The summary that will never get me a PhD

This four part case study looked at the different ways an institution – usually considered as an unattractive administrative body – could acquire the reputation of being cool, as in the combination of the feeling of liking it with the desire to belong to it. Why would an institution become cool is another question that will be left unanswered here.

No way we're talking about being cool without a reference to George.

In a hasty and totally subjective way, with no strong ground on which to build his argumentation, the case’s author identified five kind of institutions:

1. The ones that are just born cool because their « raison d’être » rocks and is supported by adequate actions and needs little communication – the given example being Unesco and the generic class being « cool by ontology ».
2. The ones that benefit from the charismatic essence of their leaders or, even better, of a series of charismatic leaders. What else than the White House could belong to the category is still a mystery to the readers but the generic class is still called « cool by capillarity ».
3. The ones that had absolutely no possible chance to even dream of being cool but which succeeded never the less thanks to huge spending in communication (and possibly other ethically debatable means) – the proposed example being the FBI and its army of influence provided by the Hollywood industry since the thirties and the proposed class being « cool by majoring in mass communication and minoring in blackmailing ».
4. The same kind as the previous one, only they fail in trying, even with good professional communication, the French Hadopi being one of them and the generic class being « most institutions ».
5. The ones that had only slightly better starting chances than the FBI and yet reached the tribe of the cool by making sure their activities fitted with their purposes even if they were founded by possible Dr Evils – only examples the author could come up with being two American foundations, the Gates’ and the Soros’. Generic class: « cool by action ».

Yeah, yeah. And…?

That will sound basic to most of readers in the field of communication, but the key to any success, when it comes to your branding, lies in the identification and definition of your brand’s core values. You only need a few of them, but they must be strong, clear and shared amongst your organization.

From those core values, and depending on the strategy you want to develop and conduct, you might find a benefit in becoming cool. If this becomes your goal, well, some leverage exists:

• Your leadership – but also any representative of your organization. It’s one thing of having one Obama or one Steve Jobs at the top of your pyramid, it’s another to be able to count on thousands well educated scouts, professional ambassadors, devoted evangelists. The organization’s staff, the users communities can do marvels in bringing some coolness to a brand. Charisma can be spread out within any organization if the people selected stick to the core values and make them theirs.
• Your actions – it’s not only what you say, it’s mostly what you do. It pays in the long term and one mishap can fully damage your brand reputation – but if you keep acting within the perimeter of your core values and of your raison d’être, you may acquire a cool reputation. In a few thousand years.
• Your communication – promoting what you do well in a fun, entertaining, interesting way can speed up the reputation building process. It will never be the sole factor – but you’ll hardly reach any cool status without some communication.

In some cases, communication might be your only chance. There is a reason most institutions are perceived as boring, dull, uninteresting – it’s because they serve the public, the community and it’s not always sexy. Yet, by assuming what defines you and by playing with it, rather than denying it, you can become cool.

There is almost nothing cool in a public library in the era of Internet – and yet:

If corporations are psychopaths, I’d say institutions are rather neurotics. What’s the difference?

In his 2003 documentary (and following book), The Corporation, Canadian Joel Bakan “establishes parallels between the way corporations are systematically compelled to behave and the DSM-IV’s symptoms of psychopathy, i.e. callous disregard for the feelings of other people, the incapacity to maintain human relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (continual lying to deceive for profit), the incapacity to experience guilt, and the failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.”

If corporations are psychopaths, I’d say institutions are rather neurotics. What’s the difference? The former doesn’t know he’s has a mental condition and doesn’t differentiate his (affected) mental perception from reality, whereas the latter knows there is something wrong with his condition. In that aspect, institutions know communication (amongst other characteristics) is not their strongest asset and they are often reluctant to embrace what it takes to really communicate.

Of course, the lines are moving, especially in the US where staff moves more naturally from public administration to private sector and back. The influence of our over communicative world strikes European institutions as well – but for a public organization, there is still quite heavy reluctance to brand and market itself.

The cool factor is not an absolute necessity to reach – yet it does help to carry and spread any messages an organization might want to push. We’ve seen it’s possible for institutions to be perceived as cool – not to all of them and hardly without some effort, but it’s reachable.

However, the cool factor is only the cherry on the cake of a well planned and conceived communication strategy.

From this last example, one could assess any institution could become cool with enough money and with a good communication strategic plan. Let’s now see what happens when this beautiful plan doesn’t work, with the counter-example of an institution which tries hard to become cool with very little chance of success.

Hadopi – When XXI Century brings you 1984

The French Hadopi (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet – the High Authority for Transmission of Creative Works and Copyright Protection on the Internet, see Wikipedia) is a recent institution created in 2009 to fight Internet piracy.

Here how this works, as explained by Wikipedia

On receipt of a complaint from a copyright holder or representative, HADOPI may initiate a ‘three-strike’ procedure:

(1) An email message is sent to the offending internet access subscriber, derived from the IP address involved in the claim. The email specifies the time of the claim but neither the object of the claim nor the identity of the claimant.

The Internet Service Provider (ISP) is then required to monitor the subject internet connection. In addition, the internet access subscriber is invited to install a filter on his internet connection.

If, in the 6 months following the first step, a repeat offense is suspected by the copyright holder, their representative, the ISP or HADOPI, the second step of the procedure is invoked.

(2) A certified letter is sent to the offending internet access subscriber with similar content to the originating email message.

In the event that the offender fails to comply during the year following the reception of the certified letter, and upon accusation of repeated offenses by the copyright holder, a representative, the ISP or HADOPI, the third step of the procedure is invoked.

(3) The ISP is required to suspend internet access for the offending internet connection, that which is the subject of the claim, for a specified period of from two months to one year.

The internet access subscriber is blacklisted and other ISPs are prohibited from providing an internet connection to the blacklisted subscriber. The service suspension does not, however, interrupt billing, and the offending subscriber is liable to meet any charges or costs resulting from the service termination.

