Once in a (great) while we like to pat ourselves on the back. This is one of those times.

For the fifth year in a row, KG Partners walked away a big winner at the Transportation Marketing & Communications Association (TMCA) Annual Conference & Expo, held this year in La Jolla. This year we took home five TMCA Compass Awards for the work the agency produced with our client, Con-way (NYSE:CNW).

The Compass Awards recognize members of the North American transportation and logistics industry that have created innovative, results-oriented marketing and communications programs.

We must admit we’re starting to feel a bit like Roger Federer in that NetJets commercial…except for the jet part, we don’t have one of those.

Hardened criminals. Wounded soldiers. Cute puppies.

It’s one of the most incredible ideas. Ever. And a PR opportunity that you could wait an entire career for. Our client FetchDog, a fast-growing purveyor of dog products, dog advice and all-around good karma for dogs and owners, hooked up with Puppies Behind Bars (PBB), a non-profit that teaches prison inmates to train service dogs, specifically dogs that help rehabilitate returning soldiers with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), TBI (traumatic brain injury) and other injuries.

Q: What would happen if FetchDog sells a special Chewy Shoe toy … that looks like the sole of an army boot … that’s made by Vibram, the company that actually makes army boots … that’s colored red, white and blue … that raises money to train more dogs, rehabilitate more inmates and relieve the pain of more wounded soldiers?

A: Dog Tags, an almost inconceivably good program that actually makes us all feel a little better about the world we live in, and makes a number of very special citizens of our Republic feel a whole lot better, period. And not in some hard-to-imagine, theoretical way, but in a real, demonstrative and profound way. Money from every Chewy Shoe toy sold from the FetchDog catalog or on the FetchDog website goes to PBB to fund Dog Tags. If you don’t believe me, here’s a clip on Oprah.com — it’s a portion of a 20 minute segment from the show Oprah dedicated to the cause on May 15th, featuring longtime dog enthusiast and supporter Glenn Close. Watch it and the other Dog Tags clips on Oprah’s website or the PBB website, and let me know its impact on you.

KG Partners was thrilled to do this work for FetchDog and on behalf of PBB, an effort that also produced coverage on PeoplePets.com (literally the “Facebook” for dog owners), Military.com (the resource for service members, military families and veterans), and dozens of other outlets. We used a combination of traditional media relations and social media practices (here’s the SMR — social media release) to bring this story to life in a way that earned hundreds of millions of high-value impressions, started the Chewy Shoe toys flying off the shelves, and got thousands of dollars (and counting) flowing into this impressive program.

- Dave Goldberg

…but we all knew that shelling out billions to GM was a bad idea, didn’t we?. Check out my post from last November. Here’s today’s letter from Chairman Kent Kresa to shareholders. Shares are up today (as of 1:25 in the afternoon). They’re now worth $.87.

Is this good marketing or not?

Have you seen the Chevy Silverado ad on TV that ridicules the tailgate step on the Ford F-150? It has been running a lot lately during network prime time. The step is an optional piece of equipment on the Ford. It folds down from an open tailgate to help people get up onto, or down from, the bed of the truck (see the picture below right). It looks like a useful innovation with a hint of gimmick thrown in.

The :30 spot stars Howie Long — former Raiders defensive lineman, NFL Hall of Famer, commensurate pitchman and all around stud — a guy’s guy. The ad is set in what seems to be a lumberyard. The spot starts with Howie loading the back of his Chevy Silverado while noticing an overweight and not very surefooted guy scampering down from the bed of his F-150 using the aforementioned retractable step. It’s awkward. It’s a bit pathetic actually. If you saw this in real life you might feel compelled to lend him a hand. The whole scene makes you think of the fat kid on the playground. After stepping down onto the ground, he starts walking toward the cab of his truck when Howie, standing tall, says, “Hey buddy, you left your ‘man step’ down” in a sarcastic and patronizing tone. He may as well have said, “Hey fat wimpy boy, can’t climb down off the jungle gym??” The now-embarrassed Ford owner stops and again scampers back to the tailgate to fold up the step. The scene ends with Howie slamming shut (with emphasis) the tailgate of his truck. The gritty truck-ad voiceover then asks viewers if they’d rather have a Ford with a man step or (be a real man and) get a Chevy. Generally undifferentiated product attributes follow until the spot ends. Now that you’ve heard my long description, Here’s a link to the ad.

