SCHMITTblog

Where in the world was SCHMITT?

NBC’s popular morning show “Today” currently runs a daily feature on its anchor, "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" (On Monday he was in Buenos Aires; on Tuesday in the Netherlands, and today in Laos).  So, you may wonder, “Where in the World was SCHMITT?” (this spring that is).

Well, like Lauer, lots of places. In-between teaching at Columbia every week, I was in Germany, Korea, Mexico (twice), Greece, Turkey, and, oh yes, Atlanta and  Virginia-–for all sorts of things (speaking, consulting, researching). And there’s more coming: Brazil, Korea (again), Japan, Singapore, India, and South Africa. I am busier than ever,  especially internationally (I know you are, too). Must be the weak dollar. 

Which place so far was the most fun? (Turkey, without a doubt; I had not been to Istanbul in a while, and it is turning into a fabulous business and lifestyle place. Presumably, Newswek  called it the "coolest" city  recently.)

And the most interesting? (Greece, no doubt. After my consulting engagement in Athens was over, I went to the Acropolis for the very first time.)

And the most exciting? (Virginia. Had an audience of senior government execs, it was great to speak to them on "Big Think Strategy.")

Approaching eudaimonia ...

Corporate Eudaimonia: How can we prevent corporate scandals?

I met up with an old friend of mine, Robert Millard, who studied psychology with me in the doctoral program at Cornell. Back then, and still, I called him “Millard” and he called me “Schmitt.”  Now you know where the “Schmitt” thing started.

Millard brought this nicely bound book titled "Experiments in Ethics," by Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton University Professor and world authority on moral philosophy. The book is terrific; we debated it over scotch (Millard) and gin & tonic (me) till the wee hours. (If you care to find out my preferred brand of gin, read "Big Think  Strategy").

The problem with ethics discourse, according to Appiah, is roughly that it views ethics and morality as a series of decision situations of the "trolley dilemma type" (a run-away trolley hurtling down the tracks  is on course to kill five people on its way;  you can save the five or hit a switch that directs the trolley to a side track and only kill one) or the “Asian flu type” (choosing between two policy options in preparation for an outbreak of the Asian flu; if we do nothing 600 people will die; if we choose option A, 200 will be saved; if we choose option B, 400 will die).

While such exercises somewhat inform us about how people think and behave, these studies all have a major shortcoming: they are about moral emergencies that rarely occur in real life. That is, when was the last time you decided alone in seconds with a clear set of well-defined options about an issue of great moral significance -- such as life and death? Because they are bereft of life, these models are ill-fit as normative models of ethical decision-making and behavior.

Instead, according to Appiah, ethics is about a good life: eudaimonia, as Greek philosophers called it. Eudaimonia is often translated as “happiness” (that is, a feeling); but is more appropriately viewed as a "good, flourishing life." The bottom line: without some sense of ethics, a happy life may not be a good life.

Now, precisely structuring decision situations and laying out their parameters is a favorite exercise of decision theorists at business schools. It’s called the "management science"  approach. (The next day, in a talk by a business historian, I learned that this is the result of a re-education process sponsored by the Ford Foundation after World War II aimed to turn a prior generation of business school faculty into "management scientists.").

If Appiah is right, this approach to corporate ethics may be doomed to fail. Yet, the success of alternative approaches to moral re-education of our MBAs – such as scolding (“don’t cheat, don’t lie”) or using ex-cons to scare them straight - also remains to be seen.

So, what does Appiah recommend business educators do to prevent corporate scandals? I found the following quotes on a Princeton weekly bulletin page:

"I don’t think teaching morality or ethics in the classroom is going to stop people from doing bad things... And I don’t think that more moral philosophy in the business schools is going to help here...The role of those of us in the normative disciplines is not, in my judgment, to tell people what the right answers are to ethical  questions: it’s to provide them with the tools for thinking about them themselves."

Recommendation

Check out:  www.Commoncraft.com

They have great simple tutorials for all sort of new technologies (from podcasts to twitter).

Obama-Clinton: Battle of the Brands

For years, political campaigns have taken the best ideas of consumer marketing and put them to work in the battle for voters’ preference. Just as marketing has evolved from the traditional focus on unique selling propositions to brands and customer experiences, political campaigning has kept pace.

The ongoing battle for the Democratic nomination illustrates the three keys to brand success today: a great experience, consistent messaging, and an emotional appeal.

Just like the bottled water and tissue paper categories, there is little differentiation to be found among the candidates’ product features (tax policy, education, the economy, etc).  So, experiential qualities will hold sway:  leadership, consistency, inspiration. As the race continues across the country, voters are enjoying the ride – not only showing up in throngs to vote, but to take part, live, in the experience.  (The voting booth as destination store!)

Barack Obama had to build a new brand from scratch, so he was forced to be extremely disciplined in his message (commentators have even commented on the consistent use of his signature font). Hillary Clinton started with high brand awareness, but in trying to modify her established image, she had to deploy a variety of messages, which her critics took to be brand confusion (e.g. a New York Times op-ed listed “Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary… Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary”).

Clinton’s latest comeback shows that her brand has done best when it’s had an emotional appeal – whether her coffee-shop moment in New Hampshire, or her Ohio advertisement that set her familiar argument of foreign-policy credentials in starkly emotional terms (the sleeping child straight out of a Nyquil commercial).  Obama’s brand has generated strong emotional resonance by tapping into voters’ dreams and aspirations.

Where is this battle of the brands headed?  Possibly to an eventual co-branded merger, with the dominant brand at the top of the ticket.  Which brings up a classic question of brand architecture: would the consumer be swayed by the synergy of two brands?  Or opt for the purity of an un-diluted brand: John McCain?

