Category Archives: commenting

blogging, commenting, data planning, Mediated

2,056 days later I’ve returned to Mediation; to find that nothing, and everything, has changed

So, where were we? It has been 2,056 days since I last posted to this Mediation blog. That’s well over half a decade since I shared my thoughts on the un-negotiated data-based contract between advertisers, media platforms and audiences.

It would be a pointless task to try and list out the changes, evolutions (and revolutions), disruptions, procrastinations, legislations, debates and discussions that have characterised the media and marketing industry over that time. They are vast, and profound.

Or are they?

A look back to the Mediation posts of 2014 (there were six) shows I covered the following topics:

The Un-Negotiated Contract: How the model changed, and why the fight for access to data and information has never mattered more … explored the role of data in media and marketing, and implications for data transparency and consumer privacy.

In the Netflix Spark: Why the arrival of the SVOD platform heralds a more even distribution of the future for everyone … I discussed streaming and its impact on the video advertising ecosystem.

Being a true version of yourself: Lessons on transparency from Kyle and Jackie O, and Bethany Mota … explored influencers and brand authenticity.

Weapons of Mass Contagion: why our amazement and anger at Facebook’s emotion experiment is misdirected … wrestled with the surprise and shock at social media algorithm’s ability to influence our feelings and emotions (be kind, it was 2014).

What’s your Story?: a tale of two narratives, and a big lesson in the power of narrative via Jamie Oliver and Thank You Group … covered the nature of brands and storytelling.

And in Reunification isn’t going to happen so get over it: Why media is already planning for a future that’s here already. and why that’s awesome … posited on agency and holding group structure and specifically the debate over a return (or not, as I predicted) to full-service.

So five and a half years ago the debate was largely grounded in data, media business model disruption, influencers and authenticity, brand storytelling, and how agencies and holding groups can best structure to deliver outcomes and client objectives.

What’s astonishing is how little the industry’s topics of debate have changed … yet just how much the discussion and developments within those topics has moved on.

If you are a consumer living within the European Union or the US State of California, government legislation has made huge steps to negotiating the contract between your personal data, advertisers and media platforms. In the last half decade the progress on this topic, in terms of public awareness and legislation has moved dramatically – tho the latter probably more than the former.

Consumer perception on social media (with its inherent biases and dangers) and the role it plays in our society and culture has moved on significantly. The original debates on Mediation around this topic look nothing short of quaint in a world in which social media’s pivotal role in politics, social equality, extremism (in all its forms), and data transparency is still being fully understood and debated. As is its role in the media ecosystem of major brands with an eye to brand safety.

Influencers have ridden the roller-coaster of Gartner’s hype cycle and have, arguably, now found a plateau of productivity following their trough of disillusionment. That said, the normalisation of influencers and KOLs for some brands has been tempered with its rejection by other brands in favour of more centralised and authentic brand narrative and messaging.

Indeed, the perceived role of brands (by marketers and some agencies) has also evolved, the most recent iteration being a bout of purpose-driven marketing, which reached a recent zenith, until everyone looked around and realised that every brand’s purpose was exactly the same; to basically be ‘here for you’. For many brands, the search for a post-Purpose model seems to be more than well underway.

Meanwhile in media land all the shifts – both seismic and nuanced – that were underway 2,056 days ago have only accelerated. Streaming’s march has continued, with the arrival of entrants like Disney+ only adding more credibility and urgency to the clear direction of travel.

I was wrong on the reunification of media and creative, which did come to pass after all… just not in the way that I imagined. Rather than agency brands reuniting across the media and creative divide, instead new models have emerged. On one hand the holding group brands themselves shifted from back-end infrastructure to marketer-facing agency brand. Or on the other they de-branded to create completely new integrated offerings for clients – particularly those with global scale.

An honourable mention for the progress that audio has made in the last half decade, mainly due to podcasting. The continued rise of Spotify will only be accelerated by the very chunky investments they are making into original audio content and talent.

Also TikTok, the platform that captured and then created a cultural moment of content creation that took not just other social platforms but the entertainment industry at large by surprise. There’s a lot more to come from them.

And mentions also to the gaming industry – with which brands still seem to be struggling to find a way to authentically engage, and to Ecommerce, although it probably has over-inflated mental availability right now among the media and planning community.

