Demos’s new report Service Nation is about the democratic notion of serving the community, and how young people can get more involved to start good habits for the future.
The Government’s idea of a National Civic Service was mooted amongst 54 young people at a Demos convention in September. Only 8% liked the name, and the words duty, civic and service were not very popular. The idea of gaining a sense of personal achievement and fulfilment was important.
We couldn’t help thinking about the psychological value exchange between brands and people, and the success of branded community initiatives like Orange RockCorps, with their strapline: Give, Get Given.
Brands are great influencers and motivators of human behaviour, and they can also be great levellers. As such they can be ideal agents of democracy.
We are big fans of what Orange is doing with Orange RockCorps, and the way they are doing it by merging the CSR and marketing agendas, talking about civil initiatives through brand communications. Other brands are making valuable contributions to society through CSR-led initiatives such as the Vodafone Foundation’s ‘World of Difference’. We rarely see these efforts expressed in primary brand communications, which is a shame because this limits the reach of these good civic initiatives.
Do let us know about communications that promote civic initiatives that you have seen by other brands like Orange RockCorps. In the meantime, we’ll start thinking about measuring the overall contribution to civic service that brands are making.
Well, Christmas season is upon us and that means warm, heartfelt wishes all around. This spot from Wal-Mart caught our eye as a message of gratitude to the soldiers serving in the Middle East. I’m sure there will be more to come before the magic day.
In promoting World AIDS Day, we have collected a few of the iconic ads that we have seen over the years that are provocative, funny and scary – sometimes all at the same time. Here are some websites where we and all our clients can get more involved:
We have recently conducted a very unscientific survey of banking brand slogans compiled by The Financial Brand in order to see roughly what proportion of bank slogans focus on a civil message for society.
Now, the survey has all sorts of bias, (slogans do not a brand make, country bias, historical bias, our bias, etc.) but it provides an interesting benchmark for where banking brands position themselves and how many take a stance that addresses society’s needs.
We simply filtered the slogans through our consulting team, asking them to agree on some broad categories. Here they are with some definitions:
Aspirational (34%): Promise of a better future for you or belonging to an exclusive club e.g. Making More Possible (ABN AMRO). Where Membership Matters (Bridgewater)
Customer Centric (24%): Putting the customer first e.g. We’re all About You (Mazuma). You and Us (UBS).
Boast (18%): Statement about how good the bank is e.g. Fluent in Finance (Barclays). Altogether Better (First Choice)
Functional (8%): Statement about value or function e.g. More Broker for your Money (Scottrade). Let us quote you happy (Norwish Union)
Civil (5%): Focus on wider society and improvement – not about the individual e.g. Capital Ideas. Human Values (New Alliance). Live Richly (Citibank). Let’s Change the World (Shorebank).
Simple (3%): Focusing on ease of use e.g. Simpler. Better. Faster (Standard Bank). It’s That Simple (Vantus Bank).
Local (3%) Promoting the e.g. Hometown Banking. Real Value (Numerica). We’re From Here (Frost Bank).
Security (3%): Encompassing protection of investments and protection of the family unit e.g. Because Change Happenz (Zurich). Ready for Tomorrow? (Norwich Union).
Pun (2%): Being cutsy with the name e.g. Investments with Abbey Endings (Abbey National).
It’s no surprise that the most common kind of slogan promotes aspirational themes and ideas. Aspirational narratives are the legacy territory of banks and many are reluctant to move away from this safe harbour. Over time, these messages have evolved from ‘exclusivity’ narratives surrounded by membership (think Diner’s Club) to celebrating the human spirit best typified by American Express and the ‘Long Live Dreams’ campaign. We expect these aspirational messages to decrease in number as a category and increase in social meaning (i.e. less individualistic) in the future.
It’s also quite sensible to see that customer-centric slogans are the second most used kind of slogan. Banks everywhere are moving from operations-focused to customer-facing companies. Most large retail banks have made the transition we expect this proportion to increase over time. Of course, if this many banks are talking about putting the customer first, how differentiated can this category be in the future?
It was a real surprise to see just how many banks boasted about their own prowess in their slogans. While banks are not known for being the picture of modesty, it’s hard to imagine why such a large portion of them continue to talk about themselves in these society-focused era. We can only guess that this group will diminish quickly as banks go through their natural cycle of repositioning.
Happily, civil-positioned slogans do not appear at the bottom of our list and are well represented by some of the world’s most successful banks. Even banks that do not indicate a civil notion in their slogan e.g. HSBC’s ‘The World’s Local Bank’ promote overtly civil messages in their communications.
This simple survey demonstrates the opportunity for banks to increase the meaning in their brands and become more differentiated. Many have slogans that are purely functional or belong to a previous age, where speaking about ones’ self was considered expected behaviour.
There is plenty more to say on the topic. The next post on this might examine top 20 global bank narratives and see what portion of them focus on civil messages.
This recent spot is another example of how banks are looking to re-frame their narrative post crisis (see previous post on re-framing banks). Ally is GMAC’s new internet bank offer in America. These cute spots work to establish ‘truth’ as a central tenant of their brand.