- Bernd Schmitt and David Rogers

BRITE conference (this week)

I will be speaking this week on Big Think, and leading an interactive session for CMOs on sourcing big ideas, as part of the BRITE '08 conference and CMO summit on branding, innovation, and technology, at Columbia Business School, this Thursday and Friday, Feb 7-8th.

BRITE '08 is part of a major initiative by my Center on Global Brand Leadership at the school.  The event will bring together big thinkers from business, technology, media, and marketing to discuss how technology and innovation are transforming the ways that companies build and sustain great brands.

Topics include: social networks, user-generated content, viral campaigns, B2B branding, driving innovation inside and outside the organization, ROI for online marketing, TV 2.0, online content platforms, brands that thought big in 2007

Fellow speakers include:
    * Marty Homlish (Global Chief Marketing Officer, SAP)
    * Craig Newmark (Founder, Craigslist)
    * Patia McGrath (Global Director of Innovation, GE)
    * Bob Greenberg (Global Chief Creative Officer, R/GA)
    * Andrew Miller (CEO, Quattro Wireless)
(full speaker list)

Conference registration is here.  There is also a BRITE blog, wiki, and more fun things to explore.

I hope you can join us!

-Schmitt

Super Bowl Ads Go Online – or do they?

Many in my family tuned into the Super Bowl on Sunday to watch football.  But I fall into the reported 36% of Super Bowl fans who tune in each year primarily to watch the advertisements.

This year, advertisers paid $2.7 million for each 30 second slice of air time, but you didn’t have to turn on your TV for a minute to catch them.  YouTube, AOL, and MySpace provided online sites where you could watch the entire roster of ads and vote on them.  I’m sure SCHMITT wasn’t the only marketing guru to cancel their annual Super Bowl party this year as a result (Schmitt went to a classical music concert, and caught the ads online, like me).

But did the Super Bowl ads really make the transition online – to the new world of networking sites, user content, and interactive media?  Leading up to the game, there was much buzz about how advertisers were “exploring new ways to bring their ads online… to make [their] steep investment go further.” (Wall Street Journal)

But almost without exception, the advertisers failed to use their TV ad as a jumping off point for an online experience – one that could be more interactive, engaging, and potentially sales-driving.  (A notable exception was the super-tacky GoDaddy.com, which created a “censored ad” that you had to go to their site to watch.) Even user-generated ads were on the decline, with a single Doritos spot.

Instead, the ad agencies fell back to their old habits of telling 30 second “stories” about a brand, hoping that a tale of goofy cavemen, noble clydesdales, or aphrodisiac peanuts would make you think their brand was “funny,” “inspiring,” or “irresistable.”

We’ll continue the discussion this week as part of the BRITE ’08 conference and CMO summit on branding, innovation, and technology at Columbia, February 7-8th.  Bob and other marketing leaders from G.E., SAP, Fox, and more, will be discussing what the new models are for building brands in an age of interactive media.

For now, I’d give the Super Bowl ad line up a B+ on creativity, and a D- on catching the new media paradigm.

- David Rogers

Kill your sacred cow

Just contributed a blog, called "kill the sacred cow" to Columbia Business School's new blogging site.   Check it out here.

-Schmitt

Schmitt in repose

In London on business... I love the Sanderson ...I have stayed there many times. And the bar is still hopping, and the lobby is great for photo sessions (see, me in repose).  A terrific hotel experience. A classic.  Bravo Philippe.

Bavarian Big Think launch event (held at a transitional point of Munich’s future)

I have been in Munich (Bavaria) for a couple of days for Siemens.  For one of the events (an executive forum for senior managers), Siemens had flown in my Trojan Horse from Shanghai and displayed it at the “Antikensammlung” at Koenigsplatz (http://www.antike-am-koenigsplatz.mwn.de/), where the event was held.  It was great to see the horse on display at one of the major museums in Munich as part of the Bavarian launch event for my book.

The topic of my talk, “Big Think,” was timely indeed.  As I write this, a massive wave of Small Thinking is going through the city: an initiative to stop the “Transrapid” – a fast speed magnetic train (based on Siemens technology) that would run from the airport to Munich. The train has been running in Shanghai from Pudong to the airport for years now but has been blocked in Munich by dubious public concerns  -- about costs and the environment -- and by a “do we really need this?” mentality. 

Does Munich need this? Absolutely. The airport is projected to double in size within a decade and thus needs a fast and reliable mode of transportation. The train technology is environmentally friendly.  Moreover, currently it takes about 50 minutes in a slow moving city train to get from the airport to the main train station.  On the way, at one station there’s an annoying several-minutes wait while the train gets connected with another train. What’s the point of that sort of “Gemütlichkeit” in the 21st century? Does the city of Munich, which considers itself to be a “high tech hub” in Europe, really want to move at such a snail’s pace into the future? 

Oddly enough, the current mayor, Mr. Ude, seems to think so and has banked his entire re-election campaign on such small thinking. I, for my part, have joined  www.bayern-pro-rapid.de   a group of people that feel it is time to leverage this bold idea and leave small thinking behind.

Don't use "my boss is a small thinker" as an excuse

During a talk in Seoul (South Korea) on Big Think Strategy (see pic), a middle manager asks me, "What can I do if I think big but my boss doesn't?"   I first point out that I often hear the same from senior managers -- that is, "I think  big, but my staff doesn't" and I describe that I have written a lot about how leaders can set up organizational structures and hire for Big Think. But the questioner insists: what if the boss is a small thinker?  In that case, you must try to carve out a niche for yourself in the organization;  go for a smaller but significant  project -- one that is not under the radar  screen of your small  thinking boss --  and there, think big!  Also, find allies  in other  departments,  even among senior managers.   Don't use my boss is a small thinker" as an excuse!