Appeal to a court is possible only during the third phase of the action (after the blocking of internet access) and an appeal can result in shortening but not cancellation of the blocking. The burden of proof is on the appellant.

Without entering a political debate about the mere existence of Hadopi, we can nevertheless state that being a kind of cyber-police of the use of the Internet is not exactly cool, especially if not focusing on, say child pornography, but rather on downloading files, an online practice so popular it became the Mother of battle for the whole entertainment industry – especially the music sector.

Without Hadopi, this wannabe movie director will not be able to direct his thriller in 2021. (c) Hadopi

From Hadopi’s side, the accent is always put on the pedagogical nature of its action. Because they do want to change existing behaviors, especially those of the young generation, Hadopi rightly came to the conclusion they should communicate as much as possible. And it’s clear their agency convinced them that becoming cool would help.

First, the logo.

Caveat: Hadopi’s logo is a story in itself, as the first version used a copyrighted font without proper authorization from the font’s creator – oh the irony when you think of it. Anyway, the final logo does benefit from being created in XXIst Century and is rather interesting and nice. There is an Helvetica kind of simplicity to it and it’s definitely better to my taste than most of institutions’.

What a friendly logo

Once you’ve got the logo, you’ve got to make it bigger – as they say in the business. Therefore Hadopi launched a three millions euros campaign mixing print, TV and radio spots. The message says: by not paying today’s copyright holders, you impair the creations of tomorrow, incarnated by kids and pre-teenagers who would never become the stars they should just because someone (you!) downloaded one’s favorite TV Show on Pirats’ Bay. The claim says: « Tomorrow’s creation must be defended today ». The campaign proposes with a new label, « PUR » (« pure » in English) which stand for « promoting responsible uses » and which is stamped on legal downloading platforms.
Campagne de pub de l’Hadopi par Nouvelobs

The campaign is well produced, I’d say. While the posters show future talented people when they’re just kids, the TV spots go further by offering a glance of their future work: a video clip for a pop song, an extract from a thriller movie or the trailer of a TV Show. The TV spots’ narratives are quite cool: high level of production, professional actors and directing, it teases you enough so you would actually like to watch the movie or the TV show. That’s well done. The conclusion final claim is: if you don’t protect today the artists of tomorrow, there will not be any creation in the future.

Once again, I don’t want to discuss this assertion. Just saying it’s a well expressed point of view in a cool way. As a communication exercise, it does change the perception of the institution and renders it less « bad cop » and more « concerned with our creative children’s future ».

Did it work?

I have no objective study to prove this point but my wet finger intuition tells me it didn’t. On the French Internet, Hadopi is, as far as I can tell, since considered as a bad and uncool governmental agency. Critics loathe the campaign’s cost. Haters, trolls and flamers are still active against the very existence of Hadopi in the various platforms surfed by Hadopi’s target audience.

As a bonus, Hadopi itself released a study about Internet uses, in an attempt to legitimize and demonstrate its efficiency. Alas, the study shows that people downloading illegally films and music are also the one purchasing the most (as every study on this subject always demonstrated).

Joe Karaganis, from SSRC, points us to the news that there’s been yet another such study… and this one is from HADOPI, itself. Yes, the French agency put together to kick people off the internet for file sharing did a study on the nature of unauthorized file sharing, too. Not surprisingly (and consistent with every other study we’ve seen on this topic), it found that those who spend a lot of money on content… were much, much, much more likely to also get content through unauthorized means. HADOPI released the results in a somewhat convoluted way (perhaps trying to downplay this result), but Karaganis reformatted the results to make this clear:

Nothing like a bar schema to bring some seriousness to a post (c) SSRC

Karaganis suggests, then, that HADOPI’s method of dealing with this — threatening people to stop their file sharing, won’t do very much to help the bottom lines of the entertainment industry.

(Source: TechDirt: Another Day, Another Study That Says ‘Pirates’ Are The Best Customers… This Time From HADOPI)

Getting cool or die trying

Honestly, I don’t know what Don Draper would do – except pouring himself another glass of brown to clear out his mind. If you don’t like what people say about you, change the conversation – well, Hadopi is essentially the subject of the conversation as it is closely linked to the eponymous French law ruling online intellectual property. Changing the name won’t help neither. Hadopi is the perfect anti-Unesco: it’s a natural born uncool institution, at least for its primary target which is the relatively young Internet users who download stuff. Communication alone might not save the branding. If J.E. Hoover got to run Hadopi, he’d force Hollywood to promote it and might get a result after a decade or two. There is another irony here, knowing some main actors of the entertaining industry support Hadopi and yet don’t help turn it into anything cool.

Does that mean that institutions perceived as evil will never reach a cool status if they don’t have a whole entertainment industry behind them? Two opposite examples jump into my mind, even if there are not « institutions » but « foundations ».

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the George Soros Open Society Foundation were both created by two famous personalities not exactly perceived as being the coolest people on Earth. While Bill Gates was the world’s richest man, he arguably suffered from being Mr. Microsoft, largest Operating System Monopoly of the computer world. George Soros was famous for his speculating talent but not necessarily in a cool way:

He became known as “the Man Who Broke the Bank of England” after he made a reported $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crises. Soros correctly speculated that the British government would have to devalue the pound sterling.

(Source: Wikipedia)

To make the story short: two famous but not universally liked rich men created their foundations, one because « All lives have equal value », the other in view of « building vibrant and tolerant democracies ». Both aims are pleasant but they don’t generate the happiness included factor of Unesco. Yet, both foundations became cool, not because of huge investments in communication (even if communication played a part, for example in the notable improvement of Bill Gates’ public speaking skills) but rather because of their actions. Soros foundation played a significant role in Eastern and Central Europe’s transition to democracy and Gates’ has acquired a serious reputation in solving development issues. Their actions are promoted via adequate communication, acknowledged by their audience and their peers.

