Can a little thing like branded buttons sell jeans? The other day I received the propaganda above in an order of clothing from Lucky jeans. The buttons came loose in the shipping box, and I later found the fortune in the right front pocket of my new denim. It got me wondering about the strategy behind these little tokens. There has to be some reason the brand invests the money and time to produce and distribute them, right? I believe the answer is yes—and it’s another neat example of meaningful marketing.

One of the platforms of Marketing With Meaning is what we call Connections. A brand can make meaningful connections when it provides entertainment or an experience. Like the philosophy best described in the book The Experience Economy, the products and marketing are mere props that contribute to a personal experience. These experiences more deeply “connect” us to the brand and drive loyalty beyond reason.

Lucky is a brand in a category that has the best chance of winning by building meaningful connections. Let’s face it, jeans are jeans. Sure, some fit and look better or are made with higher quality materials, but there is no real intellectual property to protect style, color, or material (sorry, Levi’s). So jean makers have embraced branding to set themselves apart. Since around 1979 when Brooke Shields introduced the world to her Calvins, the brand of jeans we wear has come to stand for who we are; and while the physical products are basically the same, a wide variety of brands have risen in recent years, each fighting to connect with a niche of consumers.

I personally discovered Lucky in San Francisco a little over two years ago. My wife and I were enjoying our 10-year anniversary there and took advantage of the time without kids and work to do some shopping. She mentioned to me that Lucky was known for having great experts in fitting—a key need for a 6′3″ guy like me. The first thing I noticed on the first pair I tried on was the catchphrase “Lucky You” sewn into the inside of the fly. It made me smile, and I later discovered that this was a very controversial decision by the cofounders in 1990. I had a great shopping experience and picked up a couple of pairs.

Since then I’ve been happy with the fit and wear of my Lucky jeans. But I have also come to feel that they are my brand. It is a brand that fits both my body and my personality. So it was a no-brainer to head to Lucky.com recently when it was time to update the wardrobe. I came for a pair of jeans, but ended up buying a few retro t-shirts at a ridiculously high price. I got the shirts because I felt like broadcasting my Lucky personality to the world. The little surprises in the form of these buttons and the pocket fortune further solidified my passion for the brand.

Lucky isn’t the only brand that invests in showing such a connection to fans. Perhaps the best player in this area is Apple. For years, Apple has included window stickers of its logo in new computers and iPods. And, sure enough, we have seen the sticker everywhere from cars to notebooks to bedrooms.

Years ago I tried to include some similar brand propaganda when I launched Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash. After studying guys and cars for years, I was convinced that we needed to invest in making Mr. Clean a cult brand for, well, car guys. We did several new-to-P&G things at the time to encourage this, like giving devices to online discussion group moderators and going to car shows. I really wanted to include a Mr. Clean sticker in each Starter Kit package. I knew that “Tuners” love to place stickers of their favorite brands on their cars, and I figured that by including a sticker we could encourage cult status. Alas, it was something I just couldn’t convince my organization to spring for.  Our costs were already a little over budget, and it was hard to guarantee that a 1-cent sticker would pay out.

I couldn’t show the ROI on a Mr. Clean sticker, and I’m sure that the marketing departments of Lucky and Apple can’t either. As marketers we sometimes need to go with our guts and invest in little things that build connections between brands and the people who buy into them.

I’ve railed against interruptive marketing time after time in this space. The purpose of this blog is to promote the need for us to stop finding new ways to just “get eyeballs” and instead create advertising that people actually find valuable. But to prove the concept, it is important to continually test it. Let’s see if Zappos can pass the test with air-travel advertising.

Air travel is becoming a huge target of brilliant inventors’ attempts to make a buck by bombarding us with more advertising. Air travelers are certainly a great target for their efforts; they have higher incomes and need to make frequent decisions about where they stay or visit. And, most importantly, they are trapped in small places like security lines and airplane seats for hours—with nothing to do but stare at advertisements. As a result, we’ve seen ads arrive on tray tables, overhead storage bins, and even barf bags.  A company called Ad-Air is buying up land near runways to host football-field-sized banner ads.

So it is no surprise that someone has figured out how to turn the lowly security bin into an advertising medium. A company called SecurityPoint Media has been written up in Advertising Age and USA Today for its new, growing service. The company splits the revenue with the host airport, and the bins are approved for TSA use. The company claims that several million people per month see the advertising, and they have received no complaints so far.

