by STEPHANIE FIERMAN

Ed Note: As the numbers trickle in and retail analysts debate the success – or lack thereof – of this holiday season, Trustmeister Stephanie Fierman asks the key question…

Is Santa the best marketer ever?

Think about it.

Long-term reputation management: No Tiger Woods problems here. Ever. Do you think that Coca-Cola worries that it might go to sleep one night and wake up to find a sex tape of Santa on the Web? Have you ever noticed that the whole “Mommy kissing Santa Claus” business never seems to go past a certain point (paging Charlie Sheen…)? Nope, not gonna happen. Santa is one reliable dude.

Brand promise and channel integration: No matter where you go, you receive the same disciplined message. Movies, television, email, radio, social media, Web, snail mail, music, retail… You get the same message everywhere and each channel builds upon and reinforces the others. He’s big, he’s fat, he wears a red suit and he gives you what you ask for on Christmas Eve. Not December 23. Not December 25. It’s December 24. Every year.

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by STEPHANIE FIERMAN

Here at the Garage, we believe that a more measured approach to bank and investment advertising is probably a positive development.

After all, hadn’t all the ads begun to look the same? Could every company and every investment have possibly offered the best return, and the most Morningstar stars, and the biggest retirement homes in paradise? Unlikely. Outside of just a few stalwarts, such as Vanguard with its slow-and-steady point of view and Bogle-esque approach, many of the siren calls in the newspaper, on television and online had all taken on a surreal and undifferentiated patina. That’s not effective.

Now it appears that all the bulls have stampeded in the opposite direction.

Consider the list of firms advertising in one issue of The Wall Street Journal this past week, along with text pulled verbatim from their ads: Continue Reading

by JARVIS CROMWELL

Back in 2007 we quoted renowned free-marketeer Milton Friedman on the pages of this blog as follows:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business,” Friedman wrote back in 1970, and that is to “engage in activities designed to increase profits.”

Friedman’s viewpoint ultimately became the guiding principal of an era: profitable self-interest would be viewed as the only reliable endgame by most businesses.

The costs were higher than anyone imagined.

We read today that there is increasing consensus that there will be a 15-25% drop in the standard of living around the world (more in some especially beleaguered regions) as a result of the current crisis. Wow. And some corners are now arguing that 2008 was to capitalism what 1989 was to communism. Is this the demise of free market capitalism as we know it? Or is there a way out of this place?

The optimistic view is that our current sorry state of affairs will herald a new era of free market capitalism that fellow trustmeister Dr. Sri Raghavan and I have termed “Trust Metric capitalism.” The idea is that management teams must demand that their organizations better measure what truly matters for the long-term health of the system. To achieve that, organizations will need to look at metrics beyond short-term profit — the kind that measure the underlying health and vitality of their organization, transactions and markets. The pessimistic view is that leaders will hunker down in a tough market, continue with an agenda that is both short-term oriented and bubble-prone, and generally fail to lead us into sustainable profit and growth.

Over a year ago the futurist Andrew Zolli wrote a piece in where he declared that the oblivious capitalist’s days are numbered. In this case Zolli cast his eye to the future and concluded that a host of global forces will force a remake of the playbook for business success. Business will profit by driving a wider social agenda and “the clinical, value-neutral capitalism of old” will fall by the wayside.

Let’s face it, whichever way you slice it companies have much work to do. That work includes reducing costs and preparing financially for a long winter. But beyond the very real financial constraints, this is a time of customer scarcity and increasing fear. Building trust must now become a central means through which companies will drive customer sales, loyalty and retention, employee engagement, productivity and, ultimately, long-term shareholder value. It is an essential metric to the survival of capitalism as we know it. Warren Buffett compared trust and confidence to the air we breath. We take it for granted until it’s gone.

What do you think? Are the days numbered for the oblivious capitalist — or will leadership rise to the challenge and institute a new set of performance measures to bring us back from the brink? Which companies get it, which don’t? We would like to know your views.