Bob Schwartz

Month: March, 2012

March 15, 2012

Cleveland Clinic’s Power of Today Ad

The new Cleveland Clinic commercial campaign, The Power of Today, is a model of TV advertising, showing the value of good basic messaging combined with a tactical twist.

Cleveland Clinic is one of the best-known and most-respected health care providers in the nation. More than just a hospital with world-class specialty care, it operates facilities and clinics covering a range of needs, from the everyday to the most sophisticated.

The clear and appealing messages of the 60-second commercial are:

  1. Cleveland Clinic is a world-class provider.
  2. Despite being world-class, it is also approachable, accessible, and patient-centric. It is for everybody. It is for you.
  3. You don’t have to wait for that level of care. You can get an appointment with one of our doctors today.

The master commercial says this:

Today is a big day. Today we greet you, treat you, care for you. Today you can come to us for anything, everything or just to get that thing checked out. Big, small and yes. The best heart care in the nation. It’s here everyday for everyone. That’s the power of Today. Call Today. We’re here for you.

That’s where the twist comes in. To emphasize and realize this point about today, versions have been produced and are running each day of the week (“Today is Monday” and so on).

Even knowing how the magic trick is done (“How does that commercial know that today is Monday?”), the effect is arresting and supportive of the core message. With great straightforward copy (check out the number of one syllable words above) and solid but unfussy visuals, this is how it should be done.

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March 15, 2012

Political Fairness and Context

All is fair in love, war, and politics. Most don’t actually believe that unconditionally, but when push comes to shove, principles of fairness have a way of bending in the furtherance of some higher causes and outcomes.

As a politician, Mitt Romney appears to be more than rhetorically challenged. He seems to have some kind of disability when it comes to expressing himself spontaneously in a politically positive way. Examples are by now too many to list, though if he does become the Republican Presidential candidate, every last one of the verbal blunders made and yet to be made are sure to be front and center.

In a radio interview this week, Romney was asked about federal spending he would cut as President, and among other programs, he said he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood. It is obvious that what he meant was that he would cut federal support for Planned Parenthood. But since everything that any politician says can be taken and used in different ways, there are a number of possibilities:

He meant just what he said, inartfully as usual, that he would cut federal spending for the organization, and that no tax money would be spent there.

He meant that he would cut federal spending for the organization, which in turn would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood. Romney presumably knows better and knows that Planned Parenthood has other funding sources, though it would be no doubt be hurt by such a cut.

He meant to send a message to some conservative voters that he disdains Planned Parenthood as much as they do, and while he would only be able to propose cuts in federal support, if he had the power to directly control the fate of the organization (which he wouldn’t), he would love to get rid of it.

A number of vocal and visible Democratic proponents believe and have seized on the last interpretation. But to make that point, and to avoid getting into long-form exegetical nuance, they simply quote Romney saying that he wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood. The problem is that in context, that isn’t what he said, even if he meant or was signaling something bigger and more significant.

Democrats regularly complain, justifiably, when they and President Obama are the targets of out of context quotes and multimedia moments. As with all kinds of questionable tactics, from love to war, it comes down to a choice between adopting the inglorious approach, fire-with-fire, or recognizing and reaching for higher ground. The point of fairness is that if it isn’t universally applied, it becomes an expedient tool to be used or left in the toolbox as the situation demands.

If truth is the first casualty of war, maybe fairness is the first casualty of politics. But it shouldn’t be, because we are better than that. Or at least we think we are.

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March 14, 2012

The Green Fields of the Mind

A. Bartlett Giamatti was the president of Yale University and, for a brief time until his untimely death in 1989, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Besides his commitment to baseball, Giamatti was a man of letters who left behind some remarkable writing about the game. None is more moving and famous than his short essay The Green Fields of the Mind.

On the occasion of a new baseball season, here is an excerpt. Whoever you root for, whatever the season or the game – baseball, politics, art, religion, business, love, life – it offers hard to accept wisdom and the semi-sweet opposite of comfort:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops…

It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised…

And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.