The last 2,056 days were less kind to some corners of the media landscape. Print and magazines continue to have a horrible time – with some notable exceptions that have managed to both diversify and also tap into a recurring revenue model (including The Guardian with its successful membership and supporter model).

Mediation’s time away saw the most damage however to long-term brand building and marketing investments. Short-termism, an over-reliance on performance-based planning and the pursuit of efficient over effective media planning has, frustratingly, flourished. We’ll come back to that I’m sure down the track.

That’s hardly a comprehensive assessment. I’ll not try to pretend that it is. But after the longest break, we are (kind of) up to speed.

So why now? Why return to Mediation after an absence of more than two thousand days?

The answer is both short and long. The short answer is because Covid, obvs. Like many people, the last few months have been one of contemplation and consideration. I count myself more than fortunate that I am in the luxurious position to be able to find time in the current moment to contemplate its implications. For many millions of people this horrible current situation is characterised not by mindfulness, but by stress, fear, anger, anxiety and loss. I am in a very, very fortunate position.

The longer answer is that I’ve found myself returning over the last few months to the reason I originally began writing Mediation back in 2006. Over eight years I attempted to negotiate the future of media and communications. The negotiations were between legacy and next-generation media platforms; between established models and new ways of thinking. They were between those invested in building something new and those invested in preserving the status-quo.

The mediating was also between brands and audiences, the nature of their relationships and interactions (albeit fleeting), and between the different corners and elements of the industry; the holding group behemoths and the rogue start-ups.

Through all of that, the question was how to mediate a better tomorrow? What can we learn from the new things under the sun whilst building on the best of what has stood the test to date? How can media be accessed and leveraged by brands and marketers in meaningful and effective ways that works in everyone’s interests?

I believe that question is as urgent as ever. It is a question being revisited with renewed urgency in this time of change and upheaval. Old assumptions are being questioned and new models and beliefs are being explored and tested.

There is much to debate and discover.

It’s good to be back.

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advertising, branding, commenting, content creating, marketing, planning

From ZERO to Hero: its Joseph Jaffe versus the world as he shares his theory on surviving the Mediocalypse

“In a perfect world, the optimal paid media would be zero”

and there you have it. in sixteen short syllables Joseph Jaffe yesterday laid the gauntlet to, well, everyone.

in a Mumbrella Hangout with Tim and Nick, Jaffe took aim and didn’t hesitate in pulling the trigger as he took on the concept of paid media, it’s media agency proponents, media owner benefactors and client conspirators – all of whom are collectively woefully unprepared for the coming mediocalypse (that last word is totes all mine fyi).

Jaffe’s alternative vision is ZERO – a word that serves the dual purpose of being, in Jaffe’s opinion, the target investment a brand should make in paid media … and also an acronym for the elements that make up Jaffe’s counter theory … Zealots, Entrepreneurship, Retention and Owned assets (not media).

to say all this is brand new territory would be a stretch, but to say that it’s rarely been delivered with such zeal is not. Jaffe gleefully takes on Sorrell (“self-serving”), media owners (“complacency and mediocrity are not causes to be able to keep your job. being also to achieve … objectives and demonstrate proven value-add and utility and return on investment is a cause to keep your job”) and clients (“morons”). by the time Clive Burcham of The Conscience Organisation joins the conversation the platform is well and truly burning and we may as well all just run for the hills.

it’s easy to line up against Jaffe’s argument and theory: Ehrenberg Bass’ analysis would tackle the importance of Zealots, Entrepreneurship doesn’t offer the guarantee of exposure, success and ultimately growth that shareholders demand of businesses; on ‘Retention is the new Acquisition’ you can pick your counter-play, and there’s no client worth their salt that hasn’t developed and deployed an Owned asset strategy and plan. but here’s the thing … Jaffe is right.

the 30 second-shaped solution is to predominant. the ad venture is coming to an end. agencies and clients aren’t co-conspiring to create sufficient entrepreneurship and innovation. media is commoditised, and media thinking is undervalued. clients customers have become more important than their consumers, and despite billions of dollars of effort the scarcest commodity in the world remains human attention.

run for the hills indeed.

but despite Jaffe’s verging into hubris, he offers some wonderfully salient and sensible advice. his assertion that “the vision of ZERO is to move from being a tenant to a landlord” is a nicely articulated vision for how brands should increasingly approach their media planning; the idea of a “customer-employee ecosystem empowered by technology” makes total sense; that we should be advising our clients on how to redress the balance of their direct to indirect (media) investment is absolutely right; and to ask “why are we paying for attention, when we should be paying attention” is good enough to put on the t-shirt (should that be your inclination).

whatever side of the debate you’re on, you can’t deny that our negotiation of media’s future is the better for having Jaffe’s voice in the chorus. there will be heroes and outlaws aplenty in the coming mediocalypse, which one Jaffe turns out to be will be decided first by your perspective, and then by history.