I can’t decide whether this ad is brilliantly targeted at guys who may in fact be the “Ford fatty” but desperately want to associate with the Howie Longs of the World, or simply low-road, schoolyard bullying? Is Chevy targeting bullies or the bullied? The ad taps into the currently popular vein of guy humor that sarcastically calls out feminine behavior or traits — all in good fun and usually reserved for bonding around the backyard grill, the pool table or ESPN. Example: “Hey, that’s a nice shirt, do they sell mens’ clothes there, too?”, or “I’ve always wanted a manbag like that.” Funny stuff, I have to admit. Calling the Ford tailgate feature a “man step” is the same thing … kinda funny.

But in this ad, the guy on the Ford isn’t portrayed as some yuppie suburbanite who owns a pickup because he’s playing to a working man’s hero self image. To the contrary, he’s portrayed as a guy who’s been working hard all day. He’s wearing work clothes and gloves and is clearly doing some heavy lifting. This guys works for a living. His problem, however, is that he’s not Howie Long (actually, Howie Long isn’t very much Howie Long these days either … look closely). He’s not six-foot-whatever and didn’t record 91.5 sacks over his career. Basically, Howie is being a $#!!&. I know that Howie is a paid actor here, but is this what Howie really wants his personal brand to stand for? If not for the man step, I think this guy would have fallen off the truck and broken a rib or something. I feel bad for the guy, not just for being “that guy” but for being ridiculed for it (by Howie who, I guarantee, hasn’t personally loaded his truck at a lumberyard since forever.)

So is this good, smart strategy on GM’s part, or will it backfire? Seems there’s a lot of that at GM these days.

- Dave Goldberg

When I was a little kid I used to visit my father at work from time to time. He’s an oral and maxillofacial surgeon (retired) in Hartford, Conn. There was a pharmacy (Gillette Pharmacy) on the first floor of the professional building where he had his office at the time. He’d take me there for lunch (remember the lunch counter?). I distinctly remember that upon walking in he and the pharmacists would greet each other warmly. There was a relationship there. As a physician, he valued the pharmacist for his part in what we today call “the health care continuum” — in this case the natural triad of patient-doctor-pharmacist. This made sense since my father more often than not would refer a patient, for whom he had just written a prescription, to the pharmacy downstairs. Remember, back then there were neither drive-through windows, nor on line or phone ordering…just illegible handwriting on prescription pads. These were his patients. Knowing and trusting the pharmacist who would dispense drugs and provide advice to his patients was natural (today we call this a “best practice”).

Fast forward 20 years and I’m visiting my soon-to-be father-in-law, a pharmacist (retired), at his pharmacy (Colonial Pharmacy) in Cohasset, Mass. While I’m there I’m watching him engage with his customers. Not just in a friendly way, but in a manner that conveyed that a strong patient-pharmacist relationship was present, even if he didn’t know them personally. He took his job seriously. These customers came to him because they trusted him and his staff to fulfill not just a bottle of pills, but a promise that their health was in good hands.

Ancient history you say? Not really.

The pendulum is swinging back. We’ve all become accustomed to the pharmacy-as-department store model of care. Twenty thousand square feet of, well, everything. This is where you can pick up your amoxicillin — and on your long walk back to the entrance — a case of Slim-Fast, a beach chair, Halloween candy (in season) and some windshield washer fluid. These stores are built for your convenience and that’s not a bad thing. But ask the person working the pharmacy counter (who may or may not be an actual licensed pharmacist) a question such as, “should I take these with a full stomach?” and (this happens to me all the time) the person pulls the bottle out of the little white bag, lowers the reading glasses and scans the bottle’s label for the answer. I can read, too. Try a more complicated question about drug interactions or nutritional support and, well, you get the picture.

Trained, licensed pharmacists are all capable of doing an excellent job based on their extensive schooling, annual continuing education requirements and good ‘ole experience. They are all competent professionals who are taught that patient care is their prime directive. The issue isn’t the pharmacist but, rather, the pharmacy. Modern, big-box pharmacies are less about patient health than about selling higher-margin products, as well as measuring sales per square foot, customer conversion rates, inventory turn and other retail metrics. The actual pharmacy, not so conveniently located more than a Randy Moss touchdown catch away from the entrance, is a loss-leader. Margins on prescription drugs are slim, if not negative. Unfortunately, therefore, a pharmacy counter configured for high-volume, quick-turnaround, low-cost customer interactions follows.

