If there’s one profession that has probably dropped below advertisers on the respect level in the past few years, it would be investment bankers. Not only did they take their fair share of blame for the ongoing economic catastrophe, but now they are sinking to new lows in the court of public opinion thanks to the billions in bonuses that are about to be paid out. In fact, a recent WSJ study found that total compensation for bankers will be up 18% in 2009 to $145 billion—that’s amid a year that took a Fed rescue plan! One company in particular, Goldman Sachs, is facing a storm of anger as it prepares to pay out roughly $10 billion in bonuses to its bankers. That doesn’t seem right to the millions of Americans who are still struggling to pay the bills (and who didn’t have a hand in destroying the markets), and neither does Goldman’s halfhearted attempts to buy them off with charitable giving.

Let’s definitely give the brainiacs at Goldman Sachs credit for trying to defuse a public attack by creating new forms of charitable giving. In November the company set up a $500 million fund to make loans to small businesses. The fund is being overseen by Warren Buffett, who is a trusted leader but has a conflict of interest as a large Goldman shareholder. Now the company is considering a plan to require its executives and other top managers to give a percentage of their bonuses to charities. This number could also reach into the hundreds of millions.

While any money that goes away from new yachts for rich bankers and instead to small businesses and worthy charities is great, I believe Goldman Sachs will gain little from its sudden interest in generosity. The key problem is that the American people are not idiots. They can see for themselves that the giving is a drop in the multi-billion-dollar bucket. They know that the company is dreadfully fearful of government legislation that could pare back its gains—permanently. President Obama is considering a $90 billion “financial responsibility tax.” If you doubt that Congress will ever pass something like this, just ask the executives at AIG how a government pay cap feels.

On the other hand, if Goldman or some other large financial services brand had made giving part of their culture for years, there might be an opportunity to secure big bonuses and grow market share. In fact, Goldman Sachs actually has some significant giving in its company history, as its early partners backed Albert Einstein and helped establish the NAACP. Alas, those days are far away, and any company that has to force its partners to give away a percentage of outsized gains has lost any true charitable culture that ever existed.

Somewhere along my career I heard that character is defined by who or what you choose to fight against. A character’s foils define who he or she is—and “define” here means both creating and describing. Churchill was defined by his stand against Hitler. Lincoln was defined by his belief in a unified United States. And Superman is defined by his fight against those who would bring evil upon mankind. I keep this in mind here at this blog, choosing to call out meaningless marketers from time to time, at risk of pissing off prospective clients and partners. This lesson can be applied to Brand Characters as well, and Google—the most valuable brand in the world—took a large step toward further defining and improving itself by taking a stand against the evil within the Chinese government last week.

For those who missed the news, last week Google issued a threat to shut down its operations in China after it discovered several, likely government-backed attempts to hack into its servers in order to uncover dissidents’ emails. Google also spoke against the continuing censorship of search results. The business press expressed general shock and awe at the move, wondering how any company could ignore China, and then speculating that this was merely a way for Google to save face in a market where it is not the leader.

I do believe this was a highly calculated move by Google and its company leaders—they would never make such a big move without a lot of strategic thinking and analysis. However I believe the company’s choice is not another Machiavellian move by a bunch of MBAs. Rather, it is the product of a company culture that is founded on a desire to truly improve the world, and a fear for “doing evil.”

Since its very early days as a public company, Google has acted in ways that exemplify its culture, while founding hardcore capitalists. Google allows people to spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choosing. They splurge on free gourmet meals for all employees. And when the company issued an IPO it warned prospective shareholders that it would focus on the long term and refrain from artificially smoothing out earnings results to make large investors happy.

Perhaps one of its most-debated cultural features is the company’s belief that “You can make money without doing evil.” This phrase has attracted many positive feelings toward Google, especially in the technology world where everyone from dominant leaders such as Microsoft to legions of spammers and phishers abuse their access to our computers. This statement has opened Google up to criticism as well—ranging from its avoidance of taxes in the U.K. to using its leading search business to crowd out competitors in new markets. But nothing challenged the company more both internally and among the court of public opinion as when Google agreed to the Chinese government’s demand for censored results when it entered the country in January 2006.