PS if you want to skip to a couple of highlights in the above video jump to 13:17 to hear Tim deploy Nick to search for someone who has tattooed toilet paper onto themselves with the immortal words “Nick, to the Google …” or 13:44 to see’s Tim‘s earnest nodding and eyebrow raise at the news of Charmin’s acquisition of website ‘sit or squat’

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advertising, campaigning, commenting, creating, debating, planning

Create and Debate: Lessons for brands, courtesy of Dikkenberg and Rusbridger, on communicating credibly, conspicuously and contagiously

I had a rather delightful serendipitous few minutes yesterday when I watched consecutively two videos on YouTube. it occurred to me that between them they rather elegantly describe the formula for communicating your position or point of view in the world right now.

the first was the above video of a speech given by Who&Why Media‘s founder Simon Dikkenberg at the 20th anniversary of Mission Australia’s CYI. Simon (who is awesome) captured more elegantly than I would the point and power of unleasing a creative instinct:

“By becoming conscious of our stories and our ability to shape then, we learn that we can edit and redefine the great changes that impact our lives … what’s exciting is that we now live in era in which the tools to record and share our stories are cheap and easily accessible (most of us carry them on the phones in our pockets) … we all have our own battles and wars but it is the stories we tell ourselves about them that determine the positive or negative impact they have on our lives …”

Simon Dikkenberg (from the above video)

I next watched this video from The Guardian of Editor Alan Rusbridger describing the newspaper’s ‘Open Journalism’ philosophy.

it’s simple, straightforward, and elegant … yet it describes profound changes to how a newspaper goes about doing what it does. changes that by Rusbridger’s own admission are a “big barrier for journalists to get over”.

“Open journalism is about allowing a response … saying to readers ‘we want to hear from you’ … if you can have more than one view you get a better account … once you accept that then you’re into just the questions of the mechanics … we should be able to respond to them too … its being responsive to what comes into the building …
Its no good shoving a newspaper on the web, you have to be part of the web … as a result I think our journalism is much more approachable, much more diverse, much more comprehensive, much more challenge-able (which is a good thing), and just generally better.”

Alan Rusbridger (from the above video)

that second paragraph is of particular relevance and significance to comms planning – swap ‘journalism’ for brand and you get the following advice: ‘its no good shoving a brand on the web, you have to be part of the web … as a result I think [your] brand is much more approachable, much more diverse, much more comprehensive, much more challenge-able … and just generally better’.

I can think of little better advice I’ve ever heard being suggested for brands as they plan in an online, on-demand, fragmented and attention-light world.

perhaps what strikes me most is how the Dikkenberg Rusbridger formula of Create + Debate is so very rarely applied. brands of course create, but very rarely for the specific purpose of instigating debate. and of course brands debate, but often as a response to events or about their products as opposed to the communicates they create around a point of view.

yet when brands do embrace this simple formula, the results are often hugely successful – at the very least from a communications point of view. here are just a few of my favourites:

all these examples are awesome campaigns because they are credible, conspicuous and inherently contagious. and they are all those things, I think, because they followed the Dikkenberg Rusbridger formula: create the stories of your battles and debate with the plurality of views they engender.

the possibilities are staggering, as is the potential positive affect those stories could have on us all.

featured image via here and here

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advertising, broadcasting, commenting, conferencing, debating, opinionating, social media-ising, tweeting

Dispatches from Mumbrella 360 Day Two: Twitter’s Barnes on having something to say, McLennan on turning around Ten, state of the media, and technology + emotion = awesome

mumbrella360-melissa-barnesso big day two of Mumbrella360 kicked off with an awesome presentation from Twitter’s Head of Agency and Brand Advocacy Melissa Barnes.

essentially a ‘best of’ how brands are using the Twitter platform, Barnes more than delivered on her job title, as I suspect there were a great many more advocates for Twitter in the room at the end of her session than there were at the start.

