Meeting Brian Sweeney, the Kiwi end of the Lovemarks team, was interesting. We had a good-spirited dialogue about Lovemarks. As in, we were both willing to hear each other's points of view. I found Brian more than willing to acknowledge criticism and essentially his position was that the book is a work in progress. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
I suggested that Kevin and Co try out blogging as a way to develop thinking. Jack Yan (who was at the lunch with me)and I both thought that a public debate with Kevin and Brian would be a welcome next step in the dialogue.
I don't think Lovemarks presents a vision of the future beyond brands. In some ways, it epitomises what I dislike about branding practice: too much promise, not enough coherence. I despair of many of the examples used; surely we as a species can do better things with our time than pretend that Cheerios are an efficient way to improve parenting?
That said, I am interested in a genuine dialogue about whether marketing can make itself truly relevant to helping humans get beyond our current unsustainable chaos. For me, that may involve moving beyond the Punch-and-Judy of polemics into a place where there's a greater willingness to admit uncertainty and possibility.
So, in the spirit of transparency and openness, I hope Kevin and Brian will treat this as an open invitation to more face-to-face conversations, with or without an audience...
By the way, Tony Goodson has been writing some provocative thoughts on Lovemarks lately.
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Comments (4)
I agree about Lovemarks. In essence it is the epitome of marketing, in this case marketing marketing itself. I can never think of it without thinking of Love-bites, that primitive process by which lovers mark (or brand) their partner.
Starting a blog is a good idea, but my feeling is that it is antithetical to marketing which depends in large measure on controlling the terms and the imagery of the discourse. Blogging, dammit the whole net, is essentially a conversation, and successful companies in future will be those who stop marketing and start conversing.
But a successful conversation has open ends, open sides, equality, respect, humour and is guided by the collective needs of its participants. Marketing exists to manipulate needs towards the products and services that I want to sell.
The day marketing gets on the Cluetrain is the day it will vanish.
November 25, 2004 02:42 Permalink for comment
Kevin Roberts is just a guy trying to make a buck, same as the rest of us.
What's happening on Madison Avenue is lots of people scrambling around, trying to find new, useful ways to justify their high fees.
And they are failing. Which explains why so many good people from that industry are now on the street.
Kevin's is a gallant effort, better than most, but still, I don't buy it.
The reason I don't buy it is simple: Love Marks is just a sweetened, cutey-pie metaphor to justify his company's and industry's behavior. But the basic behavior, the basic biz model remains fundementally unchanged.
November 25, 2004 13:31 Permalink for comment
I agree this would be a useful next step, Johnnie. I thought the conversation between you and Brian was most pleasant and that you both managed to cut through a lot of the BS.
My own thoughts on Lovemarks have already been published in a couple of magazines. Given Lovemarks' widespread nature—Brian mentioned 14 languages now—it would have been a wonderful opportunity to further some of the thoughts on social responsibility. Kevin Roberts does touch on them but not in much depth, and like you, John, I certainly wasn't in total agreement with his examples, some of which did fall into the trap of 'marketing marketing'.
I sense that similar concerns have been approached from very different foundations, and that it would be fantastic on all sides to have this debate. It'd allow these responsible agenda for sustainability and, heck, good karma, to get out—while on Kevin's side it could show that Lovemarks can be accommodating.
Now, I wonder about a venue and you and I have mooted one off-blog …
November 25, 2004 13:42 Permalink for comment
Good for you, Johnnie. If Mr. Roberts really believes his big idea, then he should be eager for an open forum of discussion about it. I would welcome a sustaining public debate on this. We need articulate advocates from the counter-Lovemarks contingency, and the main benefit may be the re-education of Kevin Roberts himself. Get him to back off his convoluted message. The tenor of the Lovemarks campaign- and it's nothing more than that- recollects P.T. Barnumism. Roberts needs to understand that there are fewer and fewer suckers born every minute. Lovemarks is essentially weightless blather taking up precious bandwidth, while there is other more pressing work yet to be done.
November 25, 2004 20:21 Permalink for comment