My dogs are fed the most premium of premium pet foods.  They get organic biscuits and sockeye salmon oil supplements on a daily basis.  To top it all off, they have an eternally flowing doggie water fountain, complete with filter, on a plush mat in my kitchen.

At bedtime, they have their choice of my bed or one of four special dog beds:  a ‘cooling’ bed for those nights when central air conditioning just won’t cut it, two faux fur beds with extra supportive inserts and an orthopedic (molds to their body) bed with a soft suede exterior.

I thought I was really pampering my pets until I read an article in USA Today recently.

Apparently, for a premium price, hotels in both the U.S. and Europe are offering gourmet meals to pets traveling with their humans.  Here’s an example of what’s available:

At the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix…. your pooch can enjoy “Zen Yo” ($11), a vegetable stir-fry served with poached eggs and steamed brown rice that's meant to help pets with jet lag.

Chicken liver pâté ($7) and braised New Zealand lamb served on a bed of rice ($15) are some of the decadent doggie offerings at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa.

Would I, personally, order these for my dogs?  Probably not…however, knowing that these places cater to my best friends, I would definitely put them at the top of the list of places I’m likely to stay.

Incidentally, my dogs think crunching on lettuce cores, gnawing toilet paper right off the roll and nabbing a piece of pasta that’s fallen onto the kitchen floor are absolute ‘prizes’ .  To them, that’s even more of a treat than their gourmet bison and blueberry biscuits. 

In addition, sleeping on the cool hardwood floor (in summer) or inside of a freshly laundered basket of clothes (in winter) is their idea of ultimate comfort. 

However, whether or not my dogs partake of the amenities I offer them, the one thing these dog-friendly brands give me is peace of mind.  I know I’m doing the best I can for them … even if they choose a plastic soda bottle for fetching instead of an ‘ergonomically-designed’ chew toy that claims to clean their teeth and improve their dexterity.

I received a disturbing revelation this year – my 67-year-old father is a rabid Gossip Girl fan.  Troubling as this information is to the delicate balance of my personal world order, I have to hand it to the teen-drama for their summer print promotions for next season.

Ingeniously, they have taken all of the most negative critical reviews from a variety of media outlets and social organizations, over-layed them on the most racy stills they could get away with and produced…perfection.

Quotes include:

“Every parent’s nightmare” – Boston Herald

“A nasty piece of work” – The New York Post

“Mind blowingly inappropriate” – The Parents Council

“Very bad for you” – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Provocative, salacious, rebellious, shocking and riveting, these ads reflect the spirit of the show and are a perfectionist’s example of turning negative PR into gold.

I have no idea who’s creative idea this was, but whoever you are: nice one.

I'm spending a lot of my time these days thinking about snacks, and at the same time am always interested in the idea of mass customization (the idea that millions of people can personalize something so it feels like it's unique to them..Starbucks is a great example, Dominos Pizza Builder was brilliant ).  I came across this company called You Bar, which is all about customized granola bars.  The site basically allows you to create your own bar with 8 different variables (added nuts, dried fruits, nutritional boosts etc), and then you can name your bar and have it shipped to you.  I thought this was a brilliant idea until I saw how much this cost.  With shipping and handling, it cost $48 for 12 bars, or $4 a bar.  For the poor souls living in Canada who might want to try this out it was $70 for 12 or $5.83 a bar.  Not quite mass customization.  Sure, You Bar isn't Nature's Valley or Quaker, so the economies of scale can't be there, but surely their pricing structure limits their chances of gaining some ground.  I'd love for them to succeed, but is this idea good enough to merit that premium price?  Unfortunately, I don't think so, what do you think?

Egg is at the PSFK Conference in San Francisco today. Getting inspired by interesting speakers, learning about collaboration, new ways of working and how to find and use trends.  It's all good stuff.  You can check out what the speakers are saying live, with the Live Notes here - updated at the end of everyone' speech in real time - Amazing.

1.  The dueling essays in Parade magazine, by Barack Obama and John McCain on the meaning of Patriotism, are the most revealing demonstration of generational differences in aspirations and values I've seen in a very long time.  We're changing as a society, in ways that neither side of the generational barbell can quite understand.