As a result, both foundations can be considered cool even if such a result was neither easy nor obvious from the start. There’s almost a karma wheel at work here.

On a side note, check out their website. Very good job here.

The leverage to the coolness, in their case, is to be found in the proof by samples or in the action theory. Judging an institution on the quality of its achievements, in how they fit with its general objectives and philosophy might be the easiest way to access the nirvana of cool.

Kindergarden philosophy wins again: not everybody can be cool, some have to stay lawyers or accountants. Kidding apart, before investing an institution’s budget on branding, a quick reality check might prove useful. We’ll detail this in the next and last post on this case study.

Related material

Hadopi

La Quadrature du Net (opposing to Hadopi) (in English)

Numerama.com « Découvrez la campagne de pub Hadopi à 3 millions d’euros » (in French)

SSRC: HADOPI Says: Let’s Try Cutting off Nose to Spite Face

Best example I could come up with is: « This is FBI, open the door! »

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

You never have really time to look at it in the movies

If you look at it with a bit of political mindset, there is nothing ontologically cool in the FBI. While there is nothing wrong with their current mission statement:

Our mission is to help protect you, your children, your communities, and your businesses from the most dangerous threats facing our nation—from international and domestic terrorists to spies on U.S. soil…from cyber villains to corrupt government officials…from mobsters to violent street gangs…from child predators to serial killers. Along the way, we help defend and uphold our nation’s economy, physical and electronic infrastructure, and democracy.

this institution has quite an amount of stains on its reputation. From the beginning, the FBI had to deal with dirty businesses, under the assumption that it takes what it takes to fight crime. Black lists, manipulations, blackmail, illegal wiretappings… One of the darkest but notable period lasted during the emergence of civil rights leaders (1960-1970):

In March 1971, a Media, Pennsylvania FBI resident office was robbed; the thieves took secret files and distributed them to a range of newspapers including the Harvard Crimson. The files detailed the FBI’s extensive COINTELPRO program, which included investigations into lives of ordinary citizens—including a black student group at a Pennsylvania military college and the daughter of Congressman Henry Reuss of Wisconsin. The country was “jolted” by the revelations, and the actions were denounced by members of Congress including House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. The phones of some members of Congress, including Boggs, had allegedly been tapped.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Amongst the debatable actions of the FBI, the harassment of actress Jean Seberg leaves a sour taste to all aficionados of the French movie « Breathless »:

An FBI victim we'd all like to hug and console.

The FBI used illegally obtained information about Jean Seberg to concoct an article it planted in Newsweek magazine that defamed the actress, who was then seven months pregnant with her second child. The FBI’s goal was to “cause her embarrassment and serve to cheapen her image with the public”. Accordingly to some authors and researchers, the FBI’s actions against Jean Seberg resulted in her suicide.

(Source: Wikipedia)

More, after 9/11, the FBI was partially to blame for not preventing the attack:

The 9/11 Commission’s final report on July 22, 2004 stated that the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were both partially to blame for not pursuing intelligence reports which could have prevented the September 11, 2001 attacks. In its most damning assessment, the report concluded that the country had “not been well served” by either agency and listed numerous recommendations for changes within the FBI. While the FBI has acceded to most of the recommendations, including oversight by the new Director of National Intelligence, some former members of the 9/11 Commission publicly criticized the FBI in October 2005, claiming it was resisting any meaningful changes.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Yet, the FBI is cool.

Choosing well your profile picture on facebook is vital

Its facebook page only counts 127,985 fans (August 2011) while the facebook’s group “FBI, Open the door !” “No… it’s cool when you break in” totalizes 495,380 fans (possibly because of their profile picture). But the demonstration of coolness is not to be found in their social media popularity. It’s rather in the impregnation of pop culture with FBI and its special agents that counts. Movies, thrillers, TV shows, comic books, the Simpsons… The FBI reaches the status of being a myth by itself which populates, inspires, gives birth to myriads of works pieces of fiction. Why is that? Because there’s nothing better than a story with Special Agents fighting crime.

Actually, there is almost a branding schizophrenia between FBI’s reality and its perception. It doesn’t come from its nature nor from a specific charismatic leader – the most famous being J.H. Hoover who might be quite responsible for the sulfuric reputation of the Agency during the 48 years he ran it. The source of FBI being cool is to be found by external branding management or, to rephrase, by outsourcing the cool factor to the entertainment industry. The FBI knows well the value of good communication, as one of their Special Agent, Mr Cris Hoover, clearly explains in his paper « The Strategic Communication Plan ».

Strategic communication entails packaging a core message that reflects an agency’s overall strategy, values, purpose, and mission to persuade key stakeholders and enhance positioning. Active, not reactive, it establishes organizational clarity and dissuades freelance endeavors that may serve a few well, but detract from the organization’s overall direction and purpose. To this end, one important tool, a solid strategic communication plan (SCP), should synchronize organizational units and align resources to deliver a common core message.

The source of the FBI being cool is to be found by external branding management or, to rephrase, by outsourcing the cool factor to the entertainment industry.

The current mix of the Agency is quite good to look at: website, jobs’ posting, most wanted list (my favorite) and even a fun and games site for kids (check the « Tools of the trade » section, it rocks.) It’s state of the art of institutional agency, with, I suspect, quite some money behind it, and serves as the main channel of their communication to demonstrate the reality of their work, by opposition with the image given by the entertainment industry.

You know you're cool when you appear in The Simpsons

The power of cool comes from the pop culture’s endless use of the FBI. From the start, J.E. Hoover  « was also quite eager to use his new authority to bring Hollywood into line with what Hoover thought was their proper role in society (propaganda organ for the government) and while Senator McArthy grabbed the headlines, Hoover was busy behind the scenes recruiting various people to inform on each other and factionalizing the Hollywood community so that it could not resist him. » (Source: COINTELPRO: FBI Activities in Hollywood).

