The Dow branding case study presented at IABC’s international conference in New Orleans had a lot of oohs! and ahs! and a few buts…

This Human Element campaign launched last June, was one of the most memorable branding campaigns in recent times. At least for me. So I had a lot of questions about the strategy behind it, and of course the execution. Was there more to it than the stunning video, and the faces attached to a periodic table?

The copy is powerful in a straightforward way. It’s about “Sodium bonding with chlorine, carbon bonding with oxygen…” The close ups of faces, the texture of waves, the energy of a waterfall. It’s what one might call the thoughtful bonding of words, images and ideas absent in corporate branding exercises.

As the presenter noted, proudly, not once was the Dow name spoken. Only a fleeting glimpse of the red diamond logo at the end. It takes a lot of courage not to force you ad agency to tweak things like that. (Remember that old line: “when a client moans and sighs, make his logo twice the size?”) I watched the video again on YouTube, and couldn’t help but notice the word ‘element’ (or ‘elemental’) occurs eight times, with the big picture painted in sweeping strokes, with hints of biology and lots of chemistry.

But branding is much more than stunning images and good copy. It’s a positioning statement that has to leap across every ’synapse’ (to borrow one a powerful reference from the ad) and connect with the other non linear communication channels. Sometimes these channels are ordinary non-marketing people in the organization. how could they carry that branding story forward, long after the agency has submitted its invoices?

We were told that Dow launched the campaign internally, bathing its building with those giant images of people, revamping its web site to reflect the campaign, providing employees with the background to the Human Element concept and philosophy. they were even encouraged them to set up their own periodic table with pictures of people they work with. Nice touch there.

It struck me as a campaign that could eventually run without mainstream media support: Employees creating their own human element posters, and uploading them to Flickr. Telling their own Human Element stories in podcasts, Voting for each others’ contributions on YouTube, or sayeyeVio in Japan. I bet those emlpoyee generated stories spread virally would be as powerful and sincere as anything its agency FCB could come up with. Wouldn’t that be the the proof of branding via the human element?

In summary: Don’t get me wrong. It is a terrific case study. But a global company telling a global story to a global audience just can’t afford to not engage it’s own people.

This was funny: The presenter asked us what came to our minds first when we watched the commercial. One person raised her hand and said, “It made me wonder what Dow had done wrong, and was trying to cover up.” Another said he was trying to calculate the cost of each of those marvelous segments of video!

On a related note: Paul Argenti, management guru and author who gave the keynote at the the IABC Foundation lunch, opened his remarks with a blistering analysis of why strategic communications is needed so badly. People are extremely cynical of communications, because of business communication failures from the likes of BP, KPMG, Tyco, Enron etc. “Transparency is a strategy and a condition,” he noted.

Translated: skip the tag lines, and bring back that human element!

Walk through the networking area at the IABC International conference here in New Orleans, and you’d be forgiven if you thought you had mistakenly stepped into a new media event. Flat panel screens display models, hubs, portals, feed rooms, and video products that all promise to engage audiences more, track marketing better, and simplify PR and media relations.

In one analysis, this is the fork in the road for communicators wrestling with the trusty old tools of engagement and the spanky new ones. Topics range from “Is corporate communications a thing of the past” to “Be Heard. Bringing a brand to life.” to Building brands and community via e-marketing” to “The good the bad and the unethical.” The booths for Melcrum and Ragan Communications, the American and British contenders for social media communicators’ hubs are strategically located at different parts of the room. Everything you hear or see seems to have an ‘e’ factor, a global dimension, or a PR-meets-marketing angle. The lines are blurring. The oxygen of new media fills the room.

Terrific stuff. Invigorating to say the least. The coffee pots aren’t conveniently located close to the meeting rooms, but even at 7.30 am, people seem incredibly alert.

Alan Scott’s session on “The Blogging Explosion” had that kind of energy. Scott, the CMO of Dow Jones‘ Enterprise Media Group laid the usual groundwork with references to the Cluetrain Manifesto etc. The four trends we should be aware of are:

* Commodization & Competitiveness
* The New Message Battleground
* Buyers Reward Authenticity
* Markets are global conversations

What was interesting, and telling, was that the presentation turned into great participation. Questions posed by members of the audience were being answered by others. When Scott referenced Bub Lutz’s blog he was corrected by someone from GM.

The blogging explosion, Scott maintained was humanizing the corporation; better, it was providing insight via text mining –gold for CSR, corporate intelligence, PR, HR, Marketing, product groups, and Sales. The disruption (or it it upheaval? Or revolution?) is easy to see because you could buy a camera or car tires without paying any attention to the carefully crafted communications from the marketing, PR and web folk at those companies. You know, folks like us…

It reminded me of the words from song The revolution will not be televised:

The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

And our seat belts are fastened, too.

This must be one of the first cases of a live blogger being asked to leave an event in progress because it violated the media policy.

The event in question was an NCAA game. See Brian Bennet’s story of how he was covering the game for the Courier Journal, but was asked to leave at the bottom of the fifth innings.

It will definitely set a precedent –or be a red flag– for organizers deciding how events are ‘reported.’
Brings up the sticky questions about:
1. Journalistic credentials
2. What kinds of electronics is admitted into the event –imagine what Twitter might make possible one year from now
3. Free speech

You could bet the 2008 Beijing Olympic committee must be debating these issues right now! I don’t see anything about permissions and credentials at their media center.