Enter KG Partners’ client Apothecary By Design, a Pharmacy that is rewriting (or perhaps renewing) the book on the category. Their model, at its core, is simple: put the patient first and provide products, services and advice that puts pharmacies back in their rightful and necessary place in the aforementioned triad — but in a very modern way (we’re not talking about Mr. Gower’s pharmacy here from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”) Apothecary By Design is a pharmacy built to work with today’s realities. That is, today’s health concerns, lifestyles, medical establishment, payor structure and, as it turns out, expectations of convenience.

They are a pharmacy that puts patients first, offering proactive advice about anything within the realm of the pharmacists’ training, which is extensive. They offer nutritional advice as well as nutriceutical products that fully support patients’ drug regimens (their pharmacists are cross-trained in nutrition, as a matter of fact). They have a state-of-the art compounding room to fulfill the resurgent demand of both physicians and patients for these services. They also have one of the best coffee bars in Southern Maine — a new take on the lunch counter concept. And, like the pharmacy I used to visit with my father, they are on the first floor of a major medical building (the “InterMed” building in Portland.)

Apothecary By Design is planting a flag and taking the world of pharmacology by storm. They are smart, they are dedicated and, guess what … they are busy! This is working. We’ll all be the better for it, too.

-Dave Goldberg

Here are a couple of ads we’ve created for them:

In classic blog fashion (classic?), I’m going to blog about an article I just read that was written by someone else who was reporting on a story about something that already happened…

It’s about that unfortunate incident at a North Carolina Domino’s pizza franchise — the one that was recorded on video and posted on YouTube for the entire online world to see — and then bled into the off-line world of TV, radio, print, etc. It was unsettling to say the least and you can see it yourself on YouTube. Basically, a sandwich maker stuck a piece of cheese up his nose and then placed it on a customer’s sandwich … lots of laughter in the background. Then he faux-farted (I think) on a piece of salami for placement on said sandwich. More laughter. Definitely makes you think twice about ordering from Domino’s or any delivery food company for that matter. Disgusting.*

That said, a blogger whose post I read shortly after the whole thing came down predicted the end of the Dominoes brand — 50 years in the making, brought down in a minute. I personally think that conclusion goes to far. A bad mark on the brand, yes. Its complete demise? Not from a single video made by a couple of dumb kids at a store in North Carolina, even if it did spread like the plague on the internet.

As you’d expect, PR Week covered Domino’s now-much maligned PR response to the incident on the cover of its April 20th issue. The headline: “Crisis forces Domino’s to revamp social media plan.” The article covers Domino’s typical and very corporate crisis tactics: fire the employees, contain the story to those already aware, put out a statement…you know the drill. But, they didn’t reach out into the broader online world. They neglected the very community who were most exposed to, and at most risk from, the video (not to mention those who had accelerated the virility of it in the first place.) It wasn’t until some unbelievable amount of time after the video broke — 48 hours! — that Domino’s changed strategy (note to self: write a post about how ridiculously fast we’re expected to move these days.)

Let’s see what the folks at Domino’s might have been thinking here: brand crisis starts and grows exponentially online via social media … What to do, what do do … got it! Let’s issue a press release. Brilliant. They finally got some good advice from none other than their ad agency who evidently could no longer stand idly by and watch its client implode. The article calls out that Domino’s doesn’t have professional PR agency representation. Instead, all PR is handled in-house. They go it alone.

This brings me to my point (finally!) I am sure Domino’s has very talented PR pros inside the company. I have nothing but respect for internal PR resources. Many of our PR clients are in-house professionals who do excellent work and, so as not to throw myself under the bus, I used to have one of those internal PR departments at a really big company. But the big lesson here is this: in times of crisis (and during the good times too) use a PR firm people!!!. Internal PR pros know their employers’ businesses well and will fall on a sword to protect its reputation. This is their job. PR firms recognize hard-to-see opportunities and risk, and bring to the table points of view that internal resources sometimes can’t because they’re too close to the company. This is our job. Together, we have all angles covered. Working as a cohesive team we can generate more creative ideas, execute with more accuracy and, having seen both sides of the world myself, generate better, more meaningful results.