Important word here is: « propaganda ».

As Yves Chenal tells, « Hoover understood he needed to win the public opinion and tried hard to have media providing a positive image of its agency. He harassed Hollywood producers to obtain his agents would be pictured under a favorable light in the movies. That’s how James Cagney incarnated an agent with all best qualities in « G-Man » in 1935, sparking off many vocations. Since then, the FBI is a media star. »

(Source: Herodote.net, FBI – La construction d’un mythe hollywoodien)

There was a will from the start to sell the FBI, its special agents and its activities to the audience, a will that obtained incredible results by combining threat and influence over the producers with Hollywood dramaturgic know-how. There is everything in the FBI you need for many good stories. Use it properly and constantly and, voilà, you’ve become cool even though some of your daily activities are questionable.

This is hard work which pays off on the long term. It requires a lot of resources, some of them not being directly the institution’s. Not every institution can subtract their branding management to Hollywood. Yet, almost of them could rely more on communication with a good « strategic communication plan » to build themselves as cool.

It’s not an easy way, though, as we will see in the next post of this case study.

Coolness by capillarity: the Executive Office of the President of the United States

This famous institution is better known as the White House, thanks to the use of a metonym which designates the President and its administration by using the name of the building they are closely associated with. Now, is the White House cool? With 1,113,379 fans on its Facebook page at the time of writing (August 2011), the usual ambition of American kids to become President of the United States when they grow up, the regular use of the White House as a sacrificial element of pop culture (like in the movie Independence day) I would consider it as a cool institution.

They do have a nice logo

Because the White House is the power centre of the USA – and therefore quite an important power over the world as a whole – its coolness varies amongst people benefiting of or suffering from the American politics conducted at any time. Nevertheless, White House’s cool factor is like the American Way of Life – it knows some fluctuations in people of the world’s appreciation but remains a gold value on the long term.

It's either the White House or the Eiffel tower that are destroyed first.

Is it intentional?

Sometimes, you just cannot find something on the Internet, such as the communication budget of the White House. Reason is the massive coverage of the current negotiation between the White House and the Congress over the US budget. See all those crossing over keywords? That’s how you should hide important information on the Net.

The White House, no doubt, has a communication department and even a Social Media Team (we met them!). They’re active in promoting the President’s political views and activities, with notably, those White House White Boards videos which explain technical subjects in understandable ways.

It started a long, long time ago

There is an intention to be perceived as cool, even if it is not the primary aim of White House’s communication – as it never will be for an institution. I would however hypothesize that the coolness of the White House is not to be solely credited to the current communication team. I believe the White House became a cool institution long time ago and that it had everything to do with its tenants rather than with the house itself.

Because most of the US Presidents had strong influence over the world affairs, a lot of them are famous outside the USA. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama… Not all of them were cool people, and it’s clear the White House’s perception from outside is hugely dependent on the personality and political leadership of its tenant. It affects deeply the elasticity of the cool factor. In other words, it’s not sure the Bush years were the best for the White House to appear cool, even if there were some efforts in this direction for a certain audience as the photo below demonstrates.

For some people, those boots are cool. Go figure...

Rather than being cool by essence, I would say the White House benefits from the summing up cool factors of a long list of presidents. With the halo effect brought by history, most of American presidents are favorably perceived. The sum of their personal charm pays off for the institution. Of course, some mandates are worse than others, which fits with the volatility and subjectivity of coolness.

What can we learn from this?

One strategy for an institution wishing to improve its branding perception could be to bet on the capillarity effect and to chose a charismatic, cool leader. This is well known by private corporations when they select a famous personality to lead whatever non-profit causes they suddenly decide to defend.

Unesco plays this card too with its Goodwill Ambassadors:

The UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors are an outstanding group of celebrity advocates who spread the ideals of UNESCO through their name and fame. They extend and amplify UNESCO’s work and mission and have generously accepted to use their talent and status to help focus the world’s attention on the work of UNESCO.

If you check the list of current Goodwill Ambassadors, you may notice some cool people amongst them.

Opposite effect works too: choosing a non-charismatic character, a controversial personality or a grey leader, even if the person is competent for the job, might impair the whole organization’s reputation, whatever its purpose and legitimacy might be. The metonym effect works in both ways.

So far, we’ve seen institutions that are ontologically cool and others that inherit this quality from their past and present leaders. In the third post devoted to this case study, we’ll have a look at a the ones for which, just like for us, simple human beings when compared to Clint, it requires a hell of an effort to become cool.

Cool factor brought to you by the gang of the former US Presidents

This the XXIst Century but it did start ages ago: if you work in the communication area, you know that branding your organization, your product or just yourself has become an important part of any of your strategy. Even military operations are branded nowadays so don’t tell me this is not an important part of your marketing-mix. Branding doesn’t necessarily include the « cool » (quite volatile and subjective) factor but it usually doesn’t hurt.

Don’t tell me what’s cool, dude

Before we go further, I shall define « cool ». Not an easy task, as this adjective is, by essence, subjective, and volatile. What’s cool to me might not appeal to you, and vice-versa. What’s cool today may not be tomorrow but might well return in three days. For the sake of this case study, let’s agree that the cool factor mixes likability and the will to belong. It’s not enough that you like, say, navy leather jackets, but you like them so much you would buy one and wear it even under your shower – this is not recommended for any leather outfit even if it would be über cool.

Fonzy is cool - no discussion about that.

When it comes to branding, the cool factor combines the likability for the brand and the will to be part of it, either by joining, by buying products, by being friends with this cool person in the office next to yours. For public institutions, whether they are national or international, the branding question still arises. Should an institution be branded? I’d like to further: could an institution be actually « cool »?

I’ll try to call few examples of cool institutions and hint at how they achieved this branding status. I’ll also look at a perfect counter example. By respect to my « devoir de réserve », no European institution shall be considered in this case study.

