The devil is sometimes green

"Does anyone ever question what green actually means? And why is it so important to just be green. What about how these companies treat their employees, give to their communities or provide more to the world than just another product or service?"

I always appreciate neighborly questions related to marketing. They're the Can I borrow your watering can? and Do you need a hand with your gutter? questions of the ad industry.

Matthew Ammirati asked the green questions today at MediaPost - the "largest and most influential media, marketing and advertising site on the net, providing news, blogs, directories to help our community of more than 100,000 members better plan and buy both traditional and online advertising."

I add MediaPost's bio because that's quite an audience for Ammirati's questions about multi-level moral questions.

Furnaces and everything else
As a consumer, I confess that our recent decision to replace a dysfunctional furnace was only as green as the tax credit we'd get in 2011. I actually do care quite a bit about earth care, partly because so much of my professional life has been based in the outdoors, but also because it is a biblical concern based on one of the earliest commandments and supported throughout the Old and New Testaments. Yet I'm still motivated by what so many green-in-name-only companies know all too well:

I'll buy what complements my wallet.

Ammirati, on a marketing-centric website of all places, calls me and green card carrying companies alike to a more mature treatment of the issue. "[H]ow can we as marketers not succumb to the pressures of green-washing and lend our support to companies that are truly doing good in the world?" he asks. "It comes down to evaluating how a company treats its employees, its impact on the community, and whether the company is a good steward of the environment."

Employee care? Community concern? These are general good will questions and more than typical green questions, but they're also Jesus questions. They have Good Samaritan and foot-washing written all over them. Furthermore, Ammirati isn't a local environmental club spokesperson. He and his company serve "over 350 companies across 55 industries representing over $1.2 billion in revenues." As he puts it, "This is not some hippie, crunchy granola group of activist companies getting together to talk to themselves."

Explicit and implicit faith
I don't know Ammirati's faith background, or whether his Trustee meetings open in a word of prayer. I wouldn't be surprised though if they did. What I do know is that his questions are questions I need to ask more often. And when those questions threaten my wallet, I need to find adequate solutions.

The task of living Christianly as a consumer is near paralyzing, but Jesus knew I'd feel paralyzed in the myriad of decisions to make, didn't he?

Read the rest of Ammirati's article, Is It Enough to Be Green? What about Being Good?

Note on the painting: Wikipedia's caption reads: "In the 15th century 'Saint Wolfgang and the Devil' by Michael Pacher, the Devil is green. Poets such as Chaucer also drew connections between the color green and the devil." The painting jumped out at me with its use of color, especially considering the reactions some in the Church have had to earth care as well as separations others have made from green's biblical roots. Plus it's a particularly bizarre depiction of the devil, isn't it?

Read more...

Oreo: Milk's Favorite Summer Dip

I'm not a die-hard Oreo fan, but they're good, no doubt, and I'm a sucker for creative advertising like this pool ad. And it takes me back to the first two-thirds of my life when every cookie I ever ate went into the glass of milk.  Not just to be dipped or dunked, but immersed and left to sink for a surprise drink ending.  

If you're an Oreo fan, I mentioned them one other time here and the picture I featured may be the most beautiful and tantalizing cookie photo I've ever seen.

Here's to a refreshing summer!

Read more...

Manatees and the Gator Aggravator

(The following isn't about advertising, but the call to care for all things. Though I'm sure it's part of my story that influenced why I care about the advertising industry, too.)

We moved to Crystal River, Florida, when I turned twelve. We were poor and running but Mom kept her head on straight and gave us room to thrive as best as she could.

I quickly discovered the water, living as we did a hundred yards from streams and marshes that within a quarter of a mile connected to the Crystal River itself. We’d frequent its shoreline beaches and famous springs and occasionally go boating with friends or fellow church members. Drifting across the intersection of inlets and outlets and jumping from the bow of a pontoon boat into hot Florida sun and bone-cold spring-fed water bring back good memories. What a marvelous place to frolic when you live in government housing.

Those were my middle school years and play wasn’t always mother-approved. Read the rest of this article at HighCallingBlogs.com.

High Calling Blogs is a network that writes about work, life and God.

Read more...

Bob Garfield and a call for prophets

~ Frustration and gathering disgust that, despite the best of all forums for evaluating ad strategy and execution, my core principles espoused over a quarter century...seem to have had little or no effect on the practice of the craft. I continue to be awed and humbled by the best of what the industry produces. But I also think billions of client dollars every year are being squandered by narcissists, conmen, naifs and a number of blithering morons.

These sobering words come from Bob Garfield's list of reasons for ending AdReview, an industry-wide recognized column he began in 1975 in Advertising Age and ended last month.

If you've followed Garfield, you know that he's stirred the pot for two and a half decades. He has a cranky tone and his criticism often felt like grains of sand in your eye. Just when you think he'd let up, he'd blow more at you. Readers hurled their irritations back at him for years and his farewell post reflects this volatile relationship.

Yet he had his fans. Whether he pushed hard because it gave him a cheap thrill, or because ranting produced more site hits, or simply because he cared, Garfield was committed to cleaning house and there are plenty who loved him for it. I didn't always agree with him, but I admired his steadfast pursuit of better.

I believe advertisers can become good neighbors to the consumer next door. The prophetic work, however, can't be left to Bob Garfield and a few other nicer/nastier culture critics. It has to be done by all of us - the shelf-stockers and cart-fillers, the ad-making pied pipers and tune-entranced consumers, the bankers and parishioners. We're all in this business of discerning want and need and of serving our selves and others. There is room for satisfying both, yet the Great Commandments require enough from us that, if we all responded appropriately and constantly, we should see change.

