome would be different.

This is a good lesson for agents of change everywhere. Change is hard and oft times the results are not exactly as hoped. For instance many marketers change campaigns and tactics with the hope of seeing more prospects converted or growth of existing customers. In many cases the silver bullet of change does not instantly drive financial results. Instead what they find is engagement levels are increased but the corresponding sales metrics are not. Does this mean the change exercise was a failure? I would say no. Instead it needs to be viewed in context of longer term objectives. How can increased engagement be used to drive the desired results? What can be learned from the change effort which can improve campaigns or tactics in future?

While the stakes are considerably higher for Twitterers in Iran than the average marketer, it is worth remembering – success for change can be measured many ways.

Today I have a list of 5 stories which made me think but I am not sure what the greater context they uncover is. I am looking for ideas so if you look at my list and the theme seems obvious - make a comment and share it with the Lightbulb in a Thought Balloon community.

5 things this week that made me go, hmmm…

1. Booker T. from legendary Booker T and the MGs has a new record out called Potato Hole. The Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young guest as his back up band and it features covers of Outkast and The Drive-By Truckers. The weird thing is his name is Booker T. Jones. Jones?? Why didn’t he go by Booker J? Did the guys in the MGs know another Booker Jones and so he went by Booker T? This makes no sense to me
2. Shakira is back. I don’t know the name of her new single but I am pretty sure it’s her and it’s new. Where the hell has she been?
3. Queen Elizabeth appointed former PM Jean Chrétien to the Order of Merit. The award, founded in 1902 by King Edward VII, is given to “individuals of exceptional distinction in the arts, learning, sciences and other areas such as public service”. He retired six years ago – so why now?
4. The 14 week taxi strike in Windsor ends with a deal. After 14 weeks without cabs – maybe they just don’t need ‘em?
5. The US deficit reached $1 trillion. A trillion is a million million or a 1 followed by 12 zeroes.