What happens when the brands we work for disappoint us?

“Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.”
– David Ogilvy


Back in 2001, soon after British Petroleum completed the purchase of Amoco, they decided to rename the company, simply, BP. Along with this name change they sought to rebrand themselves as a concerned global energy company. They adopted a lovely new blooming flower logo, along with the tagline “Beyond Petroleum,” which they (kind of) still use today.

The rebranding campaign was called “BP on the street,” and it was all about listening to people’s thoughts, ideas and concerns about oil, the environment and global energy. It featured everyday people, business people and employees talking about how an oil company should balance environmental issues with energy needs.

The advertising invited people to visit BP.com to continue the dialogue online. As the digital copywriter, my art director and I were asked to work out how that dialogue would best live online. I remember being truly impressed that an oil company would be so transparent.

The campaign that the agency created was fresh, progressive and environmentally aware. And I was excited to be a part of it.

Imagine my horror a few months ago when I, like the rest of America, saw the Deepwater Horizon rig explode, and then begin to sink into the Gulf of Mexico. Ever since then, we have been confronted on a daily basis with the constant barrage of nightmarish images have been unfolding off the coast of Louisiana.

I couldn’t get the images of the brown pelicans covered in oil out of my head. Every inch of their body covered in oil, with only their eyes peering out from the thick, brown goo.

Like everyone else, I felt outrage and anger that BP could let this happen. But unlike everyone else, I also felt personally betrayed by BP.

Like many of us who spend 8 to 12 hours a day building brands, I believed in the story I was helping to craft, no matter how small my contribution was. I believed in the “radical openness” that they wanted to portray. And in the following years, I would actually defend them.

“No, no, BP is different,” I would try and tell friends. “They are really trying to be environmentally aware,” I argued. And they seemed to be really ready to confront some of the environmental issues facing Big Oil.

Well, it turns out that they weren’t that interested in “radical openness.” In fact,
The Washington Post reported that a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency inquiry “found a pattern of the company intimidating workers who raised safety or environmental concerns.”

And while BP hasn’t been able to plug the oil well, it has been very good at controlling the information coming out about the disaster. In fact, ProPublica, an independent, non-profit news organization that specializes in investigative journalism, has reported that BP has plugged the seeping information when it comes to the information regarding whether oil-collecting conditions are safe for workers in the Gulf.

The idea here is not to ask you to jump on the Anti-BP bandwagon. That would be way too easy. The idea is to ask how to deal with situations where the brands we work on not only disappoint us, but lead us astray. Surely every one of us that work on building brands – from a creative, account or strategic point of view – has thought about this.

And I’m not talking about the brands where we are fully aware of the nature of their business. (This comes from a person who was very briefly involved with Joe Camel in the early 90’s.) I’m talking about the brands that are saying (and appear to be doing) all the right things.

We rely on the information we are given to us from our clients. So is this just a hazard of the business? As marketers, should we ever question the information we are given? Should we ever question the validity of facts? Should we require proof? What exactly is our responsibility so that we don’t wind up feeling like a co-conspirator?

And although BP’s Gulf disaster makes me squirm professionally, I’m not sure anyone else in the industry cares. Is the whole issue is like the streetwalker getting outraged that the john didn’t treat her like a proper lady?

I’m not sure I know the answer. And while the unemployment rate hovers around 10%, I’m not sure any of us has the luxury of turning our nose up at working on brands that may in fact, be doing what it takes to survive themselves.

In the end, it’s the brands themselves that will suffer if they violate the trust they have built with consumers, businesses and the government. And it remains to be seen if the BP brand will ever manage to rebound from this monumental catastrophe.

All I know is that like the wildlife on the Gulf, I’m feeling pretty oily right now. But in the meantime, I’ll be continuing to do the best by the brands I work on and try to keep myself on the right side of the truth.

Agreeing with the Republicans?

Every now and then, because of the alignment of the stars, something happens where I may agree with a Conservative Republican. Trust me, it doesn't happen often, but it sometimes does happen.

On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky attacked the Henry Paulson plan for the biggest financial bailout since the Great Depression, as "un-American." Not only that, he went on to say:

"I know there are problems in the financial markets, and I share a lot of the same concerns that our witnesses do. However, the Paulson plan will not fix those problems. The Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American."

And I couldn't agree more.

Tonight, Bush came on television to try gently talk people through the mess. It's interesting to watch an idiot actually be condescending, but it actually happened.

So while some form of this plan will probably pass, I do agree with this Republican from Kentucky (of all places), that this bail out is financial socialism. But this is even worse, because as Mike Bloomberg pointed out, they have managed to privatize the profits, but socialize the losses.

