By now you’ve heard the news all over Facebook, Twitter, CNN, ABC News, you name it – about “Kmart Angels” paying off people’s layaway orders. Now, I’m just as optimistic as the next guy about the Pay It Forward concept, but you’re telling me that people in multiple states all around the same time decided to pay off some layaway accounts? And all of them at Kmart?

Makes you wonder, are we all suckers to a brilliant marketing campaign?

Let’s say you’re a marketer or in public relations at Kmart. When’s the last time you’ve had some positive PR? The last big PR you received was when Martha Stewart was in jail and you were only mentioned because she has her name on some of the products sold at your store. Let’s also say you’re going to pitch the idea to the company. It goes something like this.

“So here’s an idea. Lets anonymously pay off about ten layaway accounts in multiple areas of the country. We’ll have our employees call the customers to tell them the news, and get this, we’ll do it right before Christmas. Hopefully we’ll get some local news coverage, and it will be a great feel good story. Best case scenario, we inspire others to payoff layaway accounts all over the country. Oh yeah, we’ll probably get a ton of new layaway accounts.”

If I’m hearing the pitch my only concern is being found out. I’d move on this concept immediately and take the chance.

And before you leave some scathing comment about how we took something so wonderful and stole it from Whooville, let’s be clear. Kmart – you’re brilliant. The multiple group of anonymous people who have been inspired to act and pay off other layaway accounts anonymously, we applaud you. You are what makes this country great and provide the spirit of giving that Christmas is all about.

But why is no one else questioning the validity of the inspiration?

My wife – Aaron Rodgers bless her heart – struggles mightily with loading the dishwasher. Many things she is skilled at. Loading the dishwasher is not one. There is neither rhyme nor reason to her methods. No established strategy – no preconceived design – drives her approach whatsoever.

Absurd how Mrs. Winn loads the dishwasher...

To demonstrate madness in its purest form can be her only goal. And she achieves it admirably time and time again. This I certainly cannot deny her.

The Madness:…dishes jammed into the machine with a sledgehammer…bowls forcing themselves upon coffee mugs in the most perverse manner…little plates wrongly wedged between their larger counterparts…spatulas and Tupperware scattered indiscriminately about the racks…forks and spoons grinding inappropriately on the dance floor…

The Result: The un-loader encounters mayhem where he might expect law and order. And the un-loader, of course, is me, and that makes it all the worse. Why oh why must I rummage through a junkyard of partially clean dishes to perform a job that – with the teensy tinsiest bit of foresight – could have been so simple?

The Other Result: My wife has since been relieved of all dishwashing duties. If the drinking glasses are to march in order, if the bowls are to properly align, if the plates are to spin together, if the forks, spoons and knives are to be harmoniously segregated in the silverware basket – then I must do it all myself. But it’s a price I’m willing to write a check for, if only to promote the order and accessibility paramount in a finely stocked dishwasher.

The Lesson: My wife wasn’t wrong in her approach – technically. Her goal was always the same as mine: to produce clean dishes. To achieve this, she threw everything that belongs in a dishwasher (plates, bowls, Tupperware, pots, pans, silverware and detergent) into the machine and activated it all with the turn of a knob.

Now...that's more like it.

But wait! That she mixed the right elements with the right tools never yielded ideal results. To be sure, can a drinking glass be thoroughly cleaned if trapped between a bowl and Tupperware lid? Not in my experience, dear friends.

And can silverware be easily returned to the drawer if each dishwasher basket slot has become a despicable orgy of forks and spoons and butter knives? Only in the Devil’s mind, I’m afraid.

Attempt to tie this all back to marketing somehow: Public Relations. Social Media. Advertising. SEO. Market Research. Marketing Literature. Event Marketing. Trade Shows. Trade Publications. Radio. Television. Mascots. Logos. Taglines. Photos…

You know you need it all. So you chuck it all in your marketing plan, squirt a blob of marketing dollars into the detergent compartment, activate it with the twist of a knob, and walk away, fully expecting the result to be a crystal clear brand image for your company or institution.

But if there is no rhyme or reason to how the individual elements interact and complement one another, no individual piece – let alone the entire package – will ever dazzle with pristine shine. Instead, you’ll be resigned to drinking from cloudy glasses and dining on cheese-encrusted plates.

