Last week I attended the Boston Young Entrepreneur’s meeting at City Hall, where I met quite a few interesting people. Amongst the group was Tyler Balliet, CEO and Publisher of The Second Glass, an unpretentious wine magazine. For my Bostonian readers, you may recognize The Second Glass from the half-page article in the August 22nd edition of the Boston Metro. For all you college students out there, almost all of the wines featured in The Second Glass are very reasonably priced (under $15), with the sole exception being the wine porn feature, which showcases a ridiculously priced (and ridiculously good) wine. The latest edition features a Domaine Coche-Dury 2001 vintage, which comes in at $3,000 a bottle!
I actually ran into Tyler and Morgan First of Map Boston, a guide to the City of Boston, Friday night while I was on a four mile trek from The Greatest Bar on Friend Street next to the TD Banknorth Garden to my house in Dorchester. Boston is a city where it’s easy to run into people you know on the streets, but complex enough where guides like MAP Boston come in handy even for seasoned Bostonians, which is one of the many things I love about this city. Congratulations to Tyler for the Boston Metro article and to Morgan for the upcoming release of the 2007-2008 edition of MAP Boston. To my Bostonian readers, check out MAP Boston at its release party on September 12th at The Otherside Cafe on 407 Newbury street, starting at 9pm and ending at midnight.
As Interface Carpets’ mission focuses on environmental sustainability, Ray Anderson’s leadership style shows evidence of both ethical and servant strategies. Since the environment is a resource shared by and endowed to all humans and life on earth, any company which disproportionately uses environmental resources for its own benefit, especially in a harmful manner, is acting unethically by denying other humans access to that resource. Ray Anderson understands that all of us must share in the positive and negative aspects of the environment, and shows this belief by empowering all of his employees to take part in the idea generation and decision making of leading Interface to several green goals. This realization and belief also shows Ray’s use of servant leadership, as he knows Interface Carpets must serve its clients, its employees, its stake-holders and its total environment in order to succeed now and in the long-term.
Ray Anderson also acts as a servant to the general public, by producing goods for society in an environmentally friendly manner, but also by spreading the message of environmentalism to other companies and organizations. For instance, Ray has a lengthy speaking part in the Sundance award winning documentary, The Corporation, where he discusses his shame at not initiating a green movement at his company much sooner, not just because of the effect on the environment, but also because his customers (whom he’s supposed to be serving) were asking him about environmental programs at Interface and he was absolutely clueless about what to tell them as he had not yet thought about such matters (this was in 1994). The fact that he then began to institute green programs at Interface shows his listening, empathy and awareness characteristics.
Ray also shows conceptualization, building community, and commitment to the growth of people via his empowering employees and also through his commitment to an organization that can serve a purpose without harming the environment. His belief in the good of a green company has led Interface to adopt numerous environmental initiatives and has encouraged employees through the organization to think green.
One of the main signs of Ray’s servant leadership is his stewardship over the environment. In the movie, The Corporation, Ray discusses how people like him have abused environmental resources for the benefit of their companies while causing immense damage to our environment. Ray has now completely flipped around and is a role model for all companies to follow in pursuing a green way of operating. Ray understood that the environment does not belong to businesses but rather is a part of the earth and belongs to every human, animal, plant and all other life-forms presently living on the planet and who will live here in the future. Especially noteworthy, is Ray’s openness on the damage companies like his had already done to the environment and how if they continued abusing the environment they would inevitably fail, as such disproportionate relationships with the environment are simply unsustainable. In the movie, The Corporation, Ray compares his early management of Interface to the ways of a plunderer, stating he took what’s not his (the environment) and used it to his own benefit without returning an equal benefit to society. He then goes on to state that a day will come where people like him (a plunderer) will be sent to prison! This type of blunt openness and authenticity is rarely seen but immensely treasured.
This authenticity also shows that Ray’s sudden change is not a marketing scheme, but rather is an honest disgust at his old way of managing and genuine desire to change his business (before he dies) into a fully sustainable organization.
As the paper on Ray Anderson shows, he has an immense ability to heal his employees and the environment through his initiatives. Several employees of a firm Interface bought out were absolutely amazed that they were encouraged to think about the environment at Interface and were re-invigorated by being able to work without plainly and obviously harming the environment.
Ray also shows foresight in that he understands that if companies do not change their ways and focus on sustainability, that the environment will be irreparably damaged and that these companies will simply cease to exist as they would have taken so much from the planet without giving back that there is simply nothing left to take.
Finally, Ray definitely shows persuasion characteristics, perhaps not at Interface (or at least the case study did not show signs of it), but definitely in his speeches to other executives (see the below excerpt from The Corporation) where he lambastes himself and his “fellow plunderers” for ruining the environment to the point of unsustainability. His use of statistics about the financial success at Interface while implementing sustainability, and his passionate words act as a very persuasive tool to alter the perceptions of other executives focused on pure profit.
