This morning I found this post contributing to the discussion.
GFK Custom research North America publish this piece of research with interesting results:

1. consciousness about environment and sustainability is spreading across the world
2. it’s growing
3. corporations and marketers are expected to play a significant role
4. corporations and marketers have the great opportunity to play a significant role in the process

But some 70% of Americans don’t think business and industry are fulfilling their responsibility to protect the environment. In addition, 69% of Americans think businesses engage in environmentally friendly behavior to promote their image.

People do not trust in corporation effort and this may prove to be an issue in a world more and more conscious about this topic. But still it is a call for a huge effort to do something and to talk about the action taken to regain people confidence.

1. Lehman Brothers is going bankruptcy
2. the North Pole ice is thinner, day after day
3. 53% of the Italian population is not in the condition to shift from one social class to a higher one
4. a deadly virus is threatining the Chilean fish farm

Apparently there is no connection between these issues, but truth is that there are strong links.
The world ecosystem, econony, environment, personal, needs a new deal.

As stated in the new book of Thomas Friedman ” Hot, flat and crowded”, we need someone to lead the pack out of this situation.
Politicians have to play their role in this game, but marketers and corporations have to play a significant role, too.

Technology, politic and business are totally interactive today and must work in the same direction: a better world with less greediness, more discerning and open minded.

We have one and only one world to live in. No second chance.

What can we do as marketers?
Can we help out clients and our companies to accomplish this task?

The power that technology put in our hands is far more bigger than ever, the vision of the future is far more clear than ever.

1. do not stand for the best short term result but look for the bigger picture
2. a dollar more earned today may cost to everybody a thousand tomorrow
3. reconsider the social cost of any action we take or we suggest to take
4. sell better not sell more
5. built something that last

These are my points.
But I like to have yours, too.

This is the title of a compelling post by Karl Greenberg, I read this morning on Mediapost.
I do share his point of view and I do believe that we have to rediscover some practice that give us the pleasure of using time to think and to do something with our own hands.
Something as handwriting, conversation vis-à-vis, engagement with ourselves.
We do talk a lot and write a lot about brand that must engage with customers, but when we will talk about the skill of engage with ourselves?

The economy up and down, more down to be honest, and the new world scenario should teach us the lesson that the time of growing without limits, the neverending expansion, the technology development without a real reason, the assault to the environment, this kind of world has to come to an end and leave the place for something sustainable and mindful.

Are we ready, as marketers, to this challenge? Are we ready as men and women to adapt ourselves to a different life style? Do we believe our customers, or ourselves as customers, are the same we were one year ago?

Just as a starter, I’m part of the jury for the 11th Assorel prize. Assorel is the Association of the PR agency in Italy and the prize is a key moment of the association activity across the year.
It is a great honour to me to sit here with many respectful leaders of the communication world.
For the full list: the jury

Then, if I can make it, there is the Picnic ’08 in Amsterdam.

See you soon, G.

Along with fellows plurkers Geoff Livingston, Frank Martin , Sonny Gil, Amber Naslund generated a conversation about the impact of Social Media on jobs other than Marketing: Sales and Business development, Customer and client services, Product and Brand managers.

The list is truly comprehensive and I wish to share with you all.
Enjoy the reading.

I do monitor the web for my clients, trying to learn something about their market, their brands and their products that they do not know.
The customers’ sentiment, the perception and the reputation of their company.
How people does live them.

And today I read a Maurizio’s post and a comment saying: “Il messaggio è sempre responsabilità di chi lo emette” (You are always responsible for the message you send).
This is the naked truth.
And this is mostly true for companies today and, more, in the days to come.

In a case history I have in FMCG food market, we discovered that a product from an Italian company is always seen better that a similar one from a multinational corporation.
The multinational corporation is represented mostly as not trasparent, not honest.
This means that the same product may have different life under different labels.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the Italian company is a multinational, too, but this is not perceived at all and this keeps its products in a safer position.

Than, 24 years later, give a look at the rate plan to purchase an IPhone and think for a moment: where all those messages have gone? where the think different approach has gone?

To purchase an IPhone , you are forced to subscribe a plan with selected companies that are overcharging the cost of the navigation in internet and most of the services that are the main reason to want an IPhone. You may say: right, this is the market.
But pricing is the same across different companies, there is no competition, no free market.
Users are bundled in a cost trap.

This time the apple is poisoned.

This should not come as a surprise (and it is not to me, as I mentioned in my WOM and its metrics workshop) because, even if our lives are more and more entangled in the Web 2.0 context, a vis-a-vis chat with a friend or a relative is far more credible and positive.
And positive is the crucial word in this research.
Because when we talk vis-a-vis with someone we care about, most of the time is in a positive way and our advice are directed towards positive experience with a brand or a product.
Online conversation are far more a wall of shame. We get online to cry to the world our disappoint for a bad experience.

That’s why the two worlds, online and offline, should be tackled with a global view.
And that’s why this research should not be read as a good reason to postpone any online activity.