The film describes Julie as ‘mum-of-two’, and shows the growth of her business from idea to product to customers to internet sensation. All powered by Google.  As well as featuring in Google’s TV advertising, the film has had six million views on YouTube.

Google used to be the underdog.  When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the business at Stanford University, they were challenging the status quo, as most successful start-ups do.  Their mantra, ‘Do no evil’, consciously set them apart from the established, more corporate competition.  ‘Do no evil’ remains an unofficial slogan, but it’s become more of a plea for people outside the company to use Google’s power in the right way, rather than a rallying call for those on the inside of the organisation.  Google’s market dominance now leads to criticism over issues like copyright, censorship, and privacy.

It’s a difficult thing for companies who start off as the challenger to change that mindset once they become the market leader.  It’s almost impossible to imagine now, but Tesco started life as a start-up challenger – a few market stalls in the East End of London.  In a new book, ‘The Making of Tesco’, Sarah Ryle describes founder Jack Cohen’s struggles against the status quo in the early days: ‘Jack learned that the establishment did not always work well for customers……Jack’s biggest challenges were external. The National Federation of Grocers and Provision Dealers’ Association, in effect an early union for small traders, was cross about the street markets.  The costermongers undercut shop prices and, although this ensured survival for families on or below the poverty line, the London County Council eventually passed a bill in 1927 seeking to curb the markets.’

Today, Google and Tesco face the same problem: how do they maintain support and brand love when they stop being the underdog and start being the dominant player?

Virgin has managed to maintain its original challenger ethos and positioning by entering new sectors and challenging those dominant players – playing the underdog to British Airways, to Sky and BT.  But that’s not possible for brands that want to stay, broadly, in their main area of expertise.

Another option – the one Google has taken in its latest campaign – is to position itself on the side of the underdogs, and to use its scale as a force for good.  The satchel campaign clearly struck a chord in the UK, helpful at a time when Google had just provided questionable evidence of its ‘Do no evil’ approach by ‘managing’ its tax liabilities in the UK.  Tesco too has championed its smaller suppliers to illustrate the good its scale can do (vested interest alert here – we’ve been working with Tesco on this campaign).

Adam Morgan has written extensively about how challenger brands can compete.  Google Chrome’s satchel story shows how market leaders can tap into some of that challenger energy and support for the underdog.

I said recently that Starbuck’s would have been better off listening to their PR people than their lawyers when it came to deciding what tax to pay in the UK.  It’s an easy point to make with hindsight, and not a surprising one for a PR person.  But it got me wondering why we pay so much attention to what lawyers tell us, to the exclusion of nearly every other advisor and often our own better judgement.  Especially when you compare the Starbuck’s case to the success Virgin Rail had in combining legal and PR approaches to force the Government to overturn its initial decision to award the West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup.

It’s not that companies should start discounting the advice of their lawyers, just that they’d get better results by balancing this advice against the court of public opinion – particularly now that public opinion can be mobilised so quickly and effectively through social media.

Companies acting legally correctly but reputationally stupidly is nothing new.  Employing child labour, paying below living wages, hiring and firing staff, chopping down rainforests can all be done legally by companies depending on where they’re operating.  But they’re increasingly suicidal from a reputation perspective, and it’s a truism (but true) to say that increased connectivity is making it ever more dangerous to do so, balancing out the lawyer vs. PR advice scales.

There’s also something broader about the legal profession that seems at odds with modern life.  Something that can get in the way of them providing best advice to personal clients too.  Take the domestic property market in the UK.  It’s virtually stagnant and buyers and sellers need all the help they can get in trying to make deals happen.  Yet all too often the lawyers increase the friction (and risk sales falling through) by creating conflicts and arguments that don’t really exist.  Yes buyers need protection and sellers need guarantees, but the tone of communication between conveyance lawyers all too often poisons the buyer/seller relationship and slows down or prevents deals being done.

Couples separate (the divorce rate in the UK is over 40%) and most people, especially where children are involved, try and keep things civil.  But how often does the aggressive tone of legal letters scupper the chances of amicable separations that would save all parties stress, heartache and cost?

Democracies need the rule of law and effective legal systems need good lawyers.  But you just wish sometimes they’d think a bit more about the way they communicate and the impact it has.  If they did, they might advise corporate clients differently, balancing reputational issues against legal niceties, and offer better advice as a result.  And if they communicated more humanly on behalf of individual clients in stressful situations (moving house, getting divorced, dealing with probate), clients who get to pore over all those lawyer-to-lawyer letters and agonise over every turn of phrase, then perhaps the stakes wouldn’t always get raised so high.  For although the lawyers can argue aggressively with each other, put it all down to the game, and have a drink together afterwards, the impact such argumentative communication has on the non-legal participants can create lasting resentments and pain.

The best lawyers have always recognised the value of good communications.  But the definition of good communications for a lawyer is changing. It’s no longer just about having persuasive court skills to win over juries. It’s about recognising the communications landscape today and the severe commercial impact bad publicity can have. And it’s about recognising that people often need helping towards negotiated agreement and that the tone of communications can be fundamental to achieving this.

Some of my best friends are lawyers.

“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.”

Hindu proverb

Now it can easily be said that I’m a jack of all trades. Before arriving at salt, I had entertained a multitude of avenues from advertising through to sales and right round to finance, though nothing could have prepared me for the challenges that I would face one month into my internship.

I joined the team at the beginning of November and I’ve been entrusted with so much that I can’t believe it’s been a month, nor can the team as I’m still greeted at the water cooler with;

“….Are you sure it seems so much longer…no I’m definitely sure its longer than that..It’s not a month is it?”

