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.

Down - but certainly not out

How can one communicate what poverty is like? That may sound like a trite question for those who experience it first hand. Perhaps we could emulate George Orwell and take to the kitchens, streets and mines in Paris and London and Wigan and experience grinding poverty first hand. I imagine it would be quite a shock to anyone born after the creation of the welfare state, health service and safety at work regulations.

I raise this point as we are now almost half way through the “European year for combating poverty and social exclusion” and I chanced upon some video diaries made during a conference on “Poverty between reality and perceptions” in October last year in Brussels.

In it a series of policy makers and journalists talk about ways of raising the awareness of poverty in Europe and also how it manifests itself in other “stories”. I was quite struck by the comments of BBC Northern Ireland correspondent William Crawley who pointed out that often what can lies behind racism, violence, school drop outs, unemployment and family break-up is poverty. He urged people to look a bit closer at the origins of many of our problems and suggested that perhaps we may find poverty as a cause.

There are believed to be around 85 million people living in poverty in the European Union – a staggering amount given the resources Europe has on offer. This figure has grown due to the economic crisis. Add to this the millions “at risk of poverty” (those who earn less than 60% of the average of other people in society) and the fear of unemployment and it makes for a bleak state of affairs. In an article in February we tackled a few of the ways of defining what poverty really is.

I think this should also prompt us to delve a bit closer into the background of issues and stories that we publish on the site. Perhaps sometimes we are not doing something – or more importantly the people affected by it – justice.

Last week a group of people experiencing poverty met at the European Parliament for the 9th time. Many Euro MPs from across the House have taken up the fight against poverty and exclusion and are looking for ways to create jobs and increase incomes. A recent report in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on the prospect of a minimum wage generated a lot of debate on how best to help people – more social protection (in a time of huge public debt) or more work schemes and incentives. Or a mixture of both in fact. Unsurprisingly, the preference in Parliament reflects  left-right political orientation.

In addition to these MEPs earlier this year backed a report that seeks to help the disabled by making disability a legal one and a question of human rights. This step, though it may sound legalistic, is intended to make it easier for Europe’s 50 million disabled to access health care, the job market and other essential services.

Let’s hope that the crisis steadily becomes alleviated and the initiatives taken lead to a steady improvement in the position of so many of our fellow citizens over the coming months and years.

I’m honoured to work at this project, and I want to invest myself to make it bigger, nicer, and more powerful. It is a lab of experimentation and creativity, as it tests the potential (and pushes the limits) of institutional communication. Nowhere else, as far as I know, there is a community from so many different countries discussing political issues among them.  I was literally touched by the post on Thailand, when we talked about the riots in Bangkok. Some Thai people commented on it and many, many Europeans expressed them their solidarity and their sorrow, but also discussed the political situation there.

With over 76.000 fans, each post seen at least 100.000 times, and over 1.000 interactions per week, I think we shouldn’t be shy and say that this is one of the most successful experiences of communication on EU affairs ever.

Football time: the genius of Fred "en jouant avec son 'toshop"

Positive feed-back

In fact, we don’t need to auto celebrate ourselves, because we have a lot of positive feed-back, from inside and outside the House.

The other EU Institutions consider us frontrunners, and want to exchange experiences. The last example: a communication officer from EuropeAid at the Commission said he is “a big fan of the Facebook editorial team of the Parliament” and he would like to share with us some best practices.

After the chat with Heidi Hautala on human rights on Facebook, her assistant wrote to me that the results were “very impressive” and that the MEP “was very happy to participate and would do it again for sure :)”, encouraging us to “continue the excellent work!”.

FB fans appreciate our work, and they expressed it many times. Just over the last week, Marcello Toni thanked us for organising the chats, Tremopoulos Michalis encouraged us to “keep up the good work!!”and Mark Valdam said he likes “funny organisations like the EP :-))”.
…and some secrets to reveal
So far so good. Of course we can do much better, and I’ll write another post on what we can and should do in the future. For the time being, just two little confessions.
1) It is a serious thing – When “the pillar” left, I didn’t sleep for one week. I was given more or less informally the responsibility of coordinating the magic Facebook team, and this gave me a good dose of stress. The page took off and grew thanks – among others – to the creativity, restless effort and “geekiness” of Christian. I don’t know if I can keep up, but I will do all my best because I believe that this communication platform has a great potential to get Europe a little bit closer to citizens, but also to get citizens closer to European decision makers, and maybe most important, to get Europeans closer to each other.
2) But you don’t have to take yourself (and the others) too seriously. Do you know how the best posts that we publish see the light? Normally we exchange tonnes of emails, and at some point somebody comes up with a funny, sometimes hilarious email, that the others – crazily enough – take seriously. And then it goes on Facebook and gets a lot of comments and “likes”: the magic of Facebook!

For me, the important thing is to keep this spirit alive and…enjoy your work!

Are social media reserved for young people? © European Parliament / Pietro Naj-Oleari

The use of social media has been very much discussed during the seminar. It shows that it has become unavoidable. I can remember another seminar about one year ago, when I arrived in the web communication team. It was very complicated to convince our colleagues from other units that social media are not a useless tool for a few geeks. Social media were just out of the debate – “Why should we discuss it, it has no power and the European Parliament doesn’t have anything to do with it!”