However, should you take time beforehand to adequately align your public relations strategy with your social media, your print literature with your website copy, your event marketing with your blog, then your overall product will be more accessible to your customers and clients. They will be impressed with your message – not confused and turned off by the mayhem.

Marriage Lesson: I realize now that perhaps madness was always her strategy. It was all but a sneaky and ingenious ploy to accomplish a goal I never did see: that I might one day willingly assume all dish-washing duties. Damn. Guerrilla marketing at its finest. Yet one more thing she’s truly good at.

Full disclosure

I am a Miami Heat fan. Having grown up in Miami and loving the Heat during the Rony Seikaly, Sherman Douglas and Glen Rice years, I have gone through my share of pain as a Heat fan. I saw guys like Magic, Bird and Jordan destroy my team for years which is amazing to reflect on now, but brutal at the time. It was the NBA in Miami and my team was the underdog.

My how times have changed

From underdog to the most hated team in any sport in the modern era. I feel like a Yankees fan these days, and being a huge Red Sox fan makes that notion and even more awful. Derek Jeter drinks Wine Coolers!

The sports world’s new villain, Lebron has never been accused of rape (Kobe Bryant), cheated on his wife (Tiger Woods), shot himself in the leg (Plaxico Burress), done time (Ray Lewis), orchestrated a dog fighting ring (Michael Vick), or left the Green Bay Packers for the freaking Jets (Brett Favre). I could go on.

So, what can we accuse Lebron James of?

Have you ever changed jobs?

When it comes down to it, that’s really all Lebron James did. He changed jobs. He decided his current employer wasn’t fulfilling his professional growth. Ever been there? Yep, me too. What should have been an explosion of his personal brand in a larger market, more endorsements and a championship turned into the biggest public relations nightmare I’ve ever seen. Why? Because Lebron got some bad advice starting with “The Decision” and the line – “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.”

Arrogance never plays.

So what can Lebron teach us about PR?

A Brand Doesn’t Burn Bridges.

Leaving your employer? Give notice. Don’t announce it on ESPN special television event. Lebron jerseys burning in the streets of Cleveleland could have been avoided if Lebron would have handled this better. Lebron’s not a traitor for leaving Cleveland, he’s a dumb ass for how he handled it.

A Brand Considers All Audiences

Lebron thought only of himself. The “I’m gonna get mine” mentality is at work here and jaded audiences. Cleveland hates him, that’s a given. But every small market town that’s ever lost a player to a bigger market now has a reason to hate him as well. I’d say that’s about 90% of America.

A Brand Knows Who They Are

Greatest player ever? Not even in top 20. He’s done nothing but score a lot of points for a Cleveland team with few other options. Lebron believed too much of the hype. And now he has to deliver. And if he continues to play the fourth quarter of games that poorly, he won’t win a single championship – not the 5,6,7 he promised. I’m not sure he’ll ever recover. Don’t believe your own hype, stay humble and good things will happen to you.

A Brand Owns Up To Mistakes

Lebron made some half hearted attempt at an apology about the decision during the playoff run. You didn’t hear it either? Sincerity wasn’t there. Own up to mistakes right away, not after you beat Boston.

A Brand Knows When to Shut Up

Lebron has been quoted often about “Letting my play do the talking…” Sadly, the guy hasn’t taken his own advice. When asked about the haters out there after the game six loss to Dallas, Lebron said, ““All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Take your own advice, Lebron. Shut up and play ball.

Was forwarded a link to the Barack Obama 2012 re-election campaign website the other day.

Frightened me terribly. Really did.

Now, I don’t care what your politics are. This isn’t that kind of blog and I only discuss politics when drinking heavily with in-laws.

But admit it: Your reaction when first realizing there’s really about to be another presidential election is the same reaction you had when seeing there’s yet another Pirates of the Caribbean movie about to drop. Leaves you thinking, Oh no, didn’t we just go through this?

But never mind pirates.

What struck me about this link I received, the link to the Barack Obama 2012 re-election campaign site, is that Obama’s campaign is owning its message right out of the gate.