Cool institution #01: UNESCO

Unesco does a lot of things and their website lists eight main priorities (see the footer) and nine « popular topics ». I am sure all of them are worth the yearly $653 000 000 budget of the institution but I’d like to focus on the activity that renders Unesco cool: the natural and cultural world heritage. As I am sure you know, this program aims at listing the natural and cultural wonders of our world, which can be locations, human constructions or even intangible work (like, recently, French gastronomy) under the label « World heritage » in order to raise attention to those and to support their protection, transmission and preservation.

The World Heritage List includes 936 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. These include 725 cultural , 183 natural  and 28 mixed  properties in 153 States Parties. As of June 2010, 187 States Parties have ratified the World Heritage Convention. (Source: Unesco).

I am not sure the actual job consists in traveling around the world seeking beautiful stuff, deciding they should belong to humanity as a kind, adding them to the list and moving on to the next wonderful place – although if it does, hire me.

I am not sure the actual job consists in traveling around the world seeking beautiful stuff, deciding they should belong to humanity as a kind, adding them to the list and moving on to the next wonderful place – although if it does, hire me. I suspect the process is far more complicated and involves enough meetings, discussions and compromises to drive regular human beings crazy. Nevertheless, ain’t this cool? Not only the World heritage label makes concerned people (eg national or local ones) happy and proud, it does also release some dopamine drops in all of us every time we hear about it. This conveys the nice idea that there is still some beauty in our world, that we can visit or access to it (and it proved to be a real boost for tourism) and it plays the famous « It’s a Beautiful World » song in our mind.

Was there an intention to create the cool factor?

If I judge by the Unesco logo or by the World Heritage’s one, I’d say no.

A logo.

The 309 pages long Approved Program and Budget for 2010-2011 doesn’t detail the institutional communication strategy, although the Division for Public Information (DPI) seems to get $13 671 800 for 2011 for its activities.

Caveat: I didn’t have time to dig in the document so maybe they get more for Unesco own communication, since that’s DPI mandate:

Another logo.

The Division of Public Information (DPI) brings together the different information and communication departments of the Organization. Its activities aim at making UNESCO’s ideals, projects and achievements known to different audiences. It thus contributes to spreading the knowledge generated by UNESCO’s programmes, raising its profile and encouraging partnerships with public and private groups. (Source: Unesco)

But unless contradicted, I’d state that Unesco’s DPI receives quite a tidy yearly budget.

As far as I can tell, the World heritage promotion comes mainly from the countries who are lucky enough to host one or more items on the list, from third parties writing books about them (even if Unesco publishes books about the list itself), and from the media reporting new addition or destruction of an existing item. You may remember the fuss caused by the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, in March 2001, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar (source:).

Their own communication may feed the cool factor, but I would not identify it as the main source of coolness. In the case of this institution, the source of cool is to be found in the very own nature of its work, the creation and updating of the World Heritage list.

Of course, Unesco, again, does a lot of different and super important other things. But nothing beats, yet, this World heritage list. In this case, the cool factor is, therefore, brought by the raison d’être (as perceived by the audience) of the institution. Unesco is an ontologically cool institution. Somehow, this institution is cool just because it exists – the fact they actually work and deliver their list helps and maintains, if not extends, the cool factor. But one could almost live with the idea of such an institution and be happy with it. Unesco, just like Fonzie in Happy Days or Clint Eastwood, is a natural born cool being.

Clint - natural born cool guy.

The Nobel Prize (although not an institution stricto sensu but a series of awards granted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, the Nobel Assembly, the Swedish Academy and the Norwegian Nobel Committee) belongs to the happy natural born: they celebrate outstanding skills or achievements, providing all of is with the pleasant feeling our human kind is moving on the positive side.

Congrats to them – we’ll see in the next post that for some other kind of institutions, there is a way to inherit the cool factor.

Some background first

Diesel is an Italian fashion brand, created in 1978, targeting the 18-35 years old. Since 1991, Diesel has opted for a slightly provocative advertisement strategy, as illustrated, amongst many campaigns, by the 1991 “For successful living” campaign or by the recent “Global warm ready”. The tonality and originality of those campaigns found echo in the press and media, helping to support the buzz around the brand and to build its strong identity. Many of the past campaigns have received awards. It was interesting to learn that Diesel has a Creative Director, Wilbert Das, who has worked for Diesel since 1988.  His  responsibilities range from directing all product design as well as all communication campaigns. In other words, he is Diesel’s own Steve Jobs. This is something I get.

New campaign baseline: Be stupid

Don't tell me you've never tried

Diesel’s new campaign baseline couldn’t be simpler: BE STUPID – yes, caps are part of the claim.

In a series of no less than 40 visuals (at the time of writing), the campaign conceived by Anomaly London, explores a wide range of stupid behaviors, from taking (stupid) risks:

Are dogs allowed to play with their food?

to behaving in full brainless mode:

I remember that night.

passing by different identifiable territories of, well, stupidity:

childhood:

He takes him for a ride

teenage:

Former favorite sport of mine.

university:

I know that look.

with even some steps into plain absurdity:

A Brazilian male model is hidden somewhere in this image.

The baseline comes at the right bottom corner of each visual ad, immediately followed by Diesel logo. Note the logo’s small size.

Copywriting work

No less than 15 slogans support the baseline. This is a prolific campaign, to say the least.

1. Smart may have brains but stupid has the balls
2. Stupid might fail. Smart doesn’t even try.
3. Smart has the plans, stupid has the stories.
4. Smart sees what there is, stupid sees what there could be.
5. Smart listens to the head. Stupid listens to the heart.
6. Smart says no. Stupid says yes.
7. If we didn’t have stupid thoughts, we’d have no interesting thoughts at all.
8. Stupid is trial and error. Mostly error.
9. Smart may have the answers. But stupid has all the interesting questions.
10. Smart had one good idea and that idea was stupid.
11. Smart critiques. Stupid creates.
12. Smart plans. Stupid improvises.
13. Only the stupid can be truly brilliant.
14. We’re with stupid.
15. Long live stupid.