This is especially true during crises when internal PR departments are often too busy fighting brush fires and taking direction from (many) different people to pause and look at the situation objectively. In Domino’s case, the fact that the “classic” corporate response was, as we say, a sound only a dog could hear, was lost on everyone inside. If Domino’s had professional, third-party PR representation before the cheese-up-the-nose scandal they would have most likely: a. had a crisis communications plan in place that most certainly would have included social media outreach and, b. had a partner on whom to rely to solve complex PR problems in the heat of the flames while they manned the hoses. This works, trust me.

Conclusion: if you’re an inside marketing/PR manager who is charged with stewarding the reputation of your company and the value of your brand (one that took millions or perhaps billions of dollars to build), think seriously about searching for, and securing, a PR firm — crisis specialists or full-service — whatever fits your needs. Or, think about your life the day your brand gets devastated by a YouTube video or the night following the report on NBC Nightly News. No thank you.

* As a very serious, grown-up marketing professional I am obviously troubled by the brand crisis and vast public relations storm that ensued for Domino’s. But if I put myself in the shoes of a 17 year-old kid working late at night at a pizza place with nothing to do but make sandwiches? … ok, kinda funny. No excuse mind you (but funny). Hey, if this happened in a Farrelly Brothers movie we’d all be howling with laughter.

-Dave Goldberg

KG Partners developed a new brand for the newly merged Children’s Museum and Theater of Maine. As part of the work, a new logo was created and unveiled at its annual auction last Friday night. This was very satisfying work since it celebrates a momentous occasion for two legacy organizations, both with long and storied histories of helping to defend and preserve childhood in meaningful, creative and seriously fun ways. Combined, it’s an organization in motion. So is the logo.

Remember the SNL video short called “Bad Idea Jeans”? It was a parody of an early ’90s designer jean ad in which a group of yuppie guys are hanging around a basketball court getting ready for a pickup game, bantering (man-tering?) about life. Very funny. Here’s the Hulu link: Bad Idea Jeans.

In a similar vein I’ve started a new category for the KG Moments blog called Bad Idea Marketing. These posts will be short descriptions and commentary about advertising, PR, events or whatever that should have never made it off the concept cork board. Obviously they seemed worthy at some point, but for some reason further rigor, research or plain ‘ole reality checking escaped someone and the “what the hell are we thinking?” moment was missed. Rather than going into the blue recycling basket, they ended up in the eyes, ears and minds of customer or prospects. Please send in any bad marketing ideas you’ve experienced and I’ll collect them here. To start us rolling, here’s one that landed on my desk yesterday …

I was handed an envelope addressed to me with a handwritten “personal” on it. It had come in the mail and since it looked like it was, well, personal, it came directly to my desk instead of into my mail box where it may have sat for a couple of days (ok, that tactic worked). The envelop was branded very clearly and I knew immediately it was a piece of direct mail masquerading as something more important. It sat where I put it for a few hours until I got around to opening it. When I did, out came a folded letter and a pinch of salt.

For a few brief moments I was annoyed by the slight mess it made, followed quickly by being horrified that there was a loose white substance in the envelop I just opened! When I dropped the envelop a small packet of salt (the kind you pick up at the condiment counter at a fast food restaurant) fell out too. It had split open in the mail and some of the salt had emptied. My prevailing emotion then changed to wild disbelief as I realized this was some kind of creative element integrated into a direct mail campaign. Sure enough, when I read the letter the theme of the copy was “take this with a grain of salt”…get it? See, the pitch in the letter was purposely over-the-top. By reminding me — via the salt reference and the dimensional element of an actual packet of salt — that I should stay grounded while reading the letter, the message would be more impactful (no), memorable (um…yes), and effective (anyone?) But the only thing it did was make me incredulous that someone in this day and age thought it was clever to include a flimsy packet of something white and powdery in an envelope and then mail it to presumably lots of people. Ok, all together now: BAD IDEA!

These letters may indeed attract some prospects. It may also attract Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Service and any number of parties the sender probably doesn’t want coming to see them with evidence bags, latex gloves and cameras (think CSI).

Bad idea, but good blog material.

-Dave Goldberg

What it is about February?

