Looking Good Naked: Marketing the social economy

Welcome to Episode #13 of Looking Good Naked – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Saturday July 19, 2008. This week: Looking Good Naked asks big cell to, well, look better naked by asking their suppliers to do the right thing.

· Welcome to show #13…8 more to go to 21 and it’s a habit!

· Phone Number: 206-202-6340

· Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

· iTunes!!

Short show this week because we’re going to the cottage and will be unplugged.

Launching 6 for 6 letter writing campaign for the Congo which I blogged about.

Created a 6 for 6 Facebook group so please join – and write – and encourage others to do so.

The goal is 6000 letters by Christmas eve. For the moment I will posting the ongoing letter tally as blog posts.

Let the writing begin. Actually it has – I sent my 3 letters off yesterday.

I’ve been thinking more about what I said in my last post about cellphones and the Congo, specifically on the issue of the power of consumers to make a difference…

I’ve been thinking about something I’ve heard a lot in marketing and political circles that political ministers and CEO treat hand written letters like the voices of 1000 constituents or customers.

So this post is to launch a letter writing campaign to cell phone manufacturers to demand they take action to rid their products of Congo coltan.

How many letters should get written? Well, I figure if one letter represents a thousand people then 6000 letters represent the nearly 6 million Congolese people who have died in the Congo wars. So that’s the goal: 6000 letters for 6 million people. 6 for 6.

6 for 6 by Christmas as our gift to the Congolese people.

When you write your letter leave a comment on this post. If you know someone who doesn’t have access to the Internet spread to word to them and help them out by leaving a comment for them or tell them they call in to my audio comment line at 1-206-202-6340 and tell us they’ve written one. (And someone please step up to help me turn the audio comments into blog comments because I’ll need it)

So what does this have to do with marketing the social economy? Well, I’ve always known that marketing the social economy is different from regular marketing in some key ways and the issue of coltan in cell phones has highlighted one of those ways. Social economy marketers are activists in the sense that, by definition, they are trying to change the world. And they are trying to change it in one of the most fundamental ways: through providing fair alternatives to the dominant economic system. Sometimes that means going beyond just focusing on the product and sometimes that means choosing sides. This is one of those times on both counts.

So, here’s a draft letter you can use:

Dear [CEO name],

I am writing to you as a concerned [COMPANY NAME] customer about a very important issue.

It has come to my attention that most electronics equipment, mainly cell phones and video game consoles, contain the element tantalum that comes from the substance coltan. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has anywhere from 64 – 80 percent of the world’s reserve of coltan which has helped fuel vicious wars for over a decade. However, although these wars have contributed to the deaths of nearly 6 million people since 1996, the conflict continues virtually unnoticed by the world in spite of the direct link between the illegal exploitation of coltan and the conflict in the DRC. So, instead of the vast resources of the DRC benefiting its people they are getting them killed. Meanwhile, companies such as Germany’s HC Stark and the American company, Cabot Corp., are making large profits selling tantalum extracted from coltan, some of which, without doubt comes from illegal Congolese mines.

Given this, I am writing to ask you to take immediate steps to use your power to demand that companies down your supply chain provide you with independent third party verification that any Congolese coltan they sell you comes from legal sources and benefits the Congolese people.

Thank you.

Nokia - Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President and CEO, Nokia Corporation, P.O. Box 226, FI-00045 Nokia Group, Finland

Motorola - Greg Brown, President and CEO, Motorola, 1303 E. Algonquin Rd., Schaumburg, Illinois, USA 60196

Apple – Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Corp., 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, 95014, USA

I am also curious to really test the power of social media to see if it can help make this campaign fly.

Let the writing begin!

This past February the Ottawa, Canada-based company Overlay.TV launched its interactive video service that let’s user add clickable links to videos. This means companies can link  products images in videos back to their website to sell products. (Thanks to Mark Blevis for blogging and podcasting about a recent Social Media Breakfast he attended at which Overlay presented).

I took a look at some of the examples on the Overlay site and my initial thoughts are that they are on to something huge with the idea of making video interactive but, like every tool, this won’t be for everyone or every product.

For one thing, when you click a link, the video stops and a big pop-up box appears in the middle of the screen with the product information. Even though you’ve asked for it, it’s very jarring and intrusive – just like old school ads. It would be great to have the option of the video continuing and the pop-up box being smaller or off to the side.

Then there’s the issue of what product is being sold. Impulse buy products like chocolate don’t lend themselves well to this format because my guess is that people generally aren’t looking for these when they’re watching a video. (Now, this kind of immediate interactivity for podcasts could do wonders with the mobile impulse buy market).

Still, Overlay.TV is just beginning and, like so many other tools, it may be people using it in unexpected ways that reveals its real potential.

 

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Welcome to Episode #12 of Looking Good Naked – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Sunday, July 13, 2008. This week: Looking Good Naked takes a closer look at blood cells – and doesn’t like what it finds.