For a minimum campaign donation of $15, supporters receive a coffee mug featuring President Obama’s birth certificate. Or, $25 will get you the t-shirt!

Nice.

Again, I don’t care what your politics are. Whether your ideology lies with Limbaugh or Maher or somewhere in-between, you gotta admit it – that’s damn good work outta the Obama camp.

For this coffee mug is more than an overpriced collectible. It’s the Obama team owning its message and reshaping a discourse founded on a drastically diverse collection of opinions.

Because whether it’s a presidential campaign that will dictate the fate of an entire country or a press release that influences the next three months of your company, it’s imperative that you own your message and shape the discourse.

Otherwise somebody else will shape it for you. Just turn on the news and see for yourself.

Dear Burson Marsteller,

A couple years ago, you were hired to represent the state of Iowa’s economic development efforts. At the time, we found it odd that the state of Iowa would hire a company outside the state to help grow companies inside the state … but that was a whole other post.

However, your most recent acceptance of a “public relations” smear campaign targeting one of your client’s competitors demonstrates an attitude and approach to public relations that poorly represents the values of Iowa.

Your approach to public relations for your former client Facebook would be like your current client – the Iowa Department of Economic Development – saying “well, we don’t really have anything great that we can tell you about the state of Iowa, but Nebraska sure sucks.”

There’s enough negative news and public relations activity in this industry already. And as we head into the Iowa Caucus campaign season, this kind of negative PR campaigning in Iowa isn’t about to get much better.

In our 100+ years in business, we’ve never seen a brand that has created raving fans by going negative and tearing down the competition. Great brands focus their efforts on creating positive messages about their own brand and engaging with their biggest advocates. We want Iowa to be a great brand.

So, it’s time for you to quietly leave our state and leave the marketing of Iowa to people who are truly passionate about growing our state and telling its story. And we can’t think of better people to do that than the people who have chosen to live and work here.

Thanks for your service. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Iowa’s oldest advertising agency

You’ve got a great business idea.  An idea that will change the way people think about a whole industry (if you’re in Des Moines, think Dwolla or SmartyPig).  How do you make sure people see it and understand it?  Well, in France, a company was trying to convince people to rent cars on a long term basis rather than buying them.  How did they get their point across in a market that is built around owning your car?  Check this out:

We preach a lot around here about the importance of integrating your marketing efforts around a big idea and extending it with both traditional and social media.  Not only is this a great, attention-demanding approach, it also lends itself to leveraging both traditional and social media – extending the messaging and exposing the concept to more people without a lot of additional expense.

Happy National Blueberry Pancake Day, fellow marketers and PR pros!

Oh. Were you unaware that this fine January day was set aside for raising awareness of the plight of blueberry-less pancakes across this great nation? And you call yourself an American. Tsk tsk.

Every single day, week and month is spoken for. Each one meant to raise awareness and celebrate one group’s chosen cause.

But does it make a difference? Is it worth the energy non-profit staff (like me) and volunteers pour into National Radon Action Month (January), American Heart Month (February) or Women’s History Month (March)?

My answer is a whole-hearted, “Yes.”

If your activities and promotions for that month/week/day are lined up with the goals of your cause, you can be successful and all that work is worth it.

For example, next month is American Heart Month and so we at the American Heart Association are all a-buzz using words like “engagement,” “awareness” and “education.” American Heart Month for us, is not a fundraiser (though a few extra coins are certainly appreciated) or necessarily about getting butts in seats at events.

What it is about is truly educating people, especially women, about their risk for heart disease and stroke. Right now, only 65% of women know that cardiovascular diseases are their number one killers. This fact becomes even scarier when you know that 80% of cardiac events like heart attacks can be prevented.

Thirty-five percent of our mothers, sisters and best friends don’t even know that they are most likely to die from heart disease, or that it can be prevented.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to call my mom, my two sisters and my Nana and ask them to look after their hearts.

And as a cause marketer, I want to inspire that feeling in more Iowans. If 10,000 Iowans learn something new about their hearts next month, we’ll have made progress. If 1,000 Iowans tell the women they love to treat their hearts better, we’ll have made a difference. If 100 Iowans take action and choose to live heart-healthy, I can save lives. You can save lives.