High gas prices have inspired (compelled?) yet another innovation:  changing the design of a gallon of milk so that it is cheaper to ship and more environmentally friendly (more containers can be packed into a truck).  Added benefits include fresher milk and lower prices.  Still, there seem to be too many consumer complaints: spills more frequently, hard for kids to handle, and loss of the beloved “spout.”  Sam’s Club is even offering demonstrations (complete with cookies!) to try and alleviate consumer frustration.

I wonder if the industrial design team spent enough time with the consumer – watching and listening in homes, during dinner, after school – and incorporating consumer feedback into their design from the beginning.  Indeed, it seems an incredible opportunity to not only increase package efficiency but, while you’re in there already redesigning the line, to surprise and delight your consumer with easier to open, easier to pour, and fresher milk.  Interestingly, it seems taking the time upfront to understand the consumer perspective seems particularly important for such a nostalgic item.  It would be a shame for this environmentally-friendly redesign to fail because it ignored the needs of those who always make the final call: consumers.

We can reasonably assume that all adults living today, even those that work in marketing, were once teenagers.  But it is amazing to see how soon we forget how it felt to adolesce; that above all, most teenagers want to be treated and spoken to as what they are – young adults – and not coddled, patronized or dismissed by society as we so often do.

A few groundbreaking campaigns in recent years have dared to communicate with young adults as they are: intelligent, thoughtful, fully aware participants in society.  Most notable of these is probably the Truth anti-smoking campaign by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. 

Following close in its heels, however, is this anti-binge drinking campaign (a realistic goal advocating moderation not abstinence in alcohol consumption - click on the picture to see one of the spots) launched in England introduced by Amelia Torode in her blog.  Similar to the truth campaign, these TV spots de-glamorize the over-indulgence of alcohol by displaying, in naked clarity, how very unaspirational drunkenness really is. 

Bravo, well done. 

Three spots featured:

The Girl's Night Out

The Boy's Night Out

Fashion Show 

In Julie's post yesterday, she calls on brands to reject the false and fake and infuse their advertising with authenticity.  I recently saw a great spot from Nike that does just that.   

Admittedly, you may think The Dozen has turned from marketing and innovation blog to a Nike soccer blog – but bear with me for this post – as I think it’s a great lesson in brand authenticity. We all know that Nike can do the big and glossy spots with all the superstars - we even blogged about it a couple weeks ago.  But this new commercial is born from a song that originated on the football terraces at Anfield (Liverpool's storied stadium). Nike took that song, plus the local fans' love for their new striker Fernando Torres and turned it into an Iberian love-fest. I love the ad, but others don't agree, including Scott Murray at the Guardian who upon seeing the spot, wrote the following:

For goodness sake -  that Torres "Liverpool's number nine" [song], has already been appropriated by Nike for an advert. Is there nothing the moneymen won't sully? Can these people never leave things be, even if it's just for a year or two?

I completely disagree. I think it's a true statement of authenticity, when brands are inspired (some might say steal…) from real life like this. Surely that's the only path to authenticity and connection. Sure, there's elements that are fake (I can't really imagine Liverpudlian's swapping fish n' chips for tapas), but the heart of the idea is genuine and real and that's the important difference. I think this idea demonstrates how local fans worship their favorite players wherever they come from and there's no greater form of flattery in football than having a song created for you by the fans.

Here’s the song being sung on the terraces at a Liverpool match via a You Tube clip from someone’s camera phone…and here’s the spot itself.  Judge for yourself. Apparently even the dog walking with Torres in the park at the end is his own.

Consumers have turned on us.  They've changed.  9 out of 10 consumers don’t trust advertisers anymore.  Now, that’s not all our fault.  We didn’t create this situation.  Or, rather, we didn’t create this situation…alone.  There are a lot of other institutions and individuals that played their hands to get us here.  As Pines and Gilmore say in “Authenticity” – the opposite of quality used to be junk.  Now it’s fake.  Consumers been faked out, lied to, misled, and generally betrayed an awful lot.