Research has proven that airport travelers consist of a highly sought-after demographic that includes early adopters and decision makers.  There is no other airport marketing platform today that ensures your message meets the eye.” — SecurityPoint Media

During a training I was giving this week, someone in the audience mentioned that they had recently seen an ad for the online shoe store Zappos.com in these bins. It was memorable because it included cute copy and seemed extremely relevant (see above image). After all, what better time to talk shoes than when you’re asking someone to take them off and put them into a tray? But let’s test to see whether or not this is meaningful marketing.

Marketing

While we cannot get inside the heads of management, one would suppose that Zappos.com, a releatively new online retailer, has a business objective of driving awareness. The company likely sees tactics like this as a way to make a big impact without spending giant bucks on TV. Zappos says that the program is a success.  According to its senior marketing manager, Andy Kurlander:

We feel that this is a highly targeted venue to promote our brand. Each person getting on a plane is guaranteed to view our message multiple times. Plus, with shoes in hand, it’s the perfect instance to remind them they’ve been meaning to make time to buy a new pair. Why not Zappos?”

Meaning

Here’s where I think the Zappos example breaks down. We believe that meaningful advertising must do two things: First,  people must choose to engage in the ad. The Zappos ads, though, are more interruptive than engaging. The Zappos ad is a kind of “gotcha” surprise ambush. Second, the ad unit itself must add value to people’s lives. This might hold true, but just barely. The Zappos ad offers very light humor with lines such as “Place Shoes Here,” which can be a welcome diversion in the slow death march through the scanner line.

Conclusion

Is the Zappos.com security-bin marketing successful? Probably so. Is it meaningful? Not really. I believe new media opportunities like this tend to have a very short life span. The first ad units surprise us, and if they are clever and relevant (like Zappos), they can even delight us. But companies like SecurityPoint Media are not restricting themselves to clever, relevant advertisers, so those of us who trudge through the aiport each week will see more and more of them until they, too, become just another piece of ignored wallpaper along our journey from City A to City B.

If you’re not a regular subscriber to Wired magazine, it’s worth the 5 bucks next time you’re at the airport if only to read the feature article on the new Fox/NBC online TV venture called Hulu (or you can just read it for free here). The Hulu story is a great lesson in new product marketing by not one, but two large, stodgy corporations with much of their business stuck in the status quo. Jason Kilar, the 36 year-old Hulu CEO managed to throw together an online television program with thousands of shows in a matter of weeks.  Hulu is growing rapidly and starting to challenge YouTube.

Aside from the outstanding innovation case study, Hulu is serving as a new benchmark in the future of advertising and mass media. The company is still showing advertising, as expected, but it has significantly decreased the number of ads as compared to traditional broadcast television. According to the article, Hulu is charging more but serving far fewer ads.

Let’s say the average prime-time cost per thousand viewers (CPM) ad rate is $25, which is a reasonable estimate. Television shows are averaging 8 minutes of commercials for every 30 minutes of programming, which means 16 30-second slots at $25 each. This makes the “effective” CPM for a program equal to $400.  On Hulu, the company claims that ad rates are “two to three times” that of broadcast TV. Let’s call it 2.5 times on average, meaning the ad rate is $62.50. However, Hulu is only showing two minutes of advertising per 30-minute show, or only four 30-second ads. As a result, it’s take is $250 per show, meaning that for every viewer who watches The Office on Hulu instead of regular TV, NBC loses 47% of its ad revenue.

You can’t protect old business models artificially.” - Peter Chernin, President, News Corporation

How is Hulu getting away with this? Well, the company realizes that the only way to win in online video is to put its consumers first and provide more value. And it believes great content and a modest amount of advertising will be satisfactory for the greedy online video viewer. The hope is that viewers rely on Hulu versus YouTube and other free and/or illegal options such as BitTorrent. The results seem strong so far: One analysis suggests that Hulu could beat YouTube in revenue this year.

Aside from dramatically cutting the amount of advertising per program, there are some other user-friendly marketing options here. Hulu sometimes offers the chance to select which ads you see. And there is a thumbs-up/thumbs-down button for advertising, which supposedly helps ensure that you receive better interruptions in the future.