American Heart Month is tracked in media hits, social media engagement and website visits – don’t get me wrong. We’re watching what we’re doing and improving every year. But, what the month is really about is sharing the message with many (because 90% of us are sitting at our desks right now with risks for heart disease), encouraging those so moved to share and being there when people are ready to save their own lives.

I encourage you to make it your mission to be more conscious of how you treat your heart for the next month. I ask you to show your support by wearing red on National Wear Red Day (Friday, February 4) or even attending our casting call for national spokeswomen. Because what makes American Heart Month and other awareness months worth it isn’t the million-plus media score, it’s the smaller numbers – lives saved and lives changed.

AdMavs note: If you are attending #CIB on Friday, Feb 4, the American Heart Association and all of us at Lessing-Flynn encourage you to wear red! Also, check the Info2Go site in February to see what they are doing to support AHA.

To be painfully honest, 2010 was an awful year in this business.  And that’s an understatement.  We were coming off a year where we lost one key 30-year client and another growing client who was consumed by one of the mother ships of the ag industry.  We also had the misfortune of losing a key employee within our agency who was wooed away by another agency. Mix in an overall bad economy and tightened marketing budgets almost across the board and you can imagine life in the humble halls of Lessing-Flynn did not appear rosy.

I can’t tell you how fortunate we have been to work with great long-time clients in a somewhat insulated agricultural industry – like Vermeer and Ag Leader. Surrounding yourself with really great people doesn’t hurt either.  Those smart people helped us weather the storm and try some new things that have helped us introduce ourselves to new people, connect with old friends and even experiment with creating a strange viral video that didn’t quite go viral – but did do its job.

In the spring of 2010, we hatched two crazy ideas.  The first – Battle of the Brands – allowed us to tout some of the best brands in Iowa, pitting them against each other in a round-by-round bracket battle until there was just one brand left standing – when the Iowa Clinic defeated the Iowa State Fair in what could easily be described as the biggest upset in the history of the Battle of the Brands (ok, it was only our first year doing it, so that’s not really saying too much).  Needless to say, we had so much fun – and it helped us accomplish the goals we set out for it that we’ll definitely be doing it again in 2011. Stay tuned.

The Des Moines SushiBomb event was also a huge hit as well … allowing us to connect with a number of great people – but also allowing us to experiment with the use of social media to promote an event.  The event was a sell-out.  And, while we didn’t become rich on the event (in fact, we barely scraped together enough money to buy a filet-o-fish sandwich), the success of the event was the fact that it allowed us to learn things that we can apply to client work.  Oh, that and the fact that everyone involved got a cool t-shirt from these guys.

All the craziness helped contribute to keeping people engaged with and motivated by creative thinking – which paid off in the last few months of 2010 with fun project work from Principal, Marsh, Urban 515 and some great new client partnerships, including Bankers Trust, Iowa Corn, Standard Golf, UNI’s MyEntre.Net, HTS, MyWay RTK, Knoxville Raceway, Des Moines Water Works, Infomax and Carrier Access.

Not all ideas are great ones.  We had our share of failures in 201o as well, including an April Fools joke gone bad and an experiment with Love Jingles that got lukewarm love. But all-in-all, we are thrilled not just in the fact that 2011 is looking like an exciting new year for Lessing-Flynn, but also because the people we’ve had the fortune to meet and work with in 2010 make us excited about what’s to come in 2011.

Stay tuned.

We do a lot of work for clients who don’t sell their products or services in a retail store.  We, like most of the world refer to a lot of that kind of work as Business-to-Business marketing (or B2B if you like business-speak).  The problem is, too often, people talk about B2B marketing as if it should be less creative, less engaging and more predictable.  Big product photos.  Lots of stock photography.  Diversity.  Political correctness. AP Stylebook English.  Print advertising.  Features, features, features.

Now think about this … the person who gets up in the morning and lathers up with their Zest soap, rolls on their Old Spice deodorant, pours their AE Dairy milk into their bowl of Kellogs Rice Krispies and stops by the Kum and Go on the way to work for gas and a coffee is the same person who sits down behind the desk and decides where their company is going to bank, what kind of color copier they are going to buy and who they should buy their insurance from.  They don’t want boring and bland from the companies who are trying to market to them.  They get enough of that by sitting through lifeless Powerpoint presentations read to them off the wall.  They want someone who is going to engage them and invent ways to fix their problems.