I was walking into my office last week - head down against the cold wind taking short, low center-of-gravity steps over ice - pondering this question. I’ve pondered it before. It was a question submitted to me in February 1992 by a fellow graduate student while I was in business school. During my second year at Boston College (more specifically the Wallace E. Carroll Graduate School of Management) I wrote a regular column in the Graduate Exchange, BC’s monthly graduate student newspaper. The column was called “Just Ask Dave” for which students were urged to send in questions for me to answer, whatever they be. The question in question was this: “Dave, why do I feel so down this month?” I thought I’d present my answer exactly as it appeared in print seventeen Februaries ago (there were neither blogs nor the Internet back then). I think the answer still (mostly) holds up. Here goes:

I don’t want to depress anyone but…

February is one of those painfully inevitable things in life that, if given a choice between it and let’s say…well, I really can’t think of anything worse right now. February is a dirty trick. It is the abyss in the annual progression of time. It is an odd, little month. Cold. Cruel. Dark. Let me explain:

There are twelve months in a year (no real new info there). But, eleven of those months have, at the very least, some small amount of redeeming value. February has none. February is about nothing, it adds nothing, it is, in a sense, nothing.

Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Dave, what about Valentine’s Day?” True, this day is unique in that it allows one to overtly express love for another. But I believe that it was invented as a way to prevent mass hysteria. You see, in February one is needful of such an artificial “device’ to keep one’s sanity and get through the month (why do you think it falls exactly in the middle of the month!?) What about the Winter Olympics, don’t they happen in February? Well, let me tell you a secret: Nobody cares about the Winter Olympics! What about the New Hampshire primary and the start of the presidential election process, doesn’t that happen in February? Gimmie a break! This year that’s making it even worse. I could keep going - Black History Month, the birthdays of two truly great presidents, etc. Worthy all. But all completely and unfortunately overwhelmed by the meteorological, psychological and biological realities of the month.

Let’s get technical. February is not the coldest month, that title belongs to January. And February doesn’t have the shortest days either, that would be December. So why does February seem like the coldest, darkest month of them all?? Because in December winter is fresh and playful and the holiday season brings joyful glee to all, and January is a time for new beginnings, promise and optimism. Moreover, we give thanks in November and in October we are blessed with a glorious, refreshing change of season. In March we get the occasional warm spell, a fleeting breath of Spring if you will. There are April showers, May flowers, and June through September are just plain great. And then, there’s February.

For those of us in the Northern latitudes, by February we’ve been without a warm-on-your face sun for the maximum number of months prior to the beginning of Spring. By this point our tans have yielded to a strange, tired shade of gray. The hair is brittle, the skin flakes, and the attitude? Well, it sucks.

February is also random. Think about it this way: the other months are arranged with elegant symmetry - some with 30 days, some with 31. So what happened between January and March? It’s as if Pope Gregory XIII (the inventor of the modern calender) found himself with 28 left-over days after distributing all the others among the months. So he said to himself, “hmmm, I guess I’ll just stick them here toward the end of Winter where maybe no one will notice.” Why didn’t he put them between July and August? I don’t know about you but I could use another 28 days of summer. Alternatively, why didn’t he just allocate them equally among the other eleven months. Surely no one would have noticed them that way. To prove this theory further, once every four years we have to add one more worthless day to the year. And where do we find it? At the very end of an already worthless month, that’s where.

But don’t feel too bad because it’s almost over. Even though March 1st is really no different than February 28th, there is one very important thing to keep in mind: it will no longer be February! Spring can’t be far away and Summer just beyond that. Life can begin again <end>

After seventeen years I believe a brief postscript is in order. Since moving further north from Boston it now seems as if it is March, not February, that has the hardest-to-take weather. In addition, my youngest daughter was born in February and I have come to appreciate winter sports and, therefore, the Winter Olympics. So maybe I overstated it all way back then as a grad student…something I will try to remember the next time I slip on the ice.

- Dave Goldberg

My brother sent me this photo. It’s a testament to quality. I’ve always heard the stories but here’s proof. So as not to push his luck, however, when it hits 300K he’s going to get a new one (a car, that is, not an odometer). This is a Toyota. He and I had a 1970 Buick Skylark as our first car. It was handed to him by our father when he was in high school, then to me when he went to college. I finally sold it with 111K on it. Let me remind everyone that 1970 was not a banner year for automobile manufacturing quality in the U.S. I need to learn his secret about car care.

POST SCRIPT (4.29.09): There you have it, $300K (and still going)