I certainly do not believe that Hulu represents Meaningful Marketing.  It still relies on an interruptive advertising model that gets in the way of the content viewers actually want to see. But Hulu’s moves and early success are proof that the only way to win in the future is to get closer to what people want.

Side Note: While Hulu shows a dramatic decrease in advertising, the Chicago Tribune just revamped its newspaper to increase advertising to 50% of the total content.

As I wrote in the first post of this blog, our goal as an agency is to help change the paradigm of marketing. One of the key measures of success is the level in which the marketing community is speaking, writing, and working against the model of Marketing with Meaning. I’m proud to say that we received more attention to this overall cause, and specifically to our interpretation of where it should go, through a special report from Contagious magazine titled “Branded Utility.”

A few months ago I was interviewed by Pippa Considine as part of her work in developing this special report. When we spoke, I found that Pippa had already conducted a great deal of research, and her perspective is closely linked to ours. We spent nearly an hour on the phone, sharing case studies and examples. The product of our discussion and many additional conversations is an outstanding piece of research and thinking. Her great work comes at a pretty steep price, though; you can purchase it for 450 British Pounds. For your investment consideration, here’s my take on the final product:

What I Loved

First, I’m thrilled that Pippa chose to include some specific examples that I shared with her. There is a nice paragraph on the ConAgra Foods Start Making Choices program. And she mentioned my story of David Ogilvy’s first ad, a guide to oysters for Guinness Stout. She included our belief that mobile marketing is skipping the interruptive stage and going straight to meaning. Pippa also addressed our view that the rise of digital is the catalyst for the rise of Meaningful Marketing:

What’s new at the beginning of the 21st century is the rapid change in digital technology, including the arrival of social networking sites and the increasing sophistication in the way that people use the Internet.”

Further, I enjoyed a section of the report that covered the growing connection between physical products and Web experiences. Nike+ is the obvious example, where running activity is uploaded to training tools. I had not heard about food brands such as Dole and MyFreshEgg that use codes to allow customers to track where a banana was picked or where a chicken laid an egg.

Finally, I was very impressed by an in-depth analysis of how brands are engaging with various partnerships to be able to deliver meaningful content. Again, Nike + iPod is the gold standard, but I also learned about the example of Google partnering with BMW to allow people to program their car navigation systems through Google Maps on their computers.

Opportunity Areas

I’m biased, of course, but I am not happy with the choice of “Branded Utility” to represent this shift in the marketplace. First, “utility” suggests only tools and widgets rather than a wide variety of value-added marketing approaches. Second, the word is straight out of economics textbooks, and lacks the very soul that we want our marketing to assume. People don’t use “utility” to describe how something special touches their lives. So I’ll still take “meaning,” which speaks to higher-level personal experiences.

What’s missing from this report is a true model that marketers can use to shift their organizations. While there are many outstanding examples here and a few dos and don’ts, the report is missing a model or structural framework that can help brands figure out the right way to add value to their specific customers around their specific equities. There are also missing pieces around measurement, long-term investments, and how to sell such programs internally.

What’s Next

In a matter of days I will be able to share some great news on our publication of a book around the concept of Marketing with Meaning. This blog will continue to provide ongoing tips, suggestions, and content, but our book will pull together a holistic model of this new approach. I know from personal experience on both the client and agency side that such a dramatic shift in approach needs more than a cool keynote or a clever case study. It will be more “how-to” guide than “should-do” manifesto.  Stay tuned!

“Best page takeover ever!”

“This is an idea that I would have said, ‘It will never work!’”

“One of the most brilliant pieces of digital marketing I have ever seen.”

These are just a few of the quotes I heard from friends who forwarded me a link to YouTube’s viral video takeover in support of Nintendo’s new game, Wario Land.  Check it out here and then return to this blog for further analysis….

Pretty cool, huh? Let’s delve into the Meaning and Marketing benefits.

In terms of Meaning, you have to start with the fact that Nintendo selected a media platform that is entirely dedicated to consumer engagement. People viewed nearly 5 billion videos on YouTube alone in July 2008.  People choose to go to YouTube mainly for bite-sized entertainment during their day. They are looking for entertainment, and the medium is successful in part because it does not force viewers to sit through interruptive commercials. Thus, the only way for marketers to win in this channel is to create entertainment that people find valuable. And we can easily measure the consumer value - and to a certain extent the business impact - of YouTube creative by counting the number of views of brand videos. Dove’s Evolution video has more than 10 million views combined, but this controversial Snickers ad only has about 400,000 views. You can’t buy YouTube viewers - rather, you’ve got to create work that people find worth watching.

