Should You Talk to Your Daughter before Unilever Does?

If I were responsible for corporate PR at Unilever, I'd be getting little bit nervous about the chatter in the blogosphere these days.  A few weeks ago, there was the video by Rye Clifton (see below) in which he challenged the company's dual position on women.  With Dove they take the high ground, and defy the beauty industry's push for übersexy women.  With Axe, they then do exactly what they condemn.

Professional marketers of course know this is driven by a supreme insight of what drives individual target markets.  And let's face it, when it comes to acting on insights, the guys at Unilever are about as good as it gets.  Still, those who are less commercially savvy (i.e. the other 99.99% of people) might consider these double standards a bit as, ... double standards?

In this, I thought it was interesting to see that today even sophisticated players like PSKF have become "a bit nauseated" by Axe's latest project and contrast Axe with Dove.

My guess is that the cat is slowly coming out of the bag and by contradicting their own moral stance, a few Unilever silo-separated executives are skating on very thin ice.

So while I'd be the last to argue against a tactic that's apparently raking in the millions, I do wonder whether in marketing-land there is something like "serial authenticity" and if so, how long Unilever can keep it up.  

Let's all watch, and learn ...

The Marketer's Bushido (SlideShare)

Based on some of the work we've been doing in the area of marketing accountability, I got invited to do a few hour inspiration session at Masterplan 2007 in Bucharest.  As I was tiring of the "Marketing has an image problem" drill, I decided to take a different direction. 

"If marketing is such a dishonerable profession", I thought, "then let's establish a code of honour" (Click here for presentation).

The next thing I knew 120 rapid-fire slides found their way into my PowerPoint presentation which built on an earlier idea I had: a Bushido for marketers.  For background, the Bushido was the - Chinese inspired - code of honour by which Japanese Samurai lived (and died), yet which also can be found across Asia.

I realise that the 7 values I came up with are probably anyhing but complete, and I already want to change some things.  Still, I have uploaded a summarised short version of my work in progress which perhaps may offer you some food for thought.

There will also be a fully annotated version of the complete Marketer's Bushido, but I'm told I should charge some money for that :-) ... coming soon.