Are You Marketing (and Living) Your Mission?

Over at AdAge, there’s an interesting look at the trend in mission-based marketing among consumer brands.

Big names like Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Wal-Mart are putting a lot of emphasis on taglines and catchphrases that sound like they’re right out of a lofty mission statement.

Think Wal-Mart’s “Save money. Live better.” That’s a pretty dramatic and emotional turn from the old “Always low prices.” More importantly, the audience seems to be internal as much as external.

Guess it’s a sign of the times. In the recession, employees need to know they’re working for something more meaningful—helping people “live better”—than just providing cheap merchandise. Seems to be working at least OK for Wal-Mart lately.

Yes, a tagline tied to a mission can pack a pretty powerful punch. But a note of caution: If you’re going to engage in mission marketing, then it’s more critical than ever to follow through with the mission you’re promoting. You’ve got to live that brand promise.

Otherwise, it’s just an empty slogan. And your customers, and your employees, will see right through it.

Southwest Brand Gets a Good Rap

Here's a little Friday uplift ...

It’s nothing new or groundbreaking to point out that Southwest Airlines has a great brand. But then again, maybe you haven’t seen Southwest’s rapping flight attendant:



Further proof that no company owns a more fully realized, thoroughly entertaining brand than Southwest. It makes a nice complement to the playful "Grab Your Bag, It's On" campaign they've got going.

And for David Holmes, it's made for his 15-plus minutes of fame--at the company's shareholders meeting, in the Wall Street Journal, even on Oprah and Leno.

Meanwhile, to Southwest's credit, they've appeared to be hands-off throughout. Blogs and news stories routinely attribute the origins of the phenomenon to recordings by passengers with cell phone cameras, not by anyone at Southwest posting and/or spreading the video. That's a key lesson for any aspiring viral marketers out there: it's got to at least look spontaneous.

Since Southwest and its people have been consistently supporting the company's well-grounded (or should we say "high-flying") brand for years, this video is easily assumed to be authentic. Either way, it's fun to watch on a Friday afternoon.

Microsoft-Yahoo! Partnership Needs a Culture Shift to Take on Google

As the escalating Microsoft-Google faceoff continues, Microsoft and Yahoo! have finally hooked up, but nobody seems too impressed with their search partnership.

Combining resources, they’ll still have only 30-35 percent of the market, compared to Google’s 65. Then there’s the looming antitrust scrutiny.

But we’re wondering about a separate issue: culture. Can Microsoft and Yahoo! mix successfully—and can they do it in a way that keeps pace with the open-source-innovation model parlayed by Google into Internet domination?

It takes a strong commitment to ingenuity to support a policy like Google’s “20 percent time,” whereby employees spend a day per week taking on projects outside their job description.

Microsoft and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo! are more entrenched, institutional organizations. They’ve evolved, sure, but they aren’t in a constant state of advancement the way Google is and has always been.

To be fair, Microsoft has fired some fairly strong volleys in this match, including the Bing rollout. Bill Gates’ behemoth baby isn’t accustomed to second place, so don’t count them out just yet. But the new MSFT-YHOO partners have big hurdles to clear as they try to cultivate a combined culture of creativity that’s a worthy rival of Google.