In terms of ethics, I feel it’s quite plain to see the ethical values of Ray Anderson. Before he was aware of the true consequences of this company’s practices on the environment, he acted ethically by pursuing the best interests of his employees and Interface’s other stake-holders, to the best of his knowledge. Once he became aware that Interface was severely harming the environment, he understood the moral implications of his business. From there he made a moral judgment that his company and other similar companies simply could not continue down this environmentally harmful path. He put together task-forces and empowered employees to enact changes at Interface to lead them up Mt. Sustainability. He further implemented plans at Interface and set about preaching to the rest of the corporate world on the morally correct way of doing business, while still remaining profitable. He himself states that ensuring Interface does no harm is a core value of his and Interface’s. His plans for creating a green Interface also have a huge benefit to the rest of society and can be seen as just (by removing the plunderer actions, whereby Interface takes more than it deserves) and authentic, as Ray pursues green goals in his personal life (as noted in the Grist Interview, where he notes that he drives a Toyota Prius).
I also see aspects of Path-Goal Theory, Visionary, Charismatic Transformational leadership, and Participative Management. By providing suggestion boxes, Ray enabled his employees to put into action their ideas, his recognition and plans to change Interface into a sustainable organization shows his visionary and transformational leadership strategies, while his belief and confidence that sustainability is important shows his charisma. The use of teams and employee empowerment are signs of participative management at work at Interface.
Ray Anderson is a fitting end to our discussion and is an immense role-model for future leaders. Though Ray himself admits he has not always led a green personal or professional life, the fact that the recognized the immoral way of his past and has worked feverishly to enact changes at Interface and in the business community as a whole shows signs of values-driven, charismatic, visionary, servant leadership. The ability to recognize just how wrong one’s past actions were, and the ability to openly admit it to the entire world shows immense self-confidence as well as authenticity, which help Ray spread his beliefs in sustainability to the rest of the corporate world.
Russell, Robert F. and A. Gregory Stone. A Review of Servant Leadership Attributes: Developing a Practical Model.Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 23.3 (2002): 145-157.
Rosenberg, Beth. Case study of Interface Carpet and Fabric Company. Tufts University School of Medicine: Department of Public Health and Family Medicine. Boston, 2005.
It’s surprising how many of the marketing methods utilized by advertisers from the Industrial Era and later are still used today. For instance, the concept of maintaining integrity of the medium at craigslist.org leads to a huge range of categories which contain and restrict the listings to defined spaces, similar to the column and type limitations of mid 19th century newspaper publishers. From then, marketing and consumption become interwoven, to the extent of barely being distinguishable sometimes. That idea continues today, as web-sites utilize inline advertising, which creates links out of editor’s texts, pointing to client’s sites.
Meanwhile the anticipation over every Steve Jobs speech at MacWorld creates a similar fury to the rumor-filled waits for the next Robert Bonner advertisement. Likewise, trailers for movies and video games are anticipated and marveled over, similar to the awe of Bonner’s use of iteration to create images.
With advertisers now attempting to create marketing messages that mimic authentic media distributions, there’s really no way to determine if a message is genuine, or a coy attempt to instill authenticity into it’s brand. At least when advertisers plaster their logos and messages on stadiums, clothing, even city streets and people, you at least know it’s an advertisement.
Viral marketing better attempts at creating authentic experiences for visitors, such as the blog possibly related to the new J.J. Abrams movie, which creates a storyline possibly relating to the movie and its storyline. At least here, the advertisers are not shamelessly touting their product, but rather trying to create an experience for the fan. Still, these blogs are a form of media, in and of themselves, while also possibly being marketing strategies for a movie, another form of media. Are we consuming advertising by following these viral marketing stories, or are we simply consuming media, that happens to be related to another form of media? The answer is hazy and shows the near total disintegration between consumption and marketing. Where does one start, where does the other begin, nobody can really pinpoint anymore. In fact, how do you know this post wasn’t sponsored by J.J. Abrams? And by raising the question myself, do I instill more authenticity into this message, or detract from it?
The above post is the second part of Discussion 13. Has advertising become too integrated with the rest of society? Is advertising a form of media all on its own? Is that OK?
In the beginning stages of marketing in America, the media distributors were entities completely dissociated from advertising and worked to institute journalistic standards, which in turn limited the range of advertising and forced advertisers to focus on the content, not the delivery. Newspapers were the primary media of the time and worked to ensure each advertiser was treated fairly, and received the same attention from readers of the paper. Advertisers were limited in terms of space, font size, and even capitalization of letters. Rather than abide by the standards the newspapers instituted, advertisers continually lobbied the editors to open up the format and allow advertisers to utilize the space to their needs. While smaller advertisers surely welcomed these restrictions as it leveled the playing field for them, marketers with greater resources felt frustrated at these limitations on their creative abilities to deliver a message to their audience.