Truth is an often attempted, seldom achieved story for brands to tell. Those that tell the story in an authentic manner have usually had truth as a guiding value in the culture since the beginning. As anyone can appreciate, truth is not an ancillary concept that can be stapled onto a brand easily. Truth in action is a foundational value that affects the behaviour of the company in profound ways.
It’s a very desirable state of being for customers who want an honest company to trade with and who want to have a ‘pure’ brand image reflected in their decision to purchase. See previous post on ‘The truth will set you free‘. Brands like IKEA and Innocent lead the pack – although in very different ways.
This allure to the notion of truth is why so many brands now embrace openness, simplicity and straightforward values in their brand statements. So much so, that as an agency, we often recommend that these values are generic to the category and should not be included in the brand platform as a source of differentiation.
The Great Recession has presented an opportunity for challenger brands like Ally, Virgin, building societies, Islamic banks and co-ops to redefine what banks can mean for customers in ethical and social spheres.
Advertising agency Isobel, in association with YouGov, has shared the results of its ‘Family Brands 2009‘ survey. This is a survey of 1,500 people’s views on how socially-responsible, caring and good at listening 100 selected brands are.
The attributes of socially-responsible and caring are included in our own Civil Branding surveys, amongst many other attributes, which is why we picked up on this survey. Being good at listening is something all brands should strive for these days.
We were interested at the ‘family’ take on these attributes in the Isobel survey. Our research indicates that it is younger adults who are more interested in the socially-responsible and caring attributes of brands than the typically older parent group. Why does socially-responsible and caring, and being good at listening for that matter, equal family?
There is something going here though. The brands that scored top in the survey also score well in our Civil Branding surveys (eg M&S, The Co-operative, Boots). We believe that people like it when brands help us to think about today’s social challenges, and maybe give us a nudge in the right direction. OK, this equates to parental behaviour. We are in the ‘caring noughties’ after all, so the ‘family’ construct is probably quite useful.
As a taster of our Civil Branding surveys, here’s one on Cadbury.
David Cameron’s (leader of the Conservative party) speech at the Hugo Young lecture at the Guardian may be seen as a cynical ploy (at worst) or radical attempt (at best) to reduce the burden on the state for delivering services such as schools and the police.
In the speech there is also top-line encouragement of social entrepreneurship and community involvement. We applaud this encouragement, irrespective of political positioning.
However, it is very top-line, and we think companies are in a better position to influence social change than political parties. It’s our view that the efforts of companies, through their brands, have the potential to make more of an impact than political rhetoric.
We call on companies and brands to seed socially-progressive attitudes and behaviour at a grass-roots level using their myriad of everyday touch points. There is a significant opportunity for brands to capitalise on speeches like this and on policy shifts to become the first to market new social ideas put forward by politicians and other public figures.
I love this tongue and cheek low-fi approach to advertising. By touching on a meaningful social/civil topic and promoting it in an naive fashion, small and medium business can capture a lot of attention for their brands. This spot has had over 2m views on YouTube, topping most other corporate virals.
This is yet another production from Microbilt sponsored Rhett & link, who travel around America knocking together ads for small companies gratis.
Racism is a hot topic in the UK thanks to all the controversy surrounding Nick Griffin of the BNP and his recent flirtations with the media. So, it’s good timing that Becks, through its Music Inspired Art project is featuring the slogan (and cause) ‘Love Music Hate Racism‘ inspired by band Hard-Fi.
From Hard-Fi:
For those who don’t know about LMHR, they are an organisation that, through music, promote and celebrate cultural diversity. As a band this is something that we all think is very important and we have supported them in the past. We thought we would take the opportunity to promote what we believe in.
From Love Music, Hate Racism:
“Love Music Hate Racism is delighted that our slogan will be appearing this summer on millions of Becks beer bottles, courtesy of the support of Becks and Hard-Fi. This support reflects the fact that anti-racism is a very popular cause; millions of people in our society like living in a multicultural society and living, working and going out to enjoy themselves alongside people from many different backgrounds. At the same time there are racist groups on the rise who want to divide our communities, so getting out the biggest possible anti-racist message using the music that brings us together is vital today. This campaign will help to get many more people actively involved. Love Music (And Beer) – Hate Racism!”
This partnership shows how quickly brands can engage people in a meaningful conversation by borrowing each others credibility. Beck’s provides the promotion and credibility from a social narrative perspective. Hard-Fi provides endorsement and authenticity. LMHR provides the cause itself. It’s a case where all three sing (sorry, I could not resist) together beautifully and the promotion would not come off as successfully without all three being involved.
While good planning is needed to plan the right fit between partnerships, great speed and effect can be achieved with the right planning when partnerships like this one are put in play. It is plain to see that there are no conflicts here in any of the partnership brands. Beck’s has cultivated an artsy image that is naturally inclusive and open minded. Contrast this move with Stella Artois Hedge Fund. While both worthy causes, Stella has a harder push ahead due to introducing new green narratives into the brand.
Civil Branding is about harnessing the power of brands to create social influence,
change the wider social agenda and increase brand difference. We're on a mission
to encourage marketing professionals to consider their brands' impact on society
to help us progress and to help create ever more worthy brands.