Could the collective We reflect on our prophetic and lived-out response 25 years from now and be able to rewrite Garfield's frustration? I don't know, but we're still called to try.

Read more...

Chasing Cool in Calling

From Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace:

Remember, the etymology of the word brand comes from the Old English for 'burn.' It's defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as 'a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership.' A brand comes from a long-standing commitment and vision. It's not a reverse-engineering process quickly generated through trendy gimmicks."

I try to commit to the worthwhile. Life is too short and people too important for me to waste time and talent manufacturing what I'll regret branding. I want my stamp to count. Gimmicks tempt me but I know better than to invite them into the work I've been called to do.

Okay, so maybe I occaaaasionally give in to a gimmick. Perhaps you'll tell me if it's an unfitting one?

Read more...

What you see is what you cry about

Alice and I went to Target the other night for a few odds (Zhu Zhu pet) and ends (toilet paper).  Heh heh.

She's six and wants good toilet paper, it seems, as she almost cried when I picked the store brand. She had made her own selection and I wondered, What's so great about Charmin? I looked through the crinkled plastic and couldn't discern any noticeable difference. And both packages weighed the same.

Then the light kicked on and I had her walk down the long row of brands to tell me what she saw on each of them:

"Bear."
"Puppy."
"More bears."
"Baby on a cloud."

And on my frugal choice? Nothing.

Read more...

Situational Sabbaths

If you work, you need to know about Situational Sabbaths. They aren't the same as traditional Sabbaths. Even if you know about them already, here's a teaser and article link to offer a little reminder. I certainly need it.

I work for a nonprofit organization and have spent many years of my adult life hovering around the U.S. poverty level. Despite the apparent hardship for a family of four, we are wealthy enough that we don’t feel the financial threat of a day off each week.

The Sabbath provides a break from necessary labor and offers a weekly chance to rest, play, garden, read, visit with friends, and worship with a community of believers. More importantly, perhaps, it’s supposed to teach us that we’re not entirely self-sufficient, that God cares and is in control, and that God will provide, just as Moses and the people of Israel learned during their exodus from Egypt.

I do a lot of the resting and visiting sort of Sabbath activities, but sacrificing one day of work per week doesn’t intimidate my independence. Rather, I stand with the visitor from a developing country who remarked, “It is amazing to me how much can be accomplished in this nation without God!”

This is a problem.

Richard Foster wrote, “More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.” Keeping the Sabbath is a form of fasting, which, like all fasting, has the potential of alerting us of unhealthy degrees of autonomy. Unfortunately, when NFL games and family picnics and overall abundance distract me from felt dependence on Sunday afternoons, I need something more than just a day off.

I need to observe Situational Sabbaths...

Read the rest of this article at The High Calling website.

The High Calling is a site about work and God.

Read more...

Strongbow and the Church: Celebrating pork pie fillers of Melton Mowbray

Strongbow's alcoholic cider commercial made me wonder again why more churches don't have commissioning services and guest Sundays for average workers like they do for missionaries. Let's imagine how a commission might go for a recent advertising major and then I'll show you the ad:

Pastor: "Johnny, tell us a bit about this new position in Chicago. What will you be doing?"

(Johnny shares his job description)

Pastor: "Sounds interesting. When did you first know God was calling you into copywriting?"

(Short story about a favorite professor and Johnny's campus minister)

Pastor: "We're very excited for you and we'd like to pray for you. Lord, thank you for the way you call us into service. We know the ad world has its issues. Will you go before Johnny and prepare his path? Will you equip him with wisdom to know what to do and courage to do it? Please surround him with godly mentors and a healthy community of believers and may his work bring light and truth to our consumeristic society. We pray that he'll return to us with reports that bring honor to you. Help us to stand behind Johnny as he loves you and his fellow neighbor with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. Amen."

I suppose there are churches that do this. Strongbow, the UK's drink for hard workers (men only?), took a shot at it in an ad called "Honours." It takes place in a cathedral and borrows heavily from the trinitarian theme. We could use more of this kind of heralding and celebrating.

Read more...

Land Rover on the other side of life

Getting out and away is essential human behavior. I know it every time I'm there and yet my day-timer says I could take it or leave it. What interests me about the following Land Rover ads is that I feel the need to get away from the full life they depict even though I've chosen to have the full life they depict.

That's the kicker. I like my life and nearly everything in it. So what causes me to fantasize about being in that vehicle on the other side of the planet?

Hat tip to Amy Corr of MediaPost's Out to Launch.

Read more...

Fresh Step Cat Gallery -or- Without TV I'm Struggling for Material

It's Good Friday and only two days remain till I could potentially give up giving up TV. Life has been so busy that I'm not sure how much I would've watched anyway.

While I missed the Winter Olympics - every single moment of them - I did see 15 minutes of the Special Olympics Opening Ceremony in a China Buffet in southern Georgia. After nine days of backpacking and driving and being completely unplugged from the media, the students and I couldn't look away from all of the pretty colors and choreography on the screen. We were, General Tso's all about us, glued to the set.

Fresh Step
I have not, however, been unplugged from magazines during Lent, which is where I found PAM and the gallery of fine art below. Honestly, I'm not a cat fan or collector of kitsch, but as I said the first time I mentioned Fresh Step's ad campaign, if I had a cat this is the litter I'd buy. There may be ten brands with better absorbency and odor elimination, but these shots convince me. Enjoy my collection.

"It's hard to smell your litter box if you can't smell it."

Read more...