Good news for you, bad news for me

With the hurricanes bashing America, the catalogue of terrorist attacks and the fighting talk between Mr Trump and North Korea, it's all too easy to get depressed about the future of the human race. And hot off the press is the CAF World Giving Index, which shows a decrease across the globe of the % of people claiming to help a stranger, donate money to charity or volunteer time. More bad news.

I read a fascinating article in The Guardian a few weeks back, which looks in detail at the 'New Optimists' - a group of academics and commentators who take the fact-based view that, actually, if you look at it longer-term, life for the human race is improving as a whole. Diseases are being eliminated, child mortality is down, literacy is is on the up, there's less poverty and so on. I've blogged before about Hans Rosling, one of the key figures in this group.

The article gives the New Optimists' main argument for why people are nevertheless pessimistic and fearful for the future: it's an evolutionary one to do with survival. If your default setting is that there's a wild beast about to jump on you and gobble you up, you're more likely to survive long-term than if you take the view that gobbly wild beasts are the stuff of fairy tales.

The author makes a point towards the end of the article that these long-term, objective fact-based views are all well and good, but unfortunately all of us, as human beings are prone to being selfish, childish, egotistical, and emotion can take over from the sensible 'view from outer space' in the heat of the moment. Why should I care about infant mortality in the third world when I've just lost my job?

I agree - happiness works through the specific, the personal. Much as we may mean it when we say 'I'm really happy for you' to a friend, in our heart of hearts, we know our own feelings of happiness are so much more intense. When we use facts and stats in brand communication, it is important, too, to allow for personal relevance. How does that connect with me, and how I feel? Getting to the human beings behind the statistics may sound like a cliche, but it has been said loud and often for a reason.

Another thing about joy, and happiness is that it only exists when we have also experienced the opposite. As human beings we need melancholy, sadness, fear and the rest of the so-called negative emotions.

Only then do our lives - and the world - start making sense.

Charity Past, Present and Future

My memories of charity giving from childhood centre around coins and things - collecting boxes for the Lifeboats being rattled in the town, poppies or Queen Alexandra roses to pin on your coat, my RSPCA and PDSA badges, the Oxfam cards my parents bought each Christmas, putting pennies into a life-size model of a Guide Dog for the blind, raffle tickets...

These days, giving to charity has become not just easier to do, but easier to shout about, too. Buttons on your browser instead of your coat, crowdfunding platforms, Gift Aid, posting your donation on Facebook, PayPal links, timely emails whenever a world disaster occurs and all the rest.

And then there are all those big behavioural campaigns where you can be a walking awareness-raiser, from Movember to No Make-Up Selfie to Ice Bucket Challenge. These have come in for criticism on one side from those who say such actions trivialise the issues that they are trying to create awareness for, and find something sinister in what they see as "branding a disease." And the critics, on the other side, are dismissed as cynical killjoys with a bah, humbug mentality.

It's difficult to tell whether people are actually giving more to charity these days, or whether they are just talking about it more. There are some interesting stats from the Charities Aid Foundation, here. I must say that I was surprised to see which country shares first place with the USA in the World Giving Index.

The World Giving Index is not just about donating money. It also include the elements of giving up time and helping a stranger. And this must be the future for charities - using the possibilities of technology to encourage people to donate not just money, but time, skills and other intangibles. There's a super article by Lucy Aitken of Contagious with some great examples of just that, here.

Carry on Camping

When I started in the advertising business, the military metaphors held sway, whether we were talking strategy and targeting, or training, or even how we were going to build our dream battalion, sorry, team. People got sent on "Bootcamps" and who can forget the horror of paintball games dreamed up to help us work better together?

These days, things are very different. The new metaphor for brands and business seems to be heading in the direction of a festival, rather than a war. Here's a great example of what I mean: The Happy StartUp Summer Camp, which takes place from the 19th -21st Sept near East Grinstead, Sussex, UK. 3 days of learning, inspiration and play are promised, with not a paintball gun in sight. No military types here, just thinkers, doers and makers. The programme looks like a dictionary of current buzzwords - digital detox, camping or glamping, yoga, DJs and live music, craft ales, mindfulness, empathy, storytelling, happiness with awesomeness sprinkled liberally in between.

It's all set up by an outfit called The Happy StartUp School  who are on a mission to help people start businesses that have a purpose beyond profits, which seems a pretty good reason for being to me. I haven't read them yet, but they are generous enough to provide a couple of useful-looking downloads about all those "P" things - people, purpose, profits and piranhas (or maybe I got that wrong!)

I suppose the cynical amongst us could look at this and say that it doesn't pay the bills at the end of the day and that in twenty years we'll find the idea of grinning kidults having a midnight feast in an overgrown teddy bears' picnic as absurd as all the wannabe Rambos paintballing each other.

But, I don't know. I find it curiously appealling, especially the price, which is less than half of what you'd pay for an "average, boring business conference". And there are still a few places left.

Redefining success

I started work in the 80s, the Thatcherite, loadsamoney, yuppy era when success was very clearly defined. It was primarily about money and, after that, power. When the decade changed, however, I clearly remember believing that the 90s would be different. We talking about the "caring, sharing 90s" at the ad agency, and, although "sustainability" didn't have quite the omnipresence that it has today, "green" was definitely on the agenda. I believed all this because I'd already seen colleagues in their 20s suffering from stomach ulcers, breakdowns and other stress-related illnesses.