And it's soooo ironic that the plan is being proposed by Mr. Free Market himself, G.W. Bush. For all their hatred for growing government, it's interesting that the Republicans have gotten very good at it.

Career paths

I'm always weighing the pros and cons of people jobs. Everywhere. All the time.

When in McDonald's, I think, "I could probably be the Assistant Manager. . . at the very least. And if I applied myself, I think could even be the regional or district manager." And then I think about all the food I would eat. The people serving the food at McDonald's are always at least as fat as the customers. Then I rethink this career path.

I don't know why I've set the bar so low for myself. I guess I'm just comparing myself to people I encounter on a daily basis. I don't run across many CEOs, screenplay writers or entrepreneurs regularly.

Then, today, while riding my bike in lower Manhattan, I came across the guy in the photo. A grown man posing as Lady Liberty. . . for tourists. And then, I wonder how he got to this point.

Did he wake up one day and say, "Hey, I bet I could make a great living by standing as still as a stop sign posing and taking pictures with strangers!!!"

Or was he a dentist that hated the smell of saliva? Or a construction worker with a fear of heights? Or, even worse, a copywriter with no talent at all?

Whatever brought him to this. He seemed to be happy with his career choice as he beckoned tourists to take a picture with him. He seemed enthusiastic about portraying a gigantic green woman with a crown holding two styrofoam tablets. It worked for him. And the tourists seemed to love him as if he were the real Lady Liberty. As if this female impersonator had welcomed their very own ancestors to our shores.

And that's OK. That's what New York is all about. Reinventing yourself. Even if it means making career choices you would have never made in the place you were from. But it all seems to work out in New York.

Turning 80

I think that the time you turn 80, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want.
You should be able to make off-color comments.
You should be able to push people on the subway.
You should be able to pass wind with wild abandon.
You should be able to tell it like it is.
In fact, by the time you turn 80, you should be able to do just about anything you want to do short of being a mass murderer. In fact, if I ever make it to 80, I plan to take up smoking again. That would be awesome.

My Aunt Chui's just turned 80 last week.
I just got back from her surprise birthday party in Ft. Stockton, Texas.
What a great woman. She rocks.

Of course, doing all the things that age entitles you to doesn't really cross your mind when you are actually that age. My Aunt Chui would never make off-color comments, much less pass wind with with wild abandon. She is way too dignified for that. She's a lot like my mom.

My Aunt Chui, short for Jesusita, or "Jesse" as the gringos called her, raised my two cousins on her own. And that was how it was for as long as I could remember. In fact, for the longest time, I really never knew that she actually had a husband at one time. I suppose I bought into that whole stork scam until I wondered one day why I didn't have another uncle that lived with my Aunt Chui. I think that for people of my parent's generation, the best way to deal with uncomfortable issues was to just pretend nothing ever happened.

But all that didn't really matter to me as a kid, because going to my aunt's West Texas home was always a great time. She was (and still is) an incredible cook. Being an only child, I loved being in the house with my cousins. My older cousin David was always my hero. He could do all sorts of cool stuff that I tried to copy, but never with much success.

My other cousin Monica was always a free spirit. She was 5 years older than me and always seemed like she was into cool adult things. I do have a vague memory of her being very sad and telling me that something called "The Beatles" broke up. I may have been around 6 or 7, and I had no clue what she was talking about or why these Beatles just couldn't be fixed. But I do remember her playing "Let it be" over and over again. The whole thing was very grown up.

Without question, my fondest memories growing up were Christmases at my Aunt Chui's house. In fact, I can still remember looking out the window and spotting a television tower or some other thing in the distance with a blinking red light and being convinced that it was Rudolf leading the way for Santa to leave presents for me and my cousins. These Christmases also included my other cousins, Tony and JoAnn.

There's probably nothing unique in these Christmas memories from hundreds of thousands of other children across America, but somehow my Aunt's home seemed to bring out the best in everyone. It may have been the small town that her house was located. Or it may have been that we were all getting together as a family.

Whatever made my Aunt's house so fun to visit wasn't because we had to be on our best behavior. We didn't. But maybe it was because the grown-ups had to be on their best behavior. My parents didn't argue. My Dad got mad at me less. My Mom seemed happier.

Living in New York now, the complain-kvetch-whinge-whine-fuss capital of America, I am truly surprised that my Aunt is as vibrant and vital as she is at 80. Her approach of not dwelling on the negative seems to have worked out pretty well for her. It's gotten her to 80. And to look at her, you might even think she's in her 60's.