We will likely never know what the conversations were like back then or now in the offices of Google’s leadership. But I believe the censorship issue has been a personal pain-point for some time. I choose the words “personal pain-point” very carefully, as I believe these leaders and many Google employees have had serious misgivings about playing along with government censorship. This is a company that believes that access to information can make the world a better place. The leaders have more money than they could ever spend. And they have a lot of people on their side. The flagrant hacking attempt was probably the personal breaking point.

This, my friends, is why Google is the best brand in the world. The company and its people believe in something good, and genuinely desire to make the world a better place. This is why people in China are laying flowers at the company headquarters sign in Beijing. And if it continues to follow these core values, Google will be a leading company for many years to come. Who knows—Google might even help finally usher in human rights reforms and freedoms in one of the largest corners of the world.

One of the other interesting lessons here is to observe how few companies we could imagine taking a similar stand. No other tech company jumped to Google’s side, and I struggle to think of any other large company in any industry that might follow its lead (much less lead to begin with). Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has already blown off any thoughts of leaving the country. Not surprising at all; this follows Ballmer’s personality and Microsoft’s culture very well—it is a company based on beating competitors and retaining power. At least he has a personal and company culture, I suppose, as most leaders are simply beholden to the annual bonus and short-term shareholder demands.

I will continue to follow this story closely and root for Google in its heroic stand against evil. Meanwhile, I’ll continue using as many Google products and services as I can get my hands on. I hope you do the same.

One of the promises of digital marketing that has kept our industry excited and optimistic for the past 10-plus years has been the opportunity to learn about individual consumers and serve them relevant advertisements. The hypothesis is that more relevant interruptions will be more engaging, incite positive action, and reduce waste. Aside from behavioral targeting, which uses cookies to help websites personalize banner ads for individual site visitors, social-media services such as Facebook have promised to open up further opportunities by reading into what people are posting about themselves. Even cable companies are experimenting with personally addressable TV commercials.

But despite all of the hope and hype, targeted ads have not become the revolution that we digital marketers have longed for. Not only are people ignoring highly targeted ads just as much as they do all other banners, but new research suggests that many consumers are outright rejecting the idea of personalized marketing.

I’m a few weeks late in catching the results of a new survey by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley in which represents one of the first pieces of research not done by digital marketers (who have an understandable bias). In their telephone survey of 1,000 adults nationwide, they asked: Do you want websites you visit to show you ads, discounts, or news tailored to your interests? Before getting to the results, let me first say that this is an excellent way to word the question. It does not introduce the idea of cookies or other privacy third-rails. If anything, this question format seems to emphasize the positive aspects of advertising and content targeting.

Even as a hardened digital marketer I was surprised at the results: 67% of Americans do not want advertisements that are tailored to their interests. A further 51% reject personalized discounts and 58% don’t even want tailored news. Again, this is without seeding survey respondents with doubt and questions about how their personal information is captured and turned into tailored ads. This is a very, very bad sign for the digital advertising industry and website content creators.

What’s worse, when the researchers started describing how their information was tracked, even more people rejected the idea of personalization. From The New York Times:

“The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were ‘not O.K.,’ an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.”

Some believe that this data has little impact on the industry; sure, people will always say that they hate advertising, they say. Others add that people will protest ads until they learn that it’s the only way they will get free content. The problem is that the government is getting very close to stepping in and regulating targeted advertising. David Vladeck, the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, has promised to look closely at such online ad targeting, and has already publicly called some tactics “Orwellian.”

Here’s the problem for marketers: No one is going to stand up and tell the FTC to back off us. We advertisers as an industry have punished consumers for years with meaningless messages pressed against their eyeballs by the thousands each day. Because we can, we have hit them with ads everywhere from their email inboxes to elevators and gas pumps. Our level of society respect lies with used-car salesmen. Who is going to protest in favor of more advertising, even when we threaten that we’ll take away our free content?

With data like this study, Vladeck and the FTC essentially have a mandate to act against personalized targeting. It gives them impartial proof that the people don’t value personalized offers, and their job is to, well, do what the people want. Lawmakers and the FTC can also recall how the National Do Not Call Registry unanimously sailed through Congress and home phone numbers have been registered by more than 70% of Americans. The Direct Marketing PACs could do nothing to stop that legislation and there is little hope that we can stop this, either.