In the 90s, I made a career move that wasn't incredibly clever in terms of money and power. I moved to a country where I could order beer but was otherwise clueless about the language, where Strategic or Account Planning was in its infancy in the ad agency world and where being a mother and having a career sat uneasily together.

But I gained so much more personally. This was followed by my decision to go freelance twelve years ago. I have found my own way and success on my own terms.

It's sad that not much has changed in thirty years in the way that Western culture measures success. And that there seem to be even more people suffering from burn-out and stress-related illnesses. Part of it, I am sure, is that many people have become slaves to technology - that double-edged sword that both simplifies and complicates our lives.

The latest book on the subject is from Arianna Huffington - Thrive. In it, she talks about the "money and power" definition of success as being like a two-legged stool. At some point you fall off. And that the 3rd leg of success is about Well-being, Wisdom, Wonder and Giving.

You may not be able to stop the world and get off, but you can certainly switch off the virtual world every evening.

Avaricious Brands

When I first started in this game, the military metaphor was de rigueur when it came to talking about marketing. If you couldn't quote Von Clausewitz, you weren't anyone. And of course, old habits die hard. Although Sport metaphors made a brief appearance in the 90s, these have been more quickly consigned to the cliche bin than the more aggressive military terms. After all, why team up with someone or coach them when you can just shoot them instead?

Wars are usually fought with an aim - to gain something, such as power or territory. Or, ideally, both. And brands (or the people that speak for them) do tend to be rather avaricious.

Not content with owning the market, or a sizeable share of it, brands covet all sorts of weird and wonderful things, from the High Ground (whatever that may be) or the Heart and Mind of The Consumer (no one is terribly interested in bladders or bowels) to bizarre notions such as "family rituals" or "me-time" to the frankly absurd - Love, Happiness and Freedom.

The thing is, most of these things are not material, and no-one, let alone a brand, can own them. In the same way, you can "love" a brand all you like, but it can never reciprocate that love. It just can't. It's not human.

Even if all this ownership stuff is just a figure of speech, it is all about power, control and competition.

In the new spirit of generosity and cooperation, it would be refreshing to see brands (or the people who speak for them) giving something back, instead of pontificating about ownership.

Or maybe our brand could "own" generosity?

Would you rather be trusted or famous?

Victoria Beckham once said that she wanted to be as famous as Persil, an objective that she has probably more than achieved. For the former Spice Girl, fame was an end in itself, and that's fair enough. Who's to say whether it's brought happiness or any other more lasting and possibly valuable benefits.

There's evidence that, for brands, the fame route may well be easier to achieve and pay off more profitably, in the short-term at least. The IPA 2008 study "Marketing in the era of accountability" shows that brands who use "fame" as a communication objective rather than image, awareness or trust are more likely to see success where it matters - at the business end.

And "fame" may well prove a more tempting proposition for marketeers, given the tendency to move on to the next brand after a year or two. Surely it's better on your cv to show how you made Bloggo famous, the brand everyone's twittering about, rather than attempting to build something as nebulous as trust, which is surely just a synonym for the rather dull values of reliability and dependability?

Trust is a tricky objective. It's hard to pin down, it's a long-term thing and, importantly, it has to be done through-and-through, not just via communication. Every time any of your stakeholders encounter your brand or company, there is an opportunity to build or lose trust. Most companies simply aren't structured to deliver that as yet.

But just because it's tricky doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted. For all manner of organisations - not just brands - trust is taking on increasing importance as the 21st century progresses. Unless people trust you and your organisation, they will not support it.

Any brand can become famous through excellent communication. But trust has to be earned.

I do wonder if any up-and-coming soap powder brand has an objective that they'd "like to be as famous as Victoria Beckham."

Read the book, seen the film, bought the T-shirt - now eat the ice-cream

There's nothing I love more than a good brainstorm, thinking up names and ideas for new products. And some of the most fun can be had with food and drink products. A couple of years ago, I noticed a new tea variety from Meßmer - "Romeo & Juliet" - with flavours of raspberry and marzipan, and wondered if this would start a trend.

It seems that it has. No longer happy with mint choc chip or rum 'n raisin, Langnese Cremissimo has named a couple of new ice cream flavours after classic movies. The variety pictured has raspberry and dark chocolate ice cream with raspberry sauce. In English, of course, I am rather concerned about the juxtaposition of raspberries with "Gone with the Wind" but they can probably get away with that in German. There's also a "Dr Zhivago" flavour with a kind of snow 'n vodka theme going on.

I just hope they don't get too carried away and introduce a "Silence of the Lambs" variety.

Happy Talk

There was a time, when I lived in the UK when I couldn't walk past a building site without being told "cheer up, love - it might never happen."

Builders were always Britain's official cheerer-uppers - and their chirpiness was guaranteed to produce a curmudgeonly "grrrrrr" of a backfire.

I'm afraid that the following piece of advertising evokes a similar reaction in me. It's a shame, because the movement behind it, Action for Happiness, does seem to have some substance and some intelligent thinkers associated with it.

But while I agree with the sentiments is ticking an email "pledge" to try to create more happiness really the way?

It's a bit like money. The people with the most aren't the ones talking about it.