Amongst those 15 slogans, only two commit the brand with the claim: “We’re with stupid” and “Long live stupid”. Most of the slogans oppose “smart” with “stupid” with uses of copywriting tricks which elevate the two adjectives to the rank of characters, as if “Smart” and “Stupid” were two new “Tom” and “Jerry” cartoon heroes.   Those tricks are: the systematic use of singular (impersonating where you would expect generalization), the slogans’ shortness and symmetry (evocation of fairy tales), the parody of sayings or popular wisdom and the substitution, in the sentence, of a more expected word by “stupid”.

Eg: science is trivial and error. Girls listen to their heart.

At the end, you don’t have just slogans but a collection of stories with two recurrent characters, one of them ending more appealing than the other (guess who).

This collection of slogans summarizes a decade of speaches, essays and news magazine stories about personal development, importance of emotions and all that emotional quotient (EQ) versus IQ crap. The wording can only ring a bell into the target group, as those theories were largely relayed in fashion press,  female magazines and other Men Health kind of literature. The copywriting work builds here a set of cultural references which not only supports the claim that we’ll detail a bit later on, but also locates the campaign in the perfect time and cultural environment, something we will talk a bit later too.

If some slogans are used with different visuals, it’s interesting how they don’t systematically fit with the visuals. Most of the time they do – but not always.

Compare:

Is it a trump in your hands or are you just happy to be on this page?

with

OK - but what if we dance?

Not being a native English speaker, one slogan doesn’t click for me – and I am not helped, in this case, by the visuals:

A variant of the Mexican duel figure

This is of some importance because the campaign doesn’t seem to be adapted in other languages. In French magazines, the ads are the same as here. Since our law requires a translation, this takes place in small size font under the ad. The French translations, quite literal, don’t work with the campaign – possibly because we have so many synonyms for “stupid” that the word doesn’t work for us or because good copywriting work don’t fit  in other languages. Another interesting detail: the translators followed their linguistic instinct using PLURAL  when the campaign emphasizes the SINGULAR. “Smart critiques. Stupid creates” becomes, in French, “Les intellos critiquent. Les stupides créent.” This is the opposite effect wanted by the copywriters, as the plural doesn’t favor the two adjectives characterisation.

Thanks to the copywriters, we now have:

• an imperative baseline (BE STUPID) which is not an order (no “!” at the end)
• two easy to figure recurrent characters (STUPID and SMART)
• a collection of stories or new popular wisdoms for every life situation
• a reminiscence of last decade popular psychology
• a perfect fit with today mainstream atmosphere
• two assertive supports from the brand (WE ARE WITH STUPID and LONG LIVE STUPID).

The last textual element is almost invisible and still on every ad. With no high resolution file available, I couldn’t crop it but I can show you where it is:

Kids, don't do this at home. Better smoke outside.

The text at the right bottom corner says: “Shop online at Diesel.com”

The reason why it is so discrete? The brand doesn’t want to upset its retailers and shop managers.

Visual art

Let’s start with the obvious. Since this is a campaign for a fashion brand, all models are beautiful. No practical jokes on their physiques (a form of stupid humor which is not used in this campaign), only their attitude or behavior can be qualified as stupid. Photographs are of good quality, with a great attention paid to environment, details, locations. A significant aspect of the visual work lays in the always perfect shots of the clothes. At no time would the brand deny its core activity: they produce clothes and all the clothes look good on the models. As strong as the creative concept might be, it doesn’t impair with the essential values of the brand. They’re here to show (and obviously sell) their clothes. That’s fair enough, but it’s a basic principle that had somehow disappeared in some other fashion brand’s campains. This is, I believe, a positive consequence of having a Creative Director. Mr Das is not only in charge of supervising the campaign, he’s the stylist behind the collection, which certainly consumes more of his time than Brand communication. There’s no way a campaign could hide or damage his styling work. In other words, you don’t mess with his primary work.

The slogans are either over the photo (but never over a piece of clothing) in flashy and joyful colors or printed next to the visual, on black background. Those two principles transmit two different ideas. The first one is pure fun and entertainment while the second one takes on the appearance of a manifesto. The black background adds weight to the slogans, even more to the two supportive ones. In Next magazine, the campaign starts with four manifesto kind of ads before the first visual appears. And, by the way, Diesel was the only advertiser in the magazine’s issue.

My new motto

If the manifesto ads only use slogans without the visuals, Diesel published on its website a text only video exposing the full theory behind the campaign. You can watch the video here but, as I’d like to keep you longer on this post, here’s a transcript.

Like balloons
we are filled with
hopes
and
dreams
but
over time
a single sentence
creeps into our lives
don’t
be
stupid
it’s the
crushers of possibility
it’s the
world’s
greatest
deflator
the world is full of smart people
doing all kinds of smart things
that’s smart
well,
we’re with stupid
stupid is the relentless pursuit
of a
regret
free
life
smart may have
the brains
but stupid has
the balls
smart recognizes things for what they are
stupid sees thing for how they could be
smart critiques
stupid creates
the fact is
if we didn’t have stupid
we’d have no interesting thoughts at all
smart may have the plans…
but stupid has the stories
smart may have the
authority
but stupid has one
hell
of
a
hangover
it’s not smart to take risks
it’s stupid
to be stupid
is to be
brave
stupid isn’t afraid to fail
stupid knows there are worse things than
failure
like
not
even
trying
smart had one good idea
and that idea was stupid
you can’t outsmart stupid
so don’t
even
try
remember
only stupid
can be truly brilliant
so
be stupid

This rather interesting piece of contemporary prose is well set up in the video, with a colorful font and well thought rhythm of appearance and disapperance. Music is good too. As you noticed, most of the text comes from the slogans, with little additions enforcing the brand’s manifesto. Presumably, some slogans were not used in the campaign (like “smart may have the authorities but stupid has one hell of a hangover”). We’re dealing with advertising here, wich means that, like in old time theatre, it’s only about illusions, tricks and impressions you want to give. Watch my right hand while my left one steals your watch, that sort of thing. The reasons the campaign uses those supportive elements is to provide a vehicle for all the codes, the appearances of engagement. The art of mimicking  a political statement is used to engage the brand’s values and reputation in a post ironic way. They do expend a lot of effort in demonstrating their faith in stupid, don’t they?