So while as much as I feel she's now entitled to make off-color comments, pass wind in public and tell it like it is, she probably won't. That's because when you find something that works for you, you usually stick with it.

But of course, this won't stop me from doing it.

Whatever the case, Rock on, Aunt Chui. Rock on.

An Austin American Wedding

As they say in America, you can’t pick your family. And that saying never seemed truer to me than last month in Austin, Texas. That was where I attended the wedding of my step-nephew, Edward Swan to his lovely bride, Kristen.

But before describing the wedding, you’ve got to understand how I got there in the first place.

Following my mother’s death in 1993, my father was incredibly lonely. He kept it from me mostly, but I later found out how deeply, deeply sad he was to lose my mother.

In 1995, just 2 years later, Joe and I decided to move to Japan. I guess he anticipated the physical distance between us would equate to an emotional distance. But as far as I was concerned, nothing was farther from the truth. I was already living in New York, so I just saw it as taking a job a bit farther out of town.

Regardless, he had begun dating a woman by the name of Mary Ponce. I had met Mary during a visit to Texas and was ecstatic that my father had found someone to date. We had dinner at a Red Lobster and she seemed like a lovely person. Little did I know that Mary would become my stepmother 2 weeks after I arrived in Tokyo.

My father called me and we chatted about the weather, I told him about my new life in Japan and as we were about to hang up, he said, “hey Mart, guess what I went and did this weekend?” I expected him to say something like he got a new tool set or had entered the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. He didn’t. He continued, “well, I went and got married.”

At first, I thought he was joking, and after I realized he wasn’t, I was dumbfounded. How could he have not mentioned this?

I tried to be as upbeat as possible, because I was truly happy for him, but I was upset. But not that he got married. I was upset that he didn’t tell me he was going to do it in the first place. No body asked me. But then, I remembered that this was about him, not me. He had picked a pretty fantastic woman the first time around and it looked like he had managed to do it again.

My father and Mary were happily married for six years. Mary helped him emerge from the darkness of my mother’s death and energized him as well. Mary knew how to handle my father much better than my mother ever could. Then, in 2001, two weeks before September 11th, my father’s life was taken by cancer.

And now, that brings me to 2008. I am attending the wedding of Mary’s grandson and she remains in my life longer than she was ever married to my father. And I have found myself with a wonderful, loving family that I never could have imagined being a part of a few years ago.

But the best part of the wedding was how “American” it was. And by that, I mean how wonderfully diverse the entire wedding was. Besides being truly happy for Edward and Kristen, I was happy to see the handsome Mexican-American groom with his beautiful blonde bride.

Edward’s parents, his mother Betsy (and my step-sister) and her African-American husband, Everett, were there and both, still clearly in love. There was the Everett’s family and of course, among the groomsman wearing tie-dye jackets was an Asian-American.

Both of Edward’s sisters, Erin and Nichole, who had both served in the U.S. Army were there looking just as beautiful as ever.

And of course, his gay step-uncle and his partner Joe were there as well. He and his entire family went out of their way to make us both feel as if we had been part of the family since the day we were born.

One of the best moments of the night was when Edward got up to speak and asked everyone to make sure they introduced themselves to at least one person they didn’t know, because they were all family and we may not see each other again for a long time.

It was a fantastic wedding and I couldn’t help but think of my father. Even though he wasn’t there to see it, he was there. Through me. Through Mary. And through the family that I never got to pick, but find myself happily a part of today.

Everybody comes to Hollywood

And who the hell is Ethyl Clayton anyway?

I found her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but even after Googling her, I couldn't find much about her. The most I could surmise is that she was a star in the 1920's.

So I decided to keep looking. I was determined to find out who she was.

And I finally found her online.

Apparently she was called the "Lady Dainty" of the Cinema. A bit odd.
Anyway, I'm on a quest to find more about this mystery lady.

An Onion that can make you cry

I went to visit another of my clients this afternoon. His name is Robert Fine and he needed me to help him with some of his paperwork that had been building up. He has MS and is confined to his wheelchair. He appologized again and again for asking me several times where I lived. "Short term memory loss is one of the side affects of my condition," he told me.

Later, after we were done with his paperwork, I guess he wanted to show me that despite his condition, he was very much still alive. He proceeded to recite to me Pablo Neruda's "Ode To The Onion." Neruda, Chilean writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was born about a century ago.

Here's the entire poem he recited to me from memory.

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

The End.

When he stopped reading, it was hard for me to not cry. But not because I felt bad for him, but because of how he impressed me. I don't think I will look at an onion the same ever again.