Advertisers soon begin tweaking their content to deliver unique displays that fit within the publishers’ restrictions. Through sheer volume, the advertisers found ways around the specifications set out by the publishers. Robert Bonner’s use of iteration copy, where he simply purchased multiple consecutive spaces and inserted one advertisement, repeated over and over again seems an awful lot like today’s e-mail and postal mail spam; rather than providing consumers valid information, advertisers simply attack consumers with volume in the hopes that probability is on their side. Bonner had other tweaks, for instance, using first letters as capitals in consecutive lines to spell out words, such as LEDGER.
The creativity of Bonner’s tweaks, and surely the outrage felt by the publishers led to a fire storm of anticipation and rumors about the latest and greatest Bonner advertisement. At this point, the advertisers began to resemble true artists, whose attempts at creativity were restricted by the big, bad newspaper publishers. Was Robert Bonner the first rebel superstar of American advertising? It certainly seems so, as people would look forward to the next Bonner release to see what he had up his sleeve this time. Bonner’s advertisements became the product, and individuals consumed them in droves.
This increase in focus on the advertiser’s style led to another curious development, up to this point, businesses would attract consumers, which would lead to higher consumption and expansion. Now, however, businesses began expanding and creating large stores first, and then relying on unique advertisements to draw consumers to the business. Rather than an increase in demand leading to bigger business, bigger business now needed to increase demand!
It was no accident that the largest and most enterprising department stores were the pioneers of newspaper display advertising. Their need to attract crowds within a small geographic radius made the city dailies their perfect medium. (Boorstin)
This switch represents quite the paradigm shift, from the necessity of providing consumers good, valuable information as all advertisers were forced to compete with each other on the basis of content; now, with Bonner’s iteration copy and the break from the newspapers’ restrictions by department stores led to consumers being attracted to the style, not the content. This move also marked the declaration of advertisers that they will no longer be shackled by publisher’s restrictions. Bonner and the department stores’ advertisements marked the beginning of the integration of advertising into the rest of the material world, further fueled by Frederic Hudson’s proclamation that advertisements are a key feature of a newspaper.
The emergence of marketing style then led to the creation of consumption communities, the first signs of branding. As each brand now had it’s own style, consumers could in effect align their personal style and personality with a brand and more easily publicize themselves, as well as the brands they associated with. The distinction between consumption and marketing began to blur, as consumers themselves started to lose sight of why they were buying, and in essence promoting, these products. The positive effects of consumption communities for advertisers, meaning these consumers acted as spokesperson for their brands, caused firms to further desire to know who they were targeting successfully and why.
This desire led to the creation of marketing research firms, who could pinpoint demographic information about consumers buying preferences and advertising consumption. That’s right, advertising, and it’s related data, became a commodity, to be bought and sold by consumers, albeit they did not quite realize it yet. Rather than providing information to consumers, marketers had completely flipped the equation, and now bought information about their consumers. Advertisers became consumers, consumers became advertisers, and everyone became so confused we had to poll and survey individuals to determine just what, exactly, was going on.
It turns out, media, consumers, and advertisers were all mixing together, and adapting and performing functions normally associated with the other two groups. The chapter The Brand Expands, from No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein, presents a great analysis and summary of the symbiotic relationship between consumers, producers, media, and advertisers. For instance, producers would use advertisers to find musicians who were willing to be sponsored by their brand. Eventually, the brand became the showcase and the musicians were the sideshow. The advertisement for the brand became the product being consumed, and the musicians became the promoter (albeit sometimes negative) of that brand. Then, musicians grew wise of this trend, and began promoting themselves as a brand, extending so far as to create other forms of media (web-sites, posters, concerts etc.) and their own products with their logos on it. The market research phase naturally extended into the branding of anything and everything and the integration of consumption, marketing, production, and the public sphere, as it allowed all involved parties to access information about why the other entities were successful.
This brings us up to the modern age, where advertisers are viewed by children as the product, and the product is an advertiser (such as when the children in The Brand Extends questioned why athletes would pay to insert themselves into company advertisements). The separation of consumption and marketing has disintegrated to the point where we cannot truly determine who is buying and who is selling. Advertising has inserted itself into the material world in such a manner that we simply cannot consider a world with advertising constrained to 3 pt font in a tiny section in a newspaper. We pay for and consume so much advertising (in the form of movies, product placement, sponsorship, logo placement) that it has truly become a good to be bought, sold, and marketed, just like any other.
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