This definitive lack of economy (40 ads, 15 slogans, no visual ads and text only animation) of this campaign belongs to the campaign concept itself. The profusion helps to build the claim, first, and, second, to engrave the campaign in the current (eg early 2010) social and economic ambiance or context. Before we move to the claim itself, a final word on the visual work: the logo.

I mentioned it earlier but I’ll say it again: look how small the logo is. If you’ve ever worked in an advertising agency, you know that 99% of your clients will always want their logo bigger. A good lesson to learn here: if your concept is stong enough and if your creative work stands apart, you don’t need a bigger logo. Especially since the brand commits a lot of resources, again, just to demonstrate its support, its engagement to stupid, which translates in a well orchestrated signature of the campaign. That’s what the two supportive claims (We’re with stupid and Long live stupid), the four no-photo ads in the magazine and the text video are made for. They assert the brand so strongly that it doesn’t need a big logo anymore. They claim to the world “We, Diesel, did this and we want to make sure you know we did and why.”

And I suspect the logo would have threatened the space allocated to the items of clothing too. Remember: you don’t mess with a Creative Director’s work.

The hat should always fit with the bag.

So, what’s the claim?

A campaign claim sums up all elements (messages, slogans, baseline, visual codes etc.) used by and for the campaign. This is the first thing you should work on when you start  a creative project. What do you want to tell/to sell? What is the promise you make to your target/your audience? When designing a campaign, you decline your claim in the elements we reviewed, which makes sense to look at the claim now, as we used the campaign tools to figure it out. That’s the hell of a deduction method here.

Be stupid and you’ll be happy.

The campaign claim promises the target they’ll be happier if they behave in ways that are considered stupid by more conformist others. They should do so in the most open way, satisfying whatever sort of inner child they have (from the anally orientated todler to the sexually aroused sophomore), alone or in group. By acting stupid, they will assert their own singularity amongst their peers, a singularity Diesel has decided to turn into a social value (by committing to it).  Therefore, by wearing Diesel clothing, the target will join the self-aware of Stupid’s superiority community and will be likely identified by its members as one of them.

The claim satisfies a large number of essential needs belonging to the target group (18-35 years old):

• to find clothes they can wear
• to distinguish themselves from the crowd without becoming too singular: they want to be cool, to be recognized as being cool. They don’t want to become goth or emos
• to have fun without being ashamed of having fun (escape Mom’s frowning eyes)
• to cherish whatever inner child they have
• to stay young for ever by acting like if they were still young (even a 22 years old feels old compared to a 16 years old)
• to be recognized as creative people (current Graal of self identification)
• to do all of the above (and get all the benefits) without investing more (of their time, money, energy) than the price of  a pair of jean’s

Most of the targeted girls will never do this:

An obvious protest against body scans in airport

but the campaign let them believe they could have the, well, balls to do it. That’s the kind of girls they think they are (somewhere in their self image perception, between the inner child and the prospects for the future). Since we’re on this ad, this the closest as a political reference you get through all the campaign. Diesel is not foolish enough to associate itself with any political lines – while stupid could qualify some political views, as they are perceived by, say, the establishment, while they might (or might not be) shared by the target group. This campaign is a cocktail and it needed at least a reference to political activism (remember girls burning their bras in the sixties ? Naked demonstrations and so on?) in the mix. The ad above is the nice touch with a double safety belt: men will look at it primarily because of her bare chest, women because damn, these jeans are tight and yet they make her such a nice shaped bottom. Believe me: they won’t consciously think about a possible rebellion against Big Brother.

Of course, the claim is provocative and ambivalent. If one reads on first degree: “Be stupid” , the brand loses all credibility (which they don’t care that much) and customers (which they do care for). Most of people outside the target group will read it on first degree (and it started on some forums, already, even on some forums specialized in communication and advertising).

When you decide to propose a provocative and ambiguous claim like this one, you better make sure you won’t aleniate too many members of your target group. That’s damages containment. The campaign covers its own risks by using:

• proliferation (the more visuals or story of stupidities you show, the higher your chances that at least one will be perceived as relevant within your target group – and, as a bonus, possibly beyond it)
• brand’s commitment (in this case, the mocked political engagement)
• transformation of qualificative adjectives into archetypical characters. They don’t tell you “Be a stupid person”. They say “Be/Act like Stupid” as if stupid was a good role model to follow. Acting like someone is absolutely not the same thing as being something. You feel less insulted, as all kid know.
• perfect integration in the current social-economic atmosphere (which is my next point).

A perfect beginning-of-2010 communication campaign

Advertising campaigns don’t stand alone – which is one of their differences with Art. They are only relevant in a specific period of time context. To be successful, to qualify as an excellent campaign, they must fit with a socio-economico-cultural context, what we call in French “l’air du temps”. The closest translation provided by an English member of our team is: “of its time” (or less natively, “zeitgeisty”). Grasping this context cloud often years in advance is not pure magic. Some people are naturally good at it – typically the fashion designers as they have to create their collections years in advance. It’s also a line of work. In the advertisement industry, strategic planners are in charge of this task. They compile data, combine analysis with their knowledge of sectors and with their intuitions and the results is provided to the Creative department to feed or validate the copywriters and designers’ work.

