Advertising Balloon Company

If you believe the Republican National Committee, San Francisco has a brand identity problem. It’s the city where liberalism has run amok, a liberalism best contained on that tiny peninsula.

Here’s what The New York Times is reporting:

In the waning days of a highly charged election season, Republicans near and far are united against a common opponent: San Francisco. In ads and stump speeches, the city is repeatedly flogged as a symbol of the kind of out-of-step liberalism that Republicans vow to banish if they wrest control of Congress from Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats.

Nationally, the Republican National Committee has begun a “Fire Pelosi 2010 Bus Tour,” and ads tying Democrats to San Francisco have proliferated. In Georgia, a conservative Democrat seeking to distance himself from Ms. Pelosi is running a commercial featuring gyrating hippies and warning: “Georgia is a long way from San Francisco.”

That conservative Democrat is Congressman Jim Marshall from Georgia’s 8th District. Here’s an ad tying him to Pelosi and his response to it.

You know what’s funny about Marshall’s attempt to distance himself from the subversive elements by the Bay in the above commercial? The man represents Macon, the birthplace of The Allman Brothers Band and Capricorn Records. There’s even a museum to honor the Brother’s cultural contributions to the city and the world. So, San Francisco is not all that far from Georgia, after all.

Bonus video from Fillmore East 09/23/1970:

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I think we all know people who hold too closely to ideas they consider their own. Ideas become like babies to these people, and babies need protecting.

Barry Lowenthal of The Media Kitchen thinks it’s a mistake, particularly for agencies, to behave this way.

When people hoard information, they immediately limit the potential for idea generation. If, say, only two people have access to data, they become the only two with the opportunity to build ideas from it. But if a thousand people can see it, the likelihood that a brilliant idea will result is exponentially increased. Today, it’s extraordinarily easy to give access to that many people and more — so why shouldn’t we?

There are still people within organizations that limit access to information and, presumably, they believe that such limiting affords them a measure of power. That game is sadly common in companies that motivate through fear. In my view, such places will be short-lived; the power and influence of social media will destroy them.

I love Lowenthal’s position here, but I’m not sure “the power and influence of social media” is going to destroy the time-honored practice of acting defensively. When you hoard information it’s because you think it will improve your standing in the company. Social media might be a shining counter example of how things can be, but people wrapped up in schemes and conniving are none too interested in social media or new ways of doing things.

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The Marketing section of the bookstore has been overflowing with interesting new books trying to make some sense of the new world of advertising and marketing in these hyper-connected times. I’d like to mention the new ones that have come my way:

In Beyond Viral: How to Attract Customers, Promote Your Brand, and Make Money with Online Video, Kevin Nalty offers some very good pointers for marketers who believe they can simply slash a TV budget, throw some videos on the web and think they’re done. From the fad of viral video, the ins and outs of YouTube, accurate measurement, and how to profit from online video, Nalty navigates a world that’s very crowded but still contains potential for and large advertisers alike.

In The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success, author Carmine Gallo uses the often-admired world of Apple as a starting point to document many great business innovators, such as Flip, Dyson and Cold Stone Creamery. Gallo outlines the many crucial steps that are essential to success, from simplicity of purpose to product design and effective messaging.

In Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, author David Meerman Scott looks and how speed has influenced and shaped the way companies communicate now. And real-time communication has manifested itself in many areas: From blogs and YouTube responses to the role of immediacy in crisis communications, Meerman Scott covers a very broad range of topics that all businesses need to get, well, up to speed on.

In microMARKETING: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small author Greg Verdino tells us that “the next big thing is lots and lots of small things.” From small audiences to one-on-one customer relationships, Verdino shows how scale can be reached by using seemingly small tactics. What’s interesting in Verdino’s book is that you can’t go more than 4 or 5 pages without a link to something – a twitter feed, a viral video, case studes – many of which he conveniently shrinks to bit.ly urls for convenience. However, seeing all these links in the middle of a hardcover book makes me think that books like Verdino’s (and the others mentioned above) would all be a much richer experience if they’re read in an e-reader edition which could immediately pull up those links.

Special thanks to FSB Associates, Wiley, and Planned TV Arts for providing me with review copies of these books.

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