To date, YouTube has been mainly used by marketers to host viral videos and consumer generated video contests. But this Nintendo work breaks the mold and shows great promise for the marketing on this still-new channel. Many viewers likely come to the page initially because of an interest in video games, the Wii and the Mario series specifically. But all are rewarded with a surprising, fun concept that is executed flawlessly.

We cannot see the business impact for sure, but it looks promising so far. In terms of number of views, on Wednesday, 9/24, the site had 500,000 views, and a day later it was at 1.1 million. The ad unit iself is generating free press coverage. Game marketing is a lot like movie marketing - the initial buzz and opening sales are critical to long-term success. We’ll have to track how it performs, but this is a great head start.

My one negative comment on this example is that I don’t think it’s scalable. It works as a one-hit wonder for Nintendo, but will the next YouTube takeover be as surprising or fun? And imagine the work it takes the YouTube team to both dream up this idea and execute it on their system. When you have to make a cool creative idea every time (rather than just sell mass eyeballs), it becomes a lot harder for both YouTube to sell and clients to buy.

That said, I feel more bullish on YouTube as a digital marketing professional, and I feel that both the Nintendo AND YouTube brands have provided a special experience for me.  Bring on the next one, guys.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a ton of brands are lining up to support this worthy cause. My wife is a huge believer in the cause, and has raised thousands of dollars in each of the past two years for The Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. On Wednesday I wrote about an email from Delta that allowed me to donate miles to research organizations while collecting a few for myself. But today I ran across a tie-in that makes me think this marketing support for the cause is going too far.

While reading an article at CBSNews.com today, I saw a banner ad for a special-edition Oreck pink vacuum that offered a $50 donation to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure program. The promotion/product page is titled “One Powerful Cause. One Powerful Vacuum.”  The site includes some copy about the charity, but is focused on product features and performance claims such as “Strong enough to pick up a 16-lb bowling ball.”

I’m sure the hearts of the people at Oreck are in the right place. It is a worthy cause and a novel way to sell vacuums, but it left me doubtful as to the true meaning and marketing results from such a program.

The most basic question is whether or not this promotion is meaningful to the target audience. The banner ad certainly got my attention, but more because it seemed odd than interesting. I’m not sure people in the market for a new vacuum cleaner have charitable tie-ins at the top of their decision matrix. I find the best cause marketing happens when people can do something small that seems to have a real impact. That’s why it works for small purchases in the CPG category, or with quick initiatives like the Delta example. But a $500 vacuum is a big bank account decision that is likely driven by lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Further, the whole pink vacuum thing really is strange. It looks unsightly to me, and I wonder if people are looking for the weekly cleaning regimen to be a time to remember the campaign to cure breast cancer.

In terms of marketing results, a lot will depend on whether or not consumers find this to be a compelling offer. Again, I think $50 off the price might be closer to what people are looking for in a big-ticket item like a vacuum. Of course, Oreck could experiment with such an offer alongside this promotion and see the results using online conversion measurement. Interestingly, when I reloaded the page that displayed the original banner for this promotion, I got served a different Oreck ad promising $100 off an upright vacuum.

Unfortunately, the cost of designing and manufacturing special pink-and-white vacuums is a significant cost and risk. The last thing the brand needs is a warehouse full of these things. I can tell you from personal experience that managing special inventory like this can be a pain - and when your product is gathering dust in the back, it’s an ongoing reminder of the failure of your promotion.

Whether $50 to a cause or $50 off the price, meaningful marketing is in the eye of both the customer and the marketer. Even large, historically successful efforts like the tie-in to National Breast Cancer Awareness Month need a careful approach that is tailored for individual brands. I fear that Oreck might have reached too far in its hope to “clean for the cure.”