I find that Diesel campaign is particularly well “of its time”.

Best cover ever?

It comes after almost two years full of crisis, mainly financial and economical, for which the smart guys, read the bankers but also the people in charge, share some responsibilities. The fake The Economist’s cover on the left (issued in September 2008) summarizes well what the vox populi might think of this crisis. The crisis itself is far from being over, but after more than a year of talking about it, of living with it, this campaign bets on the fact that their target group is fed up with it.

Hence the colourful typographys and the provocative claim.

So far, I believe they are the first one to turn their back to the crisis in such a provocative way.

This campaign mashes up some of the recent popular trends as well. Of course, there is a reference to the Jackass period (a MTV show where professional stunt men were performing outrageous and often dangerous acts, such as being locked naked in a temporary public toilet, having the toilet being reversed and shaken by some caterpillar loader with all toilet’s content being sprayed over the inmate. Now, what can beat this level of stupid?) but the Jackass crew was definetely not well dressed. They were stupid with no style. If the campaign evocates them in the target group’s mind, so much the better, but I don’t think it belongs to the primary sticking factors with the current context.

Others references are the sharing photos on Facebook practice:

Can't wait for her new profile picture.

and, more generally, the sharing trends of stories or of insignificant facts of one’s daily life (Twitter anyone?). This aspect emphasized by the campaign comes with the slogan “smart has the plans but stupid has the stories”, definetely a better asset in the digital social market we now live in.

Three has always been a wrong number.

Typically a French night

The two ads ahead could illustrate one of the many messages published on the popular website TFLN (Texts from last night) which agregates users’ sent text messages from their parties or whatever. Main texts are just revealing what my parents would call stupid behaviors. The website (and the iPhone app) are popular enough for a book to be published, compiling the “best” text messages and some never published ones.

Samples from TFLN
(518):
alright so where did all these fingerpaintings on my bedroom wall come from?
(1-518):
dude. you drew those with your dick
****
(206):
I fucking love fucking science majors-- she told me that she wanted to know if her gag reflex got better
or worse with alcohol, and that her initial evidence had been inconclusive. So, next few weeks, yeah,
gettin blown periodically. All I have to do is keep a log.
****
(262):
I guess the cop knew i was on a walk of shame and felt bad...i got to play with the siren the rest of the way home

It’s all about the stories, today. Storytelling is one of the last pop-concept that broke out into the medias, in the form of good and structured stories replacing political messages, newspaper structure and everything.

Another sticking factor with the time we currently live in is to be found in this assertion again smartness and the call for being creative at all costs, including the risk of failure. Just some advertisement washi-washa? Well, also the main arguments of Seth Godin’s latest book (published in January 2010), Linchpin. Mr Godin is a  widely recognized pop-digital-guru whose influence cannot not be denied. I haven’t read his latest book but I did read the manifesto about it he proposes for free.

You can download “Brainwashed – seven ways to reinvent yourself” here. I will just provide you with a tiny summary of the manifesto.

The intro claims that the system teaches you that you’re average. The manifesto proposes seven levers available for anyone in search of reinvention.

1. Connect (in the sense of social medias and sharing stories, tips, contacts etc.)
2. Be generous
3. Make art
4. Acknowledge the lizard (eg recognize your inner resistance that blocks you from being creative or from just starting this Great Novel you know you have in you) (have the balls, in Diesel words)
5. Ship (eg finish what you started, deliver something even if not good enough to your perfectionnist eyes)
6. Fail
7. Learn

The ones in bold echoes, according to me, the Diesel campaign claim.

My opinion is that if your campaign matches with current trends and with essay works published at the same time it runs, well, that’s a campaign on its way to success. Because the claim will make sense to your target group.

There is only one indicator to measure the sucess of an advertising campaign: the level of sales. Diesel will know if the campaign is good when they will check their sales. All the rest (awards, this post, academic review) doesn’t matter.

The last thing I’d like to cover here is…

What an organization can learn from this Diesel campaign

In conceiving its campaign Diesel faced a problematic exactly the opposite of that faced by most institutions. They needed to elevate the campaign to a certain level of abstraction (which they did by turning smart and stupid into archetypes) in order not to be burdened with the weight of their product’s practicality. I say it again. Clothes are banal. You can buy clothes everywhere for any price. In order to make the target group actually buy those specific clothes, they chose to add a level of abstraction. It doesn’t matter if their T-shirts are in cotton or in linen, what matters is: stupid wears those clothes.

Most institutions deal with the opposite: turning the abstract into concrete. Making their target feel the practicity of their claim by incarnating it in palpable things.

Reverse problematic illustrated.

Other than that, here are elements an organization should keep in mind when thinking about a communication campaign:

• Stick to your core values.
• Get a Creative Director. A good campaign is not designed by a committee, as they say. Nothing good has ever been designed by a committee, for that matter. Ask Steve Jobs if you don’t believe me.
• Get a team. An agency. People like copywriters, strategic planners, designers. The best ones.
• Get an astronomic load of money. I can’t find any figures for Diesel campaign, but my guts  (and my little experience in the field) tell me it ain’t come cheap, far far far from that.
• Do not hesitate to segment your audience. Find a target group and stick to it. Accept the fact that you cannot talk to everyone at the same time.
• Be provocative if you can endorse it. If you can’t, work on your claim before everything. Once you have the claim, don’t change it.
• Make your claim in phase with the socio-culturo-economico context. Not the current one, mind you, the one in six months, in a year or in two years. The one in which your campaign will have to live.
• Have fun. There nothing less serious than advertising. Which is why it’s so fun to write about it in a serious way.

Some references

Diesel website

Diesel on English Wikipedia

Diesel on French Wikipedia

Wilbert Das on Wikipedia

A nice discussion about the difference between goths and emos

Official Jackass website.