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March 13, 2012

Tone Deaf Marketing at SXSW

The marketing program that turned homeless people into walking WiFi hotspots at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin has gotten plenty of criticism and ridicule. But above all that, it seems to be one more example of epidemic tone deafness in marketing, entertainment, politics, and everywhere that people don’t seem to be listening to what they are saying and doing.

BBH Labs of New York came up with the concept. They posted:

This year in Austin, as you wander between locations murmuring to your coworker about how your connection sucks and you can’t download/stream/tweet/instagram/check-in, you’ll notice strategically positioned individuals wearing `Homeless Hotspot’ T-shirts. These are homeless individuals in the Case Management program at Front Steps Shelter. They’re carrying MiFi devices. Introduce yourself, then log on to their 4G network via your phone or tablet for a quick high-quality connection…You pay what you want (ideally via the PayPal link on the site so we can track finances), and whatever you give goes directly to the person that just sold you access. We’re believers that providing a digital service will earn these individuals more money than a print commodity.

The “print commodity” that inspired the program was the classic model of homeless people selling newspapers (remember them?) on the streets. Since coworkers are no longer wandering around murmuring about how it sucks that you can’t find a newspaper, this seemed to someone like a rational, even brilliant, marketing analog and social experiment. The critics have been quick to point out that treating people like digital transmitters might be a little depersonalizing, even if you tipped them. Expect to see this one satirized mercilessly and immediately.

You can’t catch all controversial ideas before they go live. It’s a fine line between “what were they thinking” and groundbreaking, just as, in the words of Nigel Tufnel, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” What can help, simple as it sounds, is taking time, listening to what you’re saying and doing, and exercising some discernment and discretion. All that is in shorter supply, given the pace of messaging and the opportunity to communicate infinitely and instantly. But a little less deafness, a little more time listening, is a way to avoid “it sounded like such a good idea at the time.”

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March 13, 2012

Can Israel Stop the Syrian Genocide?

Can Israel stop the Syrian genocide? On its face, the question seems practically preposterous and crazy. But at its heart, the question has a right resonance.

Argue about conflict and aggression, current and historic, argue about religion, argue about appropriation, argue about morals and equities, but Israel remains the standard bearer and source of a tradition of forceful global compassion. On top of that, the existence of modern Israel is grounded in the repudiation of one of history’s most notorious genocides—it was the Holocaust that in part gave rise to the term itself.

Is there any practical expression of this, at this moment, in that neighborhood, that makes any sense or would not worsen rather than better situations? Almost certainly not. But in a world and region that continues to exhibit madness, maybe moments of crazy wisdom are what we need to break through. Because whatever we are doing isn’t working.

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March 9, 2012

Romney’s Away Down South Game

Mitt Romney is downplaying expectations for his performance in the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, saying the elections are an “away game” for him.

Even though home field advantage is usually a topic when one candidate can claim native or adoptive connection (Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia, etc.), there are no natives or adoptees in this race at this moment. The fact is that when you’re running for President, even at the party nomination level, the U.S. is your home field. This isn’t regional beanbag, to paraphrase Romney, this is national politics. You may one day be President of all the people, and none of those people live in a foreign country.

Speaking of Mississippi, Romney also said that through a relationship with local politicians he had become an “unofficial” Southerner, parotting “y’all” and liking grits. Three things Mitt Romney has to learn:

You can move to Mississippi and other places in the South, live there, love it there, but you will not be a Southerner, unofficial or otherwise. Don’t even think about it.

“Y’all” and “All y’all” are some of the most useful linguistic creations in the English language, not just quaint phrases in a guidebook. Respect them.

What can you say about grits that hasn’t already been said? You don’t like grits, you love grits. It is the ultimate breakfast synthesizer, turning a disconnected group of eggs, toast, and meat (or meat substitute) into the best and most important meal of the day.

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