· Welcome to show #12…9 more to go to 21 and it’s a habit!

· Phone Number: 206-202-6340

· Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

· iTunes!!

· I was focused on one thing this week and that’s what this show is all about: the connection between cell phones and the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

· Blood cells is reference to blood diamonds…

· Interview with Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Washington-based Friends of the Congo.

So how does this relate to social economy marketers?

· Not doing what Douglas Rushkoff says in interview with Mitch Joel in Six Pixels of Separation #107. Good products with a dirty secret already using conversational marketing. So use those channels

· Learn from this example. Study why this is not getting any coverage and why other issued like Darfur are.

· What can people do?

o Contact companies. Motorola and Nokia do in fact have statements on their websites dealing with coltan.

§ Motorola: statement on website saying they get their material from companies that buy from HC Stark and Cabot and say those companies say they control purchase to minimize possibility of coltan from congo. Doubtful since reports say they get their coltan from Sons of Gwalia which gets it from the DRC.

§ Nokia: statement on website saying it has sent a notification of the Congo situation to its suppliers using Tantalum asking them to follow the situation, and to avoid purchasing tantalum from Congo. Ask if their suppliers include Cabot and Stark and, if so, ask the same question.

§ Apple: get on them.

o Divest your funds, or pressure your pension fund to divest from companies that are doing business in the Congo – First Quantum Minerals

o Recycle - Value Village, Rogers (Phones for Food), Bell (gives phones to women’s shelters)

Things made me go “Mmmm..”” this week…

1. How I found out about this issue. Lesson: listen, read broadly and carefully.

2. How an issue of this magnitude can be ignored – despite some great, well researched pieces in big alternative and mainstream media confirming the facts. (6 million people, in almost every consumer electronics product, Rwandan genocide perpetrators involved)

3. The power of the internet for going around gatekeepers –rabble.ca, my podcast, CHUO, email

4. Including the power of the net as a research tool.

5. Will see how good the net is at making 6 for 6 happen…

Today rabble.ca published a story I wrote about the connection between Apple’s 3G iPhone, released today in Canada, and the vicious war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The connection is that almost all electronics equipment, including cell phones, contain the element tantalum which is ideally suited for the production of capacitors used in these devices. Tantalum comes from a substance called coltan, and 80% of coltan comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The problem is that an incredibly vicious war has been raging in the Congo for years, fueled and funded by coltan mining. Groups are fighting over control of the coltan mining that is being spurred on by world-wide demand for electronics – especially cell phones - and lots of people are being killed as a result.

Now, given these facts, it’s no surprise that cell phone marketers don’t talk up the fact that their phone work so well thanks to Congo coltan. Most probably don’t know and, if they do, they work for companies that have no intention of doing anything about it so they’re stuck marketing products with a nasty secret. The companies are doing what Douglas Rushkoff suggested they stop doing in his interview with Mitch Joel in Six Pixels of Separation #107 – but with a twist. Rushkoff said companies should stop using spin to market bad products and, instead, make their products better and promote them using effective, honest, conversational marketing. Now, don’t get me wrong - most cell phone are excellent products – they’re just made with something that fuels wars.

So if marketers can’t do much and companies won’t - who can do something about this?

Consumers can.

Now, unlike blood diamonds, there is no clear alternative to blood cell phones. There are no Fair Trade cell phones - yet. So what can we consumers do since nobody, me included, is going to stop using their cell phones?

Well here are some things you can do right now:

1. Recycle your old cell phones – Old cellphones can be refurbished and sold to emerging markets such as, ironically, sub-Saharan Africa where 1 in 3 people have them already. If you can’t find a place near you to recycle your phone call City Hall and ask why not. Tell them the lack of cell phone recycling is bad for the environment at home and bad for people abroad.

2. Call or email the manufacturer of your current cell phone, or better yet, one you are thinking of buying, and ask them if their phones contain Congo coltan. If they say they don’t know, ask them why not. If their answer isn’t satisfying (like, “It’s impossible to know where it comes from”) tell them you are going to continue looking for a phone from a company that does know.

3. Get the word out – Blog and podcast, and comment on other blogs and podcasts, about the Congo-coltan connection.

Social economy marketers they can take lesson from the Congo coltan issue by understanding why this issue is being ignored by the mainstream media. Compare it to similar issues that have been ignored less – like the war in Darfur, Sudan – or those that got lots of airplay – like the Asian tsunami and understand the reasons. Learn about who got the word about on these issues and how they did it. That’s what I’m going to do and I will bring what I find out to an episode in the near future.

Welcome to Episode #11 of Looking Good Naked – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Sunday, July 6, 2008. This week: From Fair Trade 2.0 to Fair Trade 101.

· Welcome to show #11…10 more to go until it’s habit!