UPDATE: Another really odd tie-in I saw over the weekend, was this Xbox Live ad for a “Go Pink!” version of Madden NFL ‘09.  Is this really going to connect with young guys who play video games?  Check it out:

A few weeks ago I wrote about a great experience with Delta, in which the airline noticed that I was stuck in the middle seat on a Monday morning and rewarded me with an apology and a few bonus miles. This week, I was again pleasantly surprised with a nice charitable tie-in to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

I received an email from Delta inviting me to register for a promotion in which 250 miles would go to both me and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation if I simply booked a flight or checked in online at Delta.com. In terms of meaning, this provides value to me on two levels. First, I’m definitely a mile collector, and I like the chance to add a few to the bank for future free tickets. We call this Solution marketing.

But this goes further to add the benefit of helping me, in a small way, improve the lives of others by sending miles to this worthy cause. All I have to do is print a boarding pass online, so it’s little effort and a nice reward. It makes me feel a little better about myself.

And this is where the marketing benefits kick in for Delta. The brand benefits by linking the benefit to an action that builds Delta’s business. It might sell a couple more tickets, and also saves on costs by getting people to check in online. Shifting habits might lead to long-term benefits for Delta.

Another long-term benefit is the boost to the brand equity. Smart cause tie-ins like this make customers feel better about giving their business to Delta.

Finally, thanks to its loyalty program and ability to track customers through extensive data on each interaction, Delta can get ROI results for even modest promotions like this, and it can start personalizing the offers that it provides to individual members. Delta might find that it is more meaningful for me to receive cause-related offers, resulting in greater efficiency and results.

In a recent message to investors at a Lehman Brothers Back-to-School Consumer Conference, Kellogg’s CMO Mark Baynes bragged of his company’s success at cutting costs in marketing through improved efficiency. Baynes mentioned several smart tactics related to traditional advertising, such as pooling commercial shoots and promotional analysis. But buried on page 71 of the Advertising Age coverage of his speech is a report that Kellogg’s is seeing strong results from a great example of meaningful marketing.

Baynes specifically mentioned that his company sees online ROI surpass that of broadcast TV “by a factor of well over two.”  Interestingly, the company’s most visible example of digital marketing is a two-year-long effort called The Special K Challenge.

The Special K Challenge holds a significant promise of meaning for consumers. It suggests that participants can drop a full dress size in two weeks by adopting a habit of two bowls of cereal a day for two weeks. The program includes customized plans and email tips from a trainer and nutritionist. Kellogg’s has partnered with Yahoo! to create a modest community site.

The program appears to be a big success in terms of marketing results as well. Aside from benefiting from the ROI efficiencies mentioned above, CEO David MacKay says the initiative is driving share and boosting cereal consumption outside of breakfast - a huge upside opportunity.

It is likely that many more marketing leaders will move dollars to digital marketing, as Kellogg’s ROI numbers are certainly not limited to the cereal aisle. My hope is that this current shift of focus doesn’t just mean more banner ads - but rather that brands rethink their entire marketing approach and use the digital channel to actually add value to their customers’ lives.

It’s Friday - the day of the week when many of us like to surf the Web or the email inbox for a small distraction before the weekend starts. So I figure it’s as good a day as any to share another example of Marketing WITHOUT Meaning…

This week I didn’t have to look hard to find something provocative to write about. Despite multiple layers of spam protection that often leaves clients’ messages sitting in “mailMAX” purgatory alongside come-ons for male enhancement products, a sales message with multiple attachments made it through unscathed from an individual at Xipto.com. Here’s the unedited pitch:

Hi, Bob-

We have just completed our launch for Cincinnati Bell wireless subscribers.  Xipto allows cell phone users to choose messages to play out when they receive incoming calls.  The format is a 25 second mp3 clip that is introduced by a two-second ‘Your friend supports the following message.’ The messages are about brands, causes, events, or passions — messages that are relevant to reflective [huh?] of the individual cell phone subscribers.

We just started marketing Xipto last week, and already hundreds of CBW subscribers have signed up to endorse messages and those messages are playing out to their incoming callers.

Here are a few links and tools that you can explore, along with our press release below.  We would like to present Xipto to you next week — might you be free on Wednesday, September 18 at 9:30 a.m. I promise you’ll see the potential of Xipto as an innovative marketing tool.

Thanks very much.