The biggest difference between consumer/retail marketing and B2B marketing is that the problems are often bigger, the people are easier to target and the creative bar is usually much lower.

It doesn’t matter what you are marketing, you’re still marketing to PEOPLE.  These people don’t  change once they cross over the threshold of their office or cubicle.  So, why should the approach to getting their attention change from engaging and creative to boring and bland?

Think about all the ways you talk to your B2B customers. If you’re still doing the same things you’ve done for the past five years, you’ve missed a whole generation of marketing tools and opportunities related to the web, personalization, social media, event marketing, public relations and more – all tools that any B2B marketer should at least be considering adding to their marketing arsenal.  So stop thinking like a B2B marketer and start being a creative marketer.

The days are getting colder. It’s apparently November already and snowfall is imminent. This means one thing…spandex. There is nothing better than a good morning run. With the sun rising, the world beginning to wake up, running over the interstate bridges can be quite energizing (without the usual 3 cups of coffee). The main motivation to keep going against the wind? That little sting of the air as it hits that bare spot of leg between the legging and sock. It’s a good sting, a push, an affirmation of passion.

Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m some sort of communications nerd. One of the reasons I enjoy a long jog so much, is I usually end up thinking of strange marketing tactics, article angles, social media engagement or how I would do PR for something that could use it, like the cracked sidewalk. Every time I jog over the speeding cars, rushing to the office to perhaps work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I wonder what they’re really rushing toward.  Are they rushing to simply make a salary? To put a college degree to use? To fund a family? Are they rushing for that personal sting? All too often in our society the concepts of passion and productivity are separated. Work is, well, work. These two things need not be separate.

Recently this idea has been jumping out at me in all sorts of obscure areas from new people. At last weeks’ 2010 Central Iowa PRSA Institute, Todd Deferen, CEO of Shift Communications, spoke to idea of passion. You can tell he had it. Consequently this is probably why he stood before the room talking as an expert. Because he cared and in his new hires, he wants other people to make it matter. “I care if you actually give a crap. I want people who will lean forward and get the job done. Attitude is the number one thing I hire for.”

Also at the conference was PRSA Patrick Jackson Award for Distinguished Service honoree, Ferne Bonomi. When I’m older I want to be this woman. As an active Central Iowa PRSA chapter member, APR, and PRSA Fellow, she is as ripe and raring to go as ever. As she took notes throughout the conference, you could see it in her mannerisms and rhetoric, that this is a woman who truly cares.

This same care is apparent in motivational speaker and educational consultant, Angela Maiers‘ sparkling eyes. With vivacity that can overwhelm the room, a recent book launch and a new campaign to invite others to chime in on a “Passion-Driven-Conversation.” Angela demonstrates that she, and we, are not alone in pursuing our passion.

Here at Lessing-Flynn, we work with a number of agriculture clients, (which quite honestly I didn’t think you could get all that excited about). It’s the companies started by people who truly care that seem to have the most impact. MyWayRTK was started by a group of farmers who are passionate about agriculture technology and it’s apparent, even through the phone, as their voices get more animated when talking-up their product.

Recently some other people I have a great deal of respect for have left career comforts and ventured out to find what, and where, they can truly work best. That’s not packing it up and calling it quits, that’s calling it time for a beginning.

While it’s understandable, with the current status of the economy, that we can’t all have our dream jobs, we can all inject some sort of something we’re passionate about. Join the philanthropy team at work if you adore working with people, but are stuck in a cubicle. Meet-up with groups like SMCDSM if your job doesn’t allow social media during work hours. Volunteer in the children’s ward of the hospital if you feel the intrinisic urge to care for others. Mentor the newbie if you enjoy teaching or build-up support for a company garden if you’re “going green.”

Passion doesn’t discriminate by age, race, religion or gender. It doesn’t pertain to only certain careers. No matter your day job, your evening hobbies or your future goals, find what truly makes YOU run farther. Expose that little patch of bare skin, feel the sting and pursue some sort of passion.