Look, I’m an executive at a digital marketing agency and I will feel the pain like anyone else in this business if this legislation goes through. But I also realize that you can’t force people to view or accept your advertising. This is why I am so passionate about the concept of Marketing with Meaning. I fundamentally believe that the only thing we can do to survive in this business is to create marketing that people choose to engage with and advertising that adds value to people’s lives.

So, people don’t like and genuinely fear personalized advertising. I take that as a sign that we’ve got move on to something that they do value. That is why I believe in creating content that people choose to view, read, or listen to. That is why I believe the future of digital, and marketing overall, lies much more in creating services and positive social movements. So while my company and I still make a lot of banner ads, we are also driving ourselves and our clients to create more meaningful marketing.

Isn’t it time we as an industry stop trying to fight against public opinion and do everything we can to make the public embrace our brands?

Yesterday the Cincinnati chapter of the American Advertising Federation—aka “The AdClub“—hosted a luncheon with James Edmund Datri, the new President of the AAF, and I was lucky enough to break away from the daily grind to hear from the man who represents the advertising industry in Washington, D.C. In a short but wide-ranging discussion, Datri presented himself as a strong leader who promises to help us transform into a more meaningful industry.

The title of the luncheon was “The State of the Advertising Industry,” but it actually started with a description of how the AAF itself is also working on a turnaround plan. I was surprised and impressed to hear that Datri is walking in the shoes of many business leaders by trying to cut costs in a tough economy. (He came into the role with a $500,000 budget deficit.) I was further impressed to hear that he is making some critical moves; for example, he has already downsized staff, reorganized jobs by workload (versus function), moved to a paperless office, and cut his and other executives’ salaries by 15%. Datri understands that these moves not only help close the budget gap, but show his members that their organization is sharing the pain of its constituents.

But Datri has also recognized that his organization—like the ad industry itself—must use these tough times to invest in transformation. Datri spoke of his belief that organizations that fail to invest in needed areas will miss the chance to benefit from the transformation thrust upon us.

The AAF is taking a few smart measures to become more relevant and financially stable. First, Datri is leading a charge to recruit more corporate members into his organization. New wins include Wrigley and the Jim Beam brands. Of course, with a new President and Congress, it’s a pretty compelling time for big businesses to become more active in Washington through the AAF.

I was more impressed with Datri’s drive to do more at the grassroots level through his embrace of new social networking technology. His strategy is to make the organization more valuable and better able to act on national politics by activating the 40,000 members around the country with new tools. He has already gotten the group on Facebook and Twitter (although I cannot find the Twitter account).

I asked Datri whether he was personally engaged with these tools, and he admitted that he was behind but will be making them a center of his communication plan in the weeks and months ahead. He clearly gets that these tools are not simply broadcast media, and he seemed genuinely excited about the chance to digitally network with people in AdClubs around the country when he returns from his cross-country luncheon tour.

Toward the end of his speech, Datri admitted that advertising professionals are not viewed with a great deal of respect. He specifically called out that too many people (including lawmakers) think of our industry as made up of Mad Men and pockets of elites in New York City and L.A.—completely missing the AdClub folks in places such as Houston, Minnesota, and Seattle, which are full of good people doing important work for businesses. Datri committed to driving the AAF to help rebrand our industry and show the world the value of our profession.

I just hope the AAF does more than simply telling the public we are doing good, but rather it helps its members embrace the more meaningful-marketing model that we must follow to deliver on this promise.

Last week, my friend Rick Miller sent me a link to the Twitter post above. It seems that Frank O’Mahony, a self-described “Dad, eTwit, tech-driven realtor, immigrant, happy SantaFean,” is not happy that Citibank is using its billions of dollars in federal funding on wasteful advertising during the television programs he watches. And, so, my friends, this is how the traditional advertising world ends—not with a bang, but with a Twitter.

I have written here often that the catalyst of great change in marketing is the rise of the empowered consumer. Usually we think of “empowered” in terms of media; consumers can use DVRs to skip our ads, hit shuffle on their iPods instead of listening to commercial radio, and get their news and weather from websites instead of newspapers and the 11 o’clock news.

New technology and media choices are certainly a huge factor in the marketing world, but another, perhaps more powerful force is the growing number of consumers who are actively fighting against advertising through public protest and government legislation. The Federal Do Not Call Registry was a celebrated bill that led 76 percent of all Americans to register their phone numbers and threaten the $80 billion telemarketing business. Sao Paulo banned outdoor advertising throughout the city. And people are even organizing to protest annoying, repetitive ads such as Toyota’s “Saved By Zero” campaign.

