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brand transparency- patagonia (39.53264411091661 , -119.78668212890625) It might be tempting for a brand that's built a reputation for environmental concerns to rest on its laurels and continue on with the same old strategy.

However, that's not the case with Patagonia, who despite building a brand that's focused on supporting the environment, it's recently turned its attention to the eco-footprints of its products.

There's a dedicated space on its website that examines the footprints of four of its products.



While this is a very limited selection of its total SKUs, the manner and honesty in which the information is presented is refreshing for the following reasons.

1. It explores the breadth of the issue from materials to transportation

2. They acknowledge that things aren't perfect

3. They highlight the fact they want to improve

4. They encourage others to comment

5. The translate the impact into language we can all understand- the energy to produce a rain jacket is the same as leaving a regular lightbulb on constantly for 42 days!!

It would be good to see other brands follow Patagonia's lead.


Posted by Ed Cotton A well-known British actor gets his dream assignment, the chance to make a program about the perfect pint of beer.

Nice work if you can get it, but there's even more upside because the show is all about creating beer that actually makes it into production.

Apparently, leading grocery chain Sainsbury's is interested in carrying the new brand.

The integration here is fantastic, no bolt-on or add on association, but a deep education in the form of programing that becomes a three hour ad for a new brand.

Although, it will be tough for this fledgling brand to compete against the established players, the rich level of content and the emotional journey that the programming will take viewers on, will be so much deeper than any ad campaign from one of the leading brewers.

The challenge will be building and maintaining the momentum after the initial wave of coverage and PR.

However, it does show an opportunity for a new way to think about branded content.

What if Bud was to develop a new brew with a programming idea like this, rather than simply attach its name as a show sponsor or have featured product placement?

Obviously Anthony Bourdain, is the one guy who could do this in the US- let's see what he does next after the success of No Reservations.



Posted by Ed Cotton Innocent Drinks has always thought differently about the relationship it has with its customers.

It's constantly looking to level the playing field, which can be something of a challenge as the company grows.

However, they are continuing to innovate in this area of outreach, as witnessed by its announcement for an AGM in April.

"We’ve always liked to know what you think of our drinks. That’s why we ask you to ring the banana phone or pop into Fruit Towers. And it’s great when you do because we get to have a chat, and find out what you’d like to see innocent doing next.

This year, we thought we’d go a step further and have our very own AGM. It’s not going to be particularly formal (no men in suits telling you about profit engineering). We see it as being more like a get together in a village hall where you find out what’s going on, have a bit of a debate and then vote on a few things.

We’ve never done anything like this before, but the general idea is to try and get about a hundred of our drinkers to come along and find out a bit more about life at Fruit Towers. And, more importantly, get involved in voting on what we should be doing next as a business. 

So you get to tell us what to do, and we’ll give you lots of free smoothies. And that’s it really. It would be great if we could get every single person who ever drank a smoothie to come along, but we think it might be a bit of a squeeze. Which means we’re going to have a ballot where everyone who fancies it lets us know their name, and says why they’d be a good person to have along on the day.

It would be great to hear your thoughts about what you’d like to know about most. And if you don’t get picked, we promise to make sure we update you on everything that happened on the day, and give you a chance to have your say too."

Posted by Ed Cotton There's a new documentary all about the cult that surrounds the Apple brand.



Posted by Ed Cotton Mohamed Iqbal is a Senior Planning Director at Ogilvy in Bangalore, he is also a member of our Planning for Good team.

A couple of years back, he wrote a paper that connected The Long Tail to brand communication. It won him a top prize from WPP.

He has now distilled the paper down into a Change This manifesto and it makes a great read.

The essence of his argument is that for years brands and agencies have followed a disciplined approach to uncovering and communicating ONE thing about a brand.

Mohamed believes this thinking is now flawed because of the widespread availablity of free and cheap media. He doesn't suggest that it's wrong to have one lead proposition, it's just that you can have a number of others and target specific groups with them.



In addition, armed with real-time data, you can easily calculate the ones that aren't working and the ones that are.

One really interesting point he makes is that agencies believe when they launch a new campaign, they are making a clean break with the past. It's a pre-internet notion, today, nothing is forgotten because every message ever created is now accessible and informs our brand understanding.

Finally, he recommends letting the consumers work it out for themselves, put the messages out there and they will find the nuances that work for them.

For all the planners out there, this suggests there's a new way to work and that our briefs needs to change to reflect the opportunity. The world has certainly gotten more complex because we can tell more stories, so the critical component becomes, media, because we need to know where we can tell these stories.




Posted by Ed Cotton I picked up this card sometime ago at Frog Design event, it's certainly not subtle or minimal, it shouts and screams at you, but it does give you a great flavor of the place.

Most business cards, don't work this hard.



Posted by Ed Cotton