I’m learning and developing skills that I can now add to my arsenal. From sourcing and collating relevant weekly articles for clients – helping me to understand the core issues in the markets where they operate. I’ve created media stories and conducted research into trending topics, which has helped me learn how to generate engaging content.

Additionally I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on client meetings and conference calls as well as deciphering my previous nemesis; social media.

It’s through my brief time at salt that I can truly appreciate what was missing before; I was working for people rather than with them. To be productive and to develop you need a designated mentor who offers advice (thank you Clare), colleagues who take time to share experience and stories, and a culture that rewards inquisitiveness and snack-fuelled collaborative creativity. A new experience and one I’ve rewarded with copious amounts of tea making and mince pies (’tis the season after all).

Being employed under the programme couldn’t have come at a better time, I was ready to accept the true potential of the opportunity offered, which taught me that there’ll be companies to whom your personality is most suited, and it is in those companies that you will be the happiest. A quote from one of our clients summed it up perfectly;

”Culture is how people act when no one is looking…”

And thankfully for me that’s exactly how they do things here. With that I wish you a Jolly Holiday and a Happy New Year.

Optimism and scepticism in equal measure at Sustainable Brands London.

The Sustainable Brands conference in London last week was another opportunity for like-minded businesses to agree violently with each other on how important it is to put sustainability at the heart of business strategy, and for agencies to demonstrate that they’re just the people to help them do so.  But there were lots of interesting discussions, and here are some take-away thoughts:

#1 (Some) people care (a bit)

People by and large split into 20% really care about sustainability, 60% care if it doesn’t get in the way, and 20% don’t care.

#2 Retailer power

Retailers hold the key to persuading those people in the middle to choose brands that embrace sustainability. Retailers, like Sainsbury’s, attract customers by demonstrating the values those customers aspire to. They do this by doing things themselves (like Sainsbury’s sponsorship of the Paralympics), and by giving higher visibility in-store to brands that also demonstrates these values (like Sainsbury’s support of the partnership between Domestos and Unicef).

#3 Asia leader

Asia is leap-frogging Europe and North America on sustainability, because of consumers who see the tangible results of not taking social and environmental impacts into account, and governments who can take a more planned approach to sustainable development.

#4 Culture

A company’s approach to sustainability is governed by the culture of its key geography.

#5 One audience

There is only one audience now: consumers are stakeholders, and stakeholders are consumers. As audiences merge, the corporate brand becomes a key asset – and liability. This creates different opportunities and threats for companies whose corporate brand is already consumer-facing (like Adidas, Sainsbury’s and L’Oreal) and those where the corporate and consumer brands have been separate (Yum, Diageo, P&G).

#6 Sustainability strategy

Most companies get to similar strategies on sustainability. The difference, as ever, is in the speed and quality of execution, and that comes down to being brave.

#7 Sustainable growth

Growth will come from adding social value.  Businesses and brands that find ways to add social value will find competitive advantage, new markets and sustained growth.

1. Vision

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) looks backwards, reporting on what a business has done, typically in the last 12 months, to make a contribution to society.

Sustainability looks forward, planning the changes a business might make to secure its future (reducing waste, assuring supply chains, developing new markets, building its brand).

2. Targets

CSR tends to target opinion formers – politicians, pressure groups, media.

Sustainability targets the whole value chain – from suppliers to operations to partners to end-consumers.

3. Business

CSR is becoming about compliance.

Sustainability is about business.

4. Management

CSR gets managed by communications teams.

Sustainability by operations and marketing.

5. Reward

CSR investment is rewarded by politicians.

Sustainability investment is rewarded by the City (‘Finally, we provide evidence that High Sustainability companies significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, both in terms of stock market and accounting performance’).

6. Drive

CSR is driven by the need to protect reputations in developed markets.

Sustainability is driven by the need to create opportunities in emerging markets.

I’m certain you’ll not agree with all of these, and equally certain there are more. Would love to hear your views.

One piece for Global Handwashing Day this week, excuse the plug for one of our favourite campaigns, in the Harvard Business Review blog used the phrase ‘painfully transparent’ to describe how to communicate a business’ vested commercial interest in running programmes to tackle social issues. It can feel painful and that’s why not everyone has taken on board the full implications of this age, despite the no-place-to-hide transparency of the internet.

There are doubtless many more, but here are five implications of what that means when it comes to communicating:

1. Your past will catch up with you

Whether you’re Jimmy Saville, the South Yorkshire Police post Hillsborough or a supply chain manager, secrets don’t stay secret any more.

2. Communications escapes from its silos

Tweets will hit the back pages; earnings reports will praise performance and profits to shareholders and shoppers alike; CSR reports will be read by investors, environmentalists, politicians and customers, despite all the time spent segmenting audiences. Don’t say what you’re not prepared to stand by in front of all these audiences.

3. Practise what you preach

If you say you ‘are committed to a sustainable future’, be prepared for Greenpeace to call you on it. If you ask your customers to ‘drink responsibly’, expect governments to force your hand on pricing alcohol responsibly.

4. You are the company you keep

If you do deals in dark corners, the light is going to be shone there now. Equally, sponsorships can trigger painful transparency. If you sponsor sports, expect a very public interrogation of your healthy eating, performance enhancing, or fair play credentials.

5. Issues need managing in a new way

If you’re going to take credit for your successes, then you need to take the blame for your mistakes – before someone else points them out. Acknowledging shortcomings early and promising (and delivering) remedies is issues management rule one in the age painful transparency.