So it comes as no shock that the sweeping bailout programs across banking, automotive, and other industries are coming with a big string attached: They give taxpayers more of a voice to question advertising that seems wasteful of their hard-earned dollars. Frank O’Mahony’s cry out on the fast-growing soapbox of Twitter is just one of many complaints that are happening across the country. Other examples are spreading quickly:

• Bank of America, which just received $45 billion in bailout funds, was attacked by Congressman Elijah Cummings for spending $10 million on sponsoring the NFL, including a pregame carnival and free luxury box for executives.
• GM, a regular Super Bowl advertiser and NFL sponsor, chose not to advertise in or attend the game this year, in part because of public pressure resulting from its own multibillion-dollar bailout.
• Morgan Stanley, which just laid off 5,000 people and took $10 billion in government aid, went through with a three-day client conference in the five-star Breakers resort in South Florida.
• Citibank has been criticized for pushing forward on its $400 million sponsorship deal for naming rights to the new New York Mets baseball stadium. This comes after the bank received $45 billion in funding and the government just took ownership of 36 percent of the company’s stock.

I believe these protests are just the first signs of a tsunami of consumer outcry. The worse the economy gets and the more taxpayer dollars are pumped into failing companies, the more that people will demand from business. Of course this will hit various issues, such as CEO pay, for example. But expect wasteful advertising to take a very hard hit. The problem for advertising is that everyone is exposed to it so often that it is a very visible example of a company’s actions—and so much of it is personally annoying and obviously misspent.

Any company that has or expects to accept government funding needs to pull its marketing team together and fundamentally rethink everything it does. The right course is to use the crisis and public pressure to fully embrace Marketing with Meaning. Marketing that itself improves people’s lives is not only an incredible business-building proposition (as described in nearly 100 blog posts here), but it is the kind of marketing that is defensible—even embraced—by the tax-paying public.

A shift to meaningful marketing just might be another powerful return on taxpayers’ trillions of dollars in business investments.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and as I put my daughters to bed, the oldest, Grace, asked, “Can we track Santa on your computer, Dad?” It was way past bedtime, but I couldn’t resist. Grace is 8-going-on-18 and the chance to let her fully believe in Santa for maybe the last Christmas tugged at my heart.

So… away to the laptop I flew like a flash

Booted it up, hoping for not a crash

Jammed in the Sprint card and pulled up the Net

Figured a search on Google would be the best bet

Soon a smile on our faces started to grow

For Santa was just crossing o’er the Gulf of Mexico

Thanks to NORAD and Google we found Kringle in flight

And I tucked Grace in for a long winter’s night.

All bad poems aside, it was really a special father-daughter moment to pull up the NORAD Santa tracker and see where he was along his journey. And I kept thinking about this tool days after Christmas. I wondered why NORAD, a government agency that tracks incoming nuclear missiles, would be the organization that tracked Santa on behalf of the world’s citizens. I was surprised not to see a for-profit company such as Sears, USA Today, or Coca-Cola take the reigns of this annual tradition.

So I consulted Wikipedia, of course, and discovered a very interesting story of how NORAD got into the Santa-tracking business all the way back in 1955. It seems that marketing did have something to do with it, in a roundabout way. That year, Sears advertised a telephone hotline that children could call to speak with Santa. But the ad printed the wrong number, sending children to NORAD instead. Rather than turning eager children down, the surprised NORAD officers accepted the calls and began giving Santa’s position on the radar.

From there follows a history of continuous upgrades, improvements, and generations of magical moments for children around the world. Now, of course, Santa can be tracked live online, and even through Twitter.

There are a few really good lessons here. First, it shows how a long-term meaningful marketing investment can pay off. In this case, NORAD has “owned” this valuable service for more than 50 years.  Another good example is Butterball’s turkey help hotline, which has become more interesting and relevant (and itself newsworthy) than any print ad or TV commercial the brand could conceive of.

But the real morale of this story is that organizations can win just by paying attention and doing the right thing. And it often comes down to your company culture and individuals’ care for their customers to unlock magical experiences like this.

Happy holidays to all of you. I cannot wait to continue the Marketing with Meaning revolution with you in 2009!

Bob