And what is advertising if not “fake”?  How many of you say to your kids – sweetie, that’s not the show, that’s the commercials, you don’t need to watch that.  Fast forward.   Our industry creates advertorial, which we design specifically to make our stuff look like the real stuff.  

How can we ever hope to succeed if consumers look at us - when they do look at us - as false?  And how will you make your brand real?  When we talk about brand authenticity these days, we need to think about everything a brand says and does, and even how they say it.

Get real.  Now.

It’s conceptual…it’s a metaphor…it’s a personification…it’s aspirational…it’s a gimmick…it’s just plane confusing.

I like a good mental challenge as much as the next girl, but I find LG’s Scarlet promotion of their flat screen TVs ties my brain into a knot of Gordian proportions. 

For those unfamiliar with the campaign, LG has created a fictional…well…fictional character named Scarlet – a red eyed super-something (hero? cop? spy? cyborg? vampire? siren? model?) The ads feature fictional promotions for the fictional TV show for the fictional character and end with a blink-and-you-miss-it oblique reference to flat screen TVs. 

Every time I come across this campaign, I find myself plagued with questions:  What is it?  Why is it? and Do I like it?  And, strangely, the answer on all three counts is: I’m not sure.

Explanations from the producers just deepen the mystery with vague Lynch-ian quotes about clues and martial arts: LG Reveals Mystery Behind 'Scarlet'

I can’t help but think that if people who do this sort of thing for a living can’t figure it out, there is no way consumers are coming along on this journey down the rabbit hole. 

 Is this a sign of abstraction in brand communications to come?  Or did they forget to take that left at ambiguity?

InBev's takeover bid for Anheuser-Busch yesterday ($65 a share) looks set to be a "bruising battle" according to David Faber from CNBC.  No kidding.  The St. Louis Post Dispatch ran a story today with the headline "Kingdom Under Seige" and the New York Times quoted Governor Blunt of Missouri who said "today's offer to purchase the company is deeply troubling to me".  InBev are saying all the right things about recognizing the importance of Anheuser's commitment to the St.Louis community and pledging to keep all Budweiser's plants in operation around the country, but they could give puppies to all the kids in St. Louis and this would still be a hostile takeover because they're a European company run by Brazilians.  Nothing against Europeans or Brazilians, but they aren't American. 

Of course, this isn't anything to do with shareholders, boards of directors, bottling or brewing, this is about a brand…and specifically an iconic American brand, which is ingrained in the psyche of the entire nation (beer drinkers or not).   InBev might as well have said they wanted to throw the White House into the deal too. That's the reason why David Faber goes on to say "this will get nasty pretty quickly".  The only equivalent I could think of would be Honda's rumored takeover of Harley this time last year, which was met with a quote from an investment analyst at RBC "Harley is an iconic, American brand. I don't think it would be a great fit if they were under the ownership of a larger Japanese corporation." That deal ultimately couldn't happen for regulatory reasons, but I'd bet my house the Harley owners clubs wouldn't have been happy.  It reminds me of the great quote from John Stuart, former CEO of Quaker: "If this business were split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar, and I would take the brands and trademarks, and I would fare better than you."  

I'm a bit soccer-mad at the moment with the Euro 2008 tournament on (even with no England team involved, I'm still feverishly following the scores). With all the millions of dollars (or Euros or Pounds) of star players on display, it's always good to remember the simplicity of the game and its universal appeal.  Tangentially, I saw Colin Farrell being interviewed on Letterman recently about a documentary that he narrated called "Kicking It" about the Homeless World Cup - a soccer tournament for homeless people around the world that took place in South Africa in 2006 - the next one is in Melbourne in December.  Like any great brand, soccer has a core emotional essence that lies at the root of its appeal, whether it's being played by millionaires or homeless men.  As Colin Farrell puts it, "[Kicking] It has every emotion - hope, fear, love, strength, generosity - every emotion that we feel as people."

I began this post thinking of a way to link this notion of core essence of soccer back to a fundamental principle of branding - but whatever I typed sounded a bit trite and obvious. In the absence of an epiphany, I'm just going to let this stand as is.  If you're into soccer, support the film and its cause if you can, it's inspiring stuff.