I’ll save the content and examples up for a separate post, but its worth capturing here one of the key points that Barnes was making – that you have to approach and use Twitter differently, and with an understanding of what the platform offers and what its users expect.

she noted that she see’s lots of brands approach Twitter with a ‘display’ mentality, which just doesn’t work. the best examples on offer were cases where a brand had something to say, something entertaining and / or interesting to share, or, interesting, a crisis to manage. one fascinating chart in particular showed how a calm, human, humourous individual in chart of a mobile phone company’s Twitter account in the aftermath of a network outage was able to mitigate the anticipated ‘hate’ emotion you would typically see in sentiment analysis of an outage event.

… as an aside, huge thanks to Melissa who was generous enough to pop into PHD last Friday and share and discuss some of the examples with the agency … we loved the session, and I think someone may have actually swooned 😉

up next was the less swooney Hamish McLennan on turning around Network Ten

Hamish-McLennan-mumbrella-360

Ten’s McLennen, source Mumbrella

in a frank and fascinating discussion with the Burrowes, the boss of the struggling network discussed a strategy designed to focus on an older demo and live TV (as the latter is more easily and readily monetised) … saying that what the channel most wants to be known for is ‘the home of great event TV’.

he was frank that Ten was hurt by the advent of digital channels, and should have launched ist digital channel (11) earlier than in did, and arguably before launching One. the strategy is designed to get a fair(er) share of FTA’s $2.8bn by getting a fair(er) share of an aging demographic.

this would seem to represent nothing short of a full-scale retreat from a younger audience who, in McLennan’s own words “aren’t engaging with TV as much”. the network is looking to beat Seven and Nine by joining them in a fight for an older and more easily monetised audience. the strategy is to back off from digital channels, let alone digital platforms – which are (I suppose not wrongly) seen as the place for programme marketing more than anything else.

PHD Chief Exec Mark Coad asked about the network’s digital strategy, given the NBN (national broadband network) roll-out, but not much was forthcoming. it took a second delegate to ask a similar question to elicit the response that McLennan saw post-NBN as a “big opportunity”, the citing of the example of creating subscription channels evidence that there’s more than a little NewsCorp left in this boy yet.

I jumped into a session on The Encore Score and after lunch joined the debate on the State of the Media.

state-of-the-media-mumbrella-360

Moderated by Darren Woolley, MD at TrinityP3 and Denise Shrivell, MD of MediaScope (on the right above), the panel consisted of (left to right) Lynda Pallone, marketing services and integration manager, Blackmores; Rob Dingwall, media & marketing operations manager, Kellogg’s Australia; Chris Mort, CEO, TMS Australia; Toby Hack, MD Australia, PHD Media (woop); Tony Kendall, director of sales, Bauer; and Zac Zavos, co-founder and managing director, Conversant Media.

this was the first of two plus ça change sessions, with the debate eventually getting to some of the elephants hovering in the back of the room.

On industry relations, TH said  that “industry collaboration has improved” with ZZ adding that [media owners] “don’t get enough feedback from clients and campaigns”. CM was clear that “it’s a high pressured business … If you can’t do the job with the tools you have you need to step up” [or get out]. TH on people development noted that have “a choice … to invest in people or not.”

a debate on programmatic buying led to some predictable places, most notably concern from ZZ that automation leads to commoditisation of media (which it does, because much of the time media is a commodity). TH described the two emerging centres of gravity in agencies around creativity / innovation and automation / analytics – which RD slightly misinterpreted as an agency split, which admittedly at this stage would seem a rather drastic solution.

this session also saw the revelation that industry-wide plans for a move to electronic trading have been shelved. this was first debated at last year’s 360 conference, with a panel consisting of senior agency and media owner representatives debating the subject of automation.

whilst the panel wasn’t the most warmly received (media man unmasked commented that “When you put 9 of the most senior executives in our industry in front of a room full of people who look to them for inspiration and leadership and all you get is a school yard argument it doesn’t bode well”), the point was that something was being done.

this now doesn’t seem to be the case.

one suspects that the shelving was brought to you by the letters M F and A and the numbers 7, 9 and 10 … but I won’t pre-judge. I’ll do some digging and write up anything I land on.

anyhow, back to the state of the media session … where there were a many more questions than answers. so much so that I was moved to ask a question of my own – specifically after this debate is over what happens next? who’s responsibility is it to drive the necessary change?