Jill (not the real name)”

The gist, I figured, was that I could enable my phone to spam incoming callers with ad-supported messages of my choosing. Great! As a meaningful marketing practioner, I felt it was my duty to check out Xipto.com and the MP3 samples of what kinds of messages are “relevant to reflective” (per the email above) to people I might be calling. Here’s an example of what your friends could be hearing when they dial you up this weekend:

discover_biggs_prepend

The bonus: you can get paid every time a friend hears the relevant to reflective message you choose! Xipto doesn’t give specifics, but the website states that there is either a cash-back or donation option for the brands you market to your callers. Which makes one jump to quickly calculate the CPM on a year of phone calls - especially if incoming solicitor calls count!

Despite the Xipto sales rep’s emails and phone calls, I decided not to take the meeting. I cannot see how anyone would agree to sign up for or listen into such a service. One might note that more than 150 million numbers have been registered on the federal do-not-call list. More Americans have registered for this list than have registered to vote! The bottom line is that ad models that depend on a few seconds of interruption are increasingly driving people away entirely. Tests of pre-roll video ads show a 75% abandon rate. How many calls friends are you willing to lose in order to spread your “message” and make a nickel?

Once again, marketers of all types need to accept that unwanted advertising is a failed business model. In a separate iMedia article I read this week, Ted McConnell, interactive innovation director at Procter & Gamble, probably said it best: “I don’t think we will ever buy into a model that relies on personalized, unsolicited messages in a private addressable channel such as a telephone - and neither will consumers.” Amen.

In what seems like just weeks since the media world had embraced fully cause-related and sustainability marketing, it seems we’re already questioning ourselves and rethinking the best way to build brands in modern times—again. Some predicted that cause-related and sustainability marketing would fall back as the latest fad, or lose out to the next “what’s next.” Instead, it’s the economy, stupid, which seems to have us questioning these forms of meaningful marketing.

The growing countertrend is a belief that people are less willing to pay attention to brands’ good works for the less fortunate when they are forced to worry about feeding and clothing their own families. Advertising Age seems to have broken the seal on this line of thinking with an article today titled “Economic Blues Leave No Room for Green.” Reporter Jack Neff wrote of a survey of CMOs completed by Professor Christine Moorman at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business (who, incidentally, our president, Jay Woffington, has guest-lectured for). Moorman’s survey showed that CMOs who were more pessimistic about the economy tended to de-prioritize marketing around causes and environmental sustainability. A graph of the results is shown above.

Neff called me for my perspective on the study and whether we were seeing this with our clients, and ended up using several of my quotes in the article. My take is as follows:

First, I think it makes complete sense that people will, on average, be less interested in external causes when there is more pressure on their own budgets and families. A quick search of recent news shows that food pantries and the Red Cross are seeing fewer donations because of the economy. Donna Goldfarb, VP of consumer and market insights for Unilever Americas, makes a good point that we can follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs here. In other words, when food and shelter are secure, we can aim to improve society, but when these basics are under pressure, we retrench, cut coupons, and stick with the cheaper store brands.

On the other hand, I believe that brands that support worthy causes and truly make a difference with their work can reap a strong return on investment. Cause-related and sustainability marketing still help brands differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace. And, as I said at the end of the article, “Coupons won’t get you on The Today Show.”

But the big question for this space is: Does a worsening economy dampen Meaningful Marketing? I think not.

To be clear, Marketing with Meaning has nothing specifically to do with cause-related marketing. Rather, it suggests that each brand must choose marketing activities that are meaningful to its target customer. Following Maslow, in great economic times, this might mean cause and sustainability efforts, and when people are under pressure to pay the bills or find work, a free sample or BOGO (Buy-One, Get-One) will move more cases.

Smart brands and CMOs should continually monitor their customers’ need states and adjust their approach accordingly. A move from higher-order causes to coupons and money-saving tips might be more appropriate today, on average.

But brands with historically successful and significant causes should think twice before abandoning these projects. These programs are built over decades, and a short-term cut may destroy a long-term win. Finally, we should remember that it is human nature to rally together during tough times. Lately I’ve been reading my 7-year-old a historical fiction series about life as a child during the Depression (yes, it’s an American Girl series). The stories depict one of nation’s toughest times, but also one in which neighbors banded together to help each other and the unfortunate.

The brands that stick to what their customers find meaningful in both the short and long term are more likely to weather the economic storms and come out stronger than ever.