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.

We believe there are two key tests of meaningful marketing. The first is that it must be marketing that consumers choose to engage with. The second is that the marketing itself improves consumers’ lives. In this blog’s past several posts I believe I’ve covered the former pretty well; but I want to spend more time hitting the latter more often.

“Marketing itself improves consumers’ lives” is a pretty big test. It essentially says that the consumer can benefit from the brand without actually repaying it with a purchase. This can be a pretty big mental leap for marketers and their advertising agencies. An even bigger test, however, is when a brand uses marketing to improve consumers’ lives in such a way that it could decrease sales at the same time. Nutty, huh? Well, tell the Tylenol brand.

You have most likely noticed a flurry of marketing by Tylenol as part of its Feel Better campaign. It is appearing in TV, online,  print, and outdoor. While the reach of the campaign has probably hit your eyeballs dozens of times, you probably engaged attention because of its fairly revolutionary messages. You see, Tylenol’s advertising is telling consumers how to avoid headaches – in other words, how to avoid needing to take Tylenol at all.

A few examples are in the photo above. Bus stop ad headlines include: “Pass breakfast. You may go straight to a headache” and “Skipping meals can cause headaches.” A trip to Tylenol.com leads to articles about other triggers of headaches, such as excessive noise, bright lights, and certain foods. Other Tylenol line extensions have followed the same path. Tylenol Cold formula advises that “Popsicles can soothe a sore throat.” Tylenol Arthritis Pain formula suggests that “Arthritic joints need strong muscles to protect them.”

I think Tylenol is in the lead of a new trend. Another brand that I’ve seen make progress on this line of meaning is Bank of America, which is featuring a campaign that teaches its customers how to avoid banking fees. Both brands realize that they are much better off by looking out for the customer first, and doing it in an obvious way that builds trust.

Long term (and all marketers should be in it for the long term), I believe this kind of investment in meaning will pay off. Tylenol knows that people will still have headaches or otherwise need pain relief, and since its active ingredient is exactly the same as the store brand but at a much higher price, this goodwill should translate to “loyalty beyond reason.” And Bank of America knows that it can make a lot more money by winning long-term, cross-sell business from its customers rather than screwing them on a $20 fee. Both brands are also using the programs to invite customers into a long-term relationship marketing program. By giving valuable information in this way, they will keep people coming back.

We may need to change our second meaningful marketing test to: “the marketing itself improves consumers’ lives - even at the expense of sales.“