Darren Woolley reiterated his Golden Rule … that “the man with the gold makes the rules” … and what is the rule made by those with the gold? in a refreshingly honest comment Kellogg’s Rob Dingwall illuminated us with the admission that “ideas may not be paid for but they are valued – if you are valuable you will see money coming.”

and this is essentially the muddle we are now in … media is commoditising but clients won’t (generally) pay for the skill of planning and innovating with media. it’s seen as added value. but there’s less and less value because client procurement teams are driving down margins, so agencies seek additional revenue streams which leads to accusations of lack of transparency. and on we go.

in perhaps the most disheartening comment of the session, Blackmore’s Lynda Pallone actually said “see you all next year for the same conversation” …

… I really rather hope not.

to lift one’s spirits and to finish I’ll share some of the awesomness that is some of the great work coming out of Asia at the moment. in a session entitled ‘Unleashing the Tiger’, Peter Wilson, the retail planning director at Cheil Australia, discussed how “there is a massive step-change taking place in our industry … a new trend, where agency groups based in non-traditional markets lead the new paradigm, led by technology rather than traditional advertising.”

Wilson described the idea of Tu Hon, I’ll let the video do the talking …

Wilson suggested that central to Asia’s current creative success is down to tapping into emotion, and shared three examples. the first genuinely moved me, the second one actually elicited a tear, and the third one made me very jealous that I didn’t come up with it when I was working on a similar project a few years back:

SAMSUNG CAMERA video coming soon 😉

all brilliant examples of how, in Wilson’s words, “a happy marriage between creativity and technology are becoming the norm” … lovely stuff.

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commenting, distributing, marketing, opinionating, promoting, retailing

Coles and Woolies’ Death Star moment: the beginnings of the brand rebellion in Australia’s Supermarket Store Wars

Tarkin and LeiaThe more you tighten your grip, Woolies and Coles, the more brands will slip through your fingers

my return from a rather long winter blogging break has been greeted with the glad tidings that some brands have finally chosen to take a stand against the big two Australian supermarkets.  Adnews reports today that Glenn Cooper, boss of Coopers Brewery has described Coles and Woolies as being the "killers of Aussie brands".  Cooper went further:

“Blatantly, Coles and Woolworths are not brand builders, they are brand destroyers … it’s harsh, but they are not about building brands, they are just about turning over quickly.”

SMH only last week reported that this is an opinion recently echoed by no less than Heinz' chief financial officer and executive vice-president Arthur Winkleblack.  in a briefing to US analysts on the company's first-quarter earnings, Winkleblack specifically name-checked the Australian supermarket sector and blamed them for an erosion of its margins.  sentiments echoed by Heinz' chairman and chief executive Bill Johnson:

''There is no doubt that in terms of retail environment, the Australian market is the worst market, and ultimately the people that will pay the price over there are the consumers because products will ultimately be devalued to address the price points that customers are asking us to address … So the consumer is going to ultimately be the big loser in Australia.'' 

the supermarket's argument is manifold and includes the rationale that this is all in consumers' interest – a Coles spokesman, in response to Winkleblack's comments, stated that "We agree with Heinz's comments that companies need to be competitive to ensure the best outcomes for customers."

but consumers don't benefit from Supermarket competition.  the concensus of an April opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald was that consumers – if they see any benefit at all – see it only in the short term.  Academic Angela Paladino commented that:

"Price wars squeeze out marginal players and change the composition of the market. Here fewer competitors seek to enter an unattractive market that is dependent on low price for success, and smaller competitors exit the market as a result of the inability to make a profit. Others may be taken over, for example the 2009 acquisition of Macro Foods by Woolworths. This has a long-term impact on consumer choice, with shoppers left in a market comprised of fewer players with greater power."

Nick Stance, Chief Executive of Choice agreed:

"The market shares of Coles and Woolworths allow them to negotiate hard with their supply chain. In fact many suppliers report they have little choice but to accept terms offered even if that makes their business barely viable … Sometimes the benefit of lower costs is passed on to the consumer through promotions, but promotions are temporary and do not in themselves create sustainable competition … The ''price war'' is a phoney conflict, not least because the big players usually match each others' prices."

there are only two winners in Coles and Woolies' Store Wars; and that's Coles and Woolies.  brands have and continue to exist at the mercy of these distribution Death Stars.  now Coopers and Heinz have come out of the supermarket closet.  it's just two brands.  but that's two more brands than a few months ago.

