gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

The whole thing is ripe for parody. Imagine an Authentic Voice machine ala the translator engines that turn any webpage into Snoop Dogg speak or Pirate Speak. Take a corporate press release and run it through the Authentic Voice translation engine and it turns the dry press release into an Authentic Voice blog entry.

Maybe a bit of proactive parody can head off the virus before it gets epidemic.

Hmmm. I dunno Hugh, you've said this kind of thing before and I think it's a bit sweeping.

I wonder if you're thinking of anyone in particular who you see as faking Evelyndom, and if so, will you name names?

Name names? Nah.

It hasn't happened yet, to my knowledge. But my fertile imagination has been busy today, imagining Dilbert-like scenario's.

I just love Ev's stuff to pieces. Would hate to see it diluted in the hands of lesser beings ;-)

Of course the product slipped - like (almost) every large company in the world, the passion that first stirs the company (or more often, the LEADER of the company) to greatness sinks under the weight of shareholder demand, marketing dipshits, and half-a-ton of MBA's running the show.

The Passion for Money buries the Passion for Making Great Stuff.

I personally think it's the result of decades of teaching in our schools, and in our markets.

The most dangerous idea arising from that is that *GASP* maybe what's good for the market ISN'T always what's good for the society.

Gee, ya think?

I've only just begun the "so what happened to Nike" conversation. First by looking at what "heyday" was really like.

On the Evelyn wannabe: I've already warned people against copying tactics unless they've adopted the whole underlying mindset too. Or it just plain explodes. In a recent post I said: "Whatever your underlying mindset and approach to life will surely will be reflected in your marketing -- no matter whom you try to outwardly imitate and emulate."

Coke, Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch entered the energy drink market with limited results though they attempted to mimic Red Bull’s tactics. "Although they got a lot of the particulars correct, they couldn’t copy the spirit of Red Bull." – Alex Wipperfurth, "Brand Hijack"

More on fallacy of studying case studies:
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2005/02/essay_part_iii__4.html

The brand hinges on the product, Bedbury, the "heyday"'s head of advertising, is in violent agreement: "Almost every brand in existence today can be reduced to the status of a commodity if it fails to effectively evolve both its products and its marketing communications. You can't do just one or the other."

And "The best brands never start out with the intent of building a great brand. They focus on building a great - and profitable - product or service and an organization that can sustain it."

At some point it's plausible that Nike relied on its cache and brand laurels and skimped on its product. As an avid runner, I switched out of Nike eons ago when they delaminated and fell apart on very swampy, wet muddy trails (I lived in Florida then).

I think the most important statement in the post is: That the Just Do It campaign "codified an ethos that had existed within the Nike brand, that was part of its genetic structure long before Dan Wieden identified it." Bedbury says more about the internal Nike DNA: "The brand was supposed to be FELT, not scripted. Everything had to be absorbed at a visceral level, not talked about, conceptualized, or abstracted. And NEVER framed on a wall."

So "Be your brand's authentic voice!" echoing in the corporate hallways pretty much ranks there with framing it on the wall. It's either there in the ether, or it's not. Most companies don't really have a cohesive spirit, purpose or any particular cultural DNA - and it's NOT a mission statement - or they're trying too hard to be what they are not.

There's a lot more in the book about their disdain for conventional market research. They talked to customers to learn THEIR "burning issues" - never to find out trivial preferences like if this color looks cool or pre-testing their ads. More akin to ethnography and "deep hanging out" rather than trad focus groups or neuromarketing.

Bedbury on products post:
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2005/02/relying_on_bran.html

Geez, I forgot to mention I'm significantly cheaper than $2000 a day - those sound like 1999 rates ;-)

My background is skewed toward product management and development rather than product marketing/communications and branding. Hence, I think the most important time for marketing is the earliest front end - at the market selection, listening to market and product conception stage. (I do agree with Bedbury that both product and market communications need to evolve in tandem.)

Yay! 1999 rates!

Chase the regulators, then it's like one big 1999 Y2K .com fest the whole time. Right now Banking and Pharms are the ones getting it badly, but there must be others. Incomprehensible badly drafted legislation that no-one knows how to enact. Tidying up after big government and their incontinent law-making, it's the wave of the future...

And in new Expanded Europe we have ten countries facing a Euro conversion. Sigh. It's like being a dog that got dropped into the three legged cat home.

Jon : "The Passion for Money buries the Passion for Making Great Stuff."
Hugh: "Greed Yay!"

A less pejorative way of expressing the idea: "The need to make money limits the attention we can devote to creativity/spirituality/meaning".

But there is a greater conflict here. The notion that conversations and authenticity sell more effectively than hype and slick slogans is clearly a threat to a lot of people. Does Lexus need Kevin Roberts? For how long will Thomas continue to need Hugh? What is the thematic difference between the two relationships? Couldn't both clients just "download the pdf"?