I wouldn’t say that the situation is 100% different today, but I see an improvement. People don’t question the use of social media any more – even if they still question their utility and outreach. In my opinion, it means that social media have become an integral part of the European Parliament’s communication toolbox. The work done during the elections campaign was fruitful. Some colleagues still don’t believe in what we do, but at least they accept that we do it and see it as a (minor) communication channel. The next step will be to convince them of the incredible power of social media.

Social media will never replace traditional communication methods. A good conclusion because everyone can understand what he/she wants to understand.

Social media: who's in favour, who's against? Vote during our directorate seminar. ©European Parliament / Pietro Naj-Oleari

Social media will never replace traditional communication methods, they’re just aside these. That was more or less the conclusion of the seminar. A good conclusion because everyone can understand what he/she wants to understand.

And I want to hear a positive sign in this conclusion. Our hierarchy doesn’t want to hurt our old-fashioned colleagues but they want us to keep going.

If young people are the future of Europe, then social media are very important – not only for the European Parliament or for communication purposes, but also for the sake of the European democracy. Because press releases, traditional websites, newspaper articles and open air events will never reach this particular audience at a European level. Is Facebook going to be the beginning of a true European public sphere? Let’s hope it will be the conclusion of next year’s seminar…

Photo: Kenjonbro from Flickr

I wouldn’t fancy working in Toyota’s communications department at the moment.  The company has sailed into a perfect “faulty component” storm that has led to the recall of millions cars and trucks and a suspension in sales of many of its most popular models. The estimated bill is expected to top a cool 2 billion dollars.

The global reach of Toyota and the possibility that road users may have been at risk has now given it a political dimension. So too has the possibility that the recall may in the end cost thousands of jobs worldwide if the company is forced to cut costs to cover the recalls and lost sales.

However, the way that Toyota has handled the unfolding corporate car crash since it began last November has now become the story. I suspect in future years MBA students will study this episode to learn positive and negative aspects of corporate crisis management.

The way that Toyota has handled the unfolding corporate car crash has become the story

One of the first statements issued by the company was given by an executive wearing a white mask – not unknown in Japan but hardly likely to send the right message to the rest of the world. Since then coverage of the crisis has been largely driven by the media and Toyota’s customers.

The impression that the company simply does not care about what the public think of it has grown as fast as its reputation for reliability has waned.

I think a few lessons could be learned for those who work in the communications field – be it politics, selling cars or other consumer goods.  Appropriately, it also falls into a neat anagram…

T: Truth – own up to some mistakes and don’t try to hide things.

O: Ownership – take control of the situation.

Y: Your job could depend on it – sure fire motivation!

O: Oprah – You need an Oprah Winfrey moment where someone from the company or party admits “it was my fault, I apologise”.

T: Take responsibilty for sorting out the problems.

A: Agenda – makes sure it is you that tries to set media agenda.

Last Friday, Akio Toyota, the grandson of the company’s founder, literally bowed to public pressure and issued a public apology. His lack of visibility in the storm prompted last weekend’s Financial Times to quip that “the ship’s captain appears to have retreated below decks”.

In the US Toyota is now running a TV ad grievously apologising for its errors.  Whether this and Mr Toyota’s belated appearance will plug the PR hole beneath the water line remains to be seen.

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.

Our production on this blog - from July 2008

As communication geeks (and freaks), we always look at the stats. How many people did read this article? What was the traffic on the hearings website?

But we don’t look at ourselves that much… What about changing the point of view and take us, member of the web communication unit of the European Parliament, as target? Let our readers rest for a while, let them in peace. And let’s make a little assessment of our own production on this blog.

First statement: 201 posts have been posted on this blog since July 2008. A quite great amount if we look at the fact that it really started in February 2009, in the run up to the European elections. Since then, 176 posts have been posted, which makes about one every two days. The record is for October last year with 41 posts – which makes twice posts a working day!

EP officials are also thinking creatures, not only blind machines (or am I misinterpreting?)

Second statement: Guess what? The most used category is called “At work“, with more than 35 % of the posts. Not a big surprise since this blog is run by a team of professionals… The second category is “Thinking allowed“, which shows that EP officials are also thinking creatures, not only blind machines (or am I misinterpreting?). Personal posts aren’t that popular, but for that, we have our personal blogs, don’t we?

Third statement: Who’s writing on this blog? It’s very unequal. On average, every editor wrote 5 posts. But if we take out the three most prolific writers (who account for more than half of the posts, with a special mention for the first one who wrote… 53 posts), the average falls to 2.4 posts per person… Some people didn’t write anything, some others only every six months. C’mon guys, our readers would like to know a little bit more about you! (By the way, I’m not very prolific either…)

It’s quite difficult to analyse these figures… There are very different opinions in the team about this blog, perhaps also different views of how it should look like and why it is important in our communication strategy. And, as in every team and for every project, there are some frontrunners and some stragglers. But maybe we could write a post asking colleagues about how they consider this blog?