Coopers and Heinz's coming out is important.  brands standing up to Coles and Woolies is important, because the dominance of Coles and Woolies is hurting brands … not least in expectations of media investment…

I've sat in more meetings that I care to recall where there have been two invisible seats at the table.  in discussions where the spectre of supermarket's expectations for media investment loom large over marketers, marketers dependent on these two Death Stars for significant – and often increasing – distrutions volumes.

it's a sweeping generalisation to say that Australian brands are too dependent on the broadcast interruption model (of which TV spot advertising is the main solution) for their marketing needs.  never-the-less its a generalisation that I believe is true.  a reliance on this 20th Century marketing model isn't just down to the pressures and expectations of Coles and Woolies on media spends, but they sure as hell play a very significant part: too many brands over-invest in broadcast interruption because its what supermarkets want and expect to see on those brands' media schedules.  supermarkets' expectations are holding back brands' media innovation potential.

but the effect and influence isn't limited to consequences above-the-line (a term which I hate but I'll run with anyway).  prices are down.  great.  but its not the supermarkets funding this price decrease – it's brands.  manufacturers are paying for prices to be down with their below-the-line (ditto) budgets.  and because prices are down for good manufacturers will be paying for them to be down … for good.

Coopers_order
The Order of Coopers – owned and earned media curating a community for the brand

what is phenomenal in this context are the levels of innovation that do get out of markets and agencies' doors and into the world.  despite the vast majority of bought media investment being diverted to an outdated (and actually never that well proven model), Coopers – for example – have built a hugely utilised online site and community.  they are investing in owned and earned media that are building a community with direct links to their brand and business that side-steps the supermarkets' Death Stars.

brands, it would seem, are starting to have had enough.  the Supermarket's weaponary have become simply too powerful to ignore.  to paraphrase Senator Organa, 'the more you tighten your grip Coles and Woolies, the more brands will slip through your fingers'.

the rebellion, I very much hope, has begun.

full disclosure: I work as a media strategist for several brands that have distribution through Coles and Woolworths in Australia.  the above comments reflect my, and my opinions alone.  the advice and recommendations I make to brands take these – as well as other – opinions and considerations into account.

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commenting, innovating, pioneering, praising, printing, publishing

Covering a story like never before: what 56 newspapers in 45 countries can teach brands about the art of collaboration and cooperation

Guardian_Copenhagen_front-cover
so the long and winding road of global climate change discussion and debate has brought us to 7th December 2009, and the Copenhagen Climate Summit.  the world's eyes and ears will converge on the gathering as political leaders meet to debate and, with luck, agree the principles of the collective action required to save us from ourselves.  an army of bloggers, Twitterers and reporters will all be there to capture – for us and for future generations – how it all went down.

the unprecedented media coverage that is no doubt to come is preceded today by a global media first orchestrated by the Guardian in London.  56 major newspapers in 45 countries have today published an identical editorial piece.  appearing in twenty different languages, the piece takes a single united message – the demanding of action – to a global audience.  Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger noted that "Newspapers have never done anything like this before – but they have never had to cover a story like this before"

Guardian_Copenhagen_newspapers

collaboration on this scale is unprecedented, and difficult.  as the Guardian puts it; "Given that newspapers are inherently rivalrous, proud and disputatious, viewing the world through very different national and political prisms, the prospect of getting a sizeable cross-section of them to sign up to a single text on such a momentous and divisive issue seemed like a long shot"  …but the long shot paid off and – with the very notable exceptions of the US and Australia aside – a united editorial piece is reaching a global audience, and its a good and powerful thing to see.

its a testament to what can be achieved when editors and publishers want to cooperate, made all the more potent at a time when much is being said about the waning power of the fourth estate.  and it begs a big question for brands…  where's the co-operation?  campaign after campaign has been rolled out to the world demonstrating commitment to reduce this or eliminate that – all inherently communicating on brands' terms rather than on the terms of the agenda against which they are developing comms…

the climate change agenda is bigger than any single brand, and some hard-fought co-opertaion could be just the thing to bring some increasingly needed credibility and scale to their – well intentioned – efforts.  and if the "rivalous, proud and disputatious" printing presses of the world can do it, then perhaps a group of enlightened, forward-thinking and pioneering brands can too.  its something I'd like very much to see.

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