· Phone Number: 206-202-6340

· Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

· iTunes!!

· This show answers Andrea Matyas’ audio comment about Fair Trade in Canada from episode #9.

· Interview with Cynthia Wagner, communications manager with Transfair Canada.

Two things made me go “Mmmm..”” this week…

1. is the thing I am working on…

2. saying goodbye to some friends who are going away to work Mozambique for two years and the sadness of seeing them go being lessened by the realization that with the internet in general, and Skype in particular, they will only be far away physically.

Did you eat some dark chocolate recently and feel good - not guilt - because you’ve heard that studies show that it’s good for you? Did you ever ask yourself where those studies come from? Well, yesterday I learned something that is going to keep me asking that question.

I heard that candy giant, Mars Corp., has endowed a Chair of Chocolate Science at the University of California at Davis . The goal of the Chair, according to Corporations and Health Watch, is to “study the antioxidant properties of cacao”. I tried to confirm the Chair’s goal on the Mars website and the university’s - but could find no mention of it on either.

Now, does anyone really think the Chair will be doing objective research on the good – and bad – antioxidant properties of cacao? Or do we all suspect the Chair’s job is to produce studies that say chocolate is great for your health and you should eat lots more of it? I know what camp I’m in. To me the message is clear: if some corporations can’t find science to back up their marketing claims they Just Buy It.

I found out about the Mars Chair while listening to an interview with author Michael Pollan on his new book In Defence of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio show, The Current. In the book, Pollan argues that the more a food trumpets its own benefits, through things like fancy packages with health claims, the less likely it is to be healthy. He says the healthiest foods are the quietest, like the produce sitting silently at farmers’ markets or at the edges of the supermarket. Pollan tells us to, “Listen to the silence of the yams…” (a line I love!)

So, before you choose to have your product ride the latest science-driven publicity wave, listen to that little voice questioning the veracity of the science and do the work to find out where the science comes from – or your brand may get tainted with the smell of science gone bad.

Welcome to Episode #10 of Looking Good Naked – Marketing the Social Economy – The ConsciousImages Podcast for Sunday, June 29, 2008. This week: Jack’s flack. The marketing of Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party (NDP).

· Welcome to show #10

· Phone Number: 206-202-6340

· Email: consciousimages(at)gmail(dot)com

· iTunes!!

· Online Reputation Management Part 4: What to do When Something Goes Bump on the Net, Media Bullseye by Mark Story

· Advertisers Shift $1 Billion to Web - Media Bullseye

o Top 100 US advertisers moved about $1 billion dollars away from radio and TV in favor of Internet ads last year. Overall, the total amount spent on advertising was unchanged.

· Interview with David Weatherall, Regional and Specialty Media Officer with the federal NDP Caucus Services.

This Week’s things that made me go “Mmmm..”

5. Alberta responding to U.S. mayors saying they’re not going to buy tar sands oil by saying they need to spin their product better. Alberta needs to make their product better. Need to listen to Mitch Joel interview with Douglas Rushkoff on Six Pixels of Separation #107

4. Stuff White People Like: 1000 comments per post!: the power of humour.

3. Podcasters Across Borders 2008 (PAB2008) lacking cultural diversity. If your target audience is diverse realize that you have to make an extra effort to ensure your social media efforts are reaching them.

2. Jeremiah Owyang: the Complete List of the Many Forms of Web Marketing for 2008

1) Corporate Domain

2) Search Marketing

3) Out Bound and Syndicated Web Marketing

4) Brand Extension

5) Community Marketing and Social Media Marketing

6) Virtual Worlds

1. Friendfeed – one place for people to share everything they’ve got from all social media sites. Great marketing tool.

I always have. I always wanted a CBC print alternative to the Globe and Mail and the National Post but there never was one – until the web came along. Now the CBC competes online with newspapers and broadcasters in a multimedia space that includes plenty of good old fashioned print – and they do it well.

Another reason I love the web.

The title of this post is inspired by the wildly popular (average of 1000 comments per post), satirical website of the same name, Stuff White People Like, and the fact that I just checked out the group photo from Podcasters Across Borders 2008 (PAB2008) and was surprised to see that this year’s PAB looked less diverse than last year’s – and last year’s didn’t set the bar very high. I’m not saying that is the fault of PAB or its organisers – I’m just stating a fact.

PAB, and unconferences like it, are amazing opportunities to learn and network but, unlike most conferences, they’re free or very cheap. For many brown communities that are economically disadvantaged these are golden opportunities. However, for some reason, very few brown folks come out to these events (at least the ones I’ve been at) and this only widens the digital divide.

One way to change this is for the folks who do attend to make an effort to connect with other communities, let them know about these events and encourage and help them to attend.

So I make this pubic commitment now: I will personally bring at least two young brown folks to PAB2009 to join and diversify the conversation!