With the return of the Dems, we could be also getting the 2nd Counterculture. Corporations probably don't want to remember the 1st Counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But all's well that ends well. Corporate America made a bundle on integrating that era's pop culture into their products and services. So, it can also do well this 2nd time around, eventually. The tough part will be making the public-relations transition from the tone of materialism and elitism, including premium branding, to one of the greatest good for the greatest number, including affordable brands (which Target is already mastering).
What makes me think that our era will be retro power-to-the people?
The word populism is all over the media, ranging from the non-populist THE ECONOMIST (November 23rd "Fanfare for the common man") to the now-activist CNN. And the movement/trend the term describes, says THE ECONOMIST is "certainly noisy."
Its current self-appointed leader CNN's business anchor Lou Dobbs, who's profiled in the December 4th THE NEW YORKER by Ken Auletta, has already branded it. As Auletta sees it, Dobbs' common-man brands include Broken Borders, Homeland Insecurity, War on the Middle Class, Exporting America, and The Best Government Money Can Buy.
So, how will corporate public relations handle the noise? Enthusiastically. We can learn from the mistakes of the 1st time around. The more noisy the movement got, the more corporate America tended to dig in its heels and resist.
This time corporate messaging, in stylistics, tone and content, will embrace power-to-the-people. At the top of the list will be finally taking that leap into social or 2-way, horizontal media. Corporations will trade off complete control over the message for letting the people in (read: blogs, bulletin boards, derivatives of YouTubes) to help shape the message. Prediction: all branding will be a product of the people, not the marketing department or advertising agencies.
All publications, be they the annual report or recruiting brochures, will shift from an institutional point of view to the focus on the people. Remember back to the 1st Counterculture when institutions were only allowed to function as a means for the people to get what they wanted and needed. Expect the same assumption.
The corporate goal of increasing shareholder value will be expanded to allowing for at least the base items on the hierarchy of needs of the common man. Those base items could include a new kind of social contract. Instead of guaranteeing a job there will be a guarantee of marketable skills. Employees will be able to sue if they are terminated from a job w/o more marketable skills than when they took that job.
And we will bear witness to the end of the gray men in suits. In everything from attire to decorum, the former gray men will flaunt their humanness. The chief executive officer will be Pete or Paula to us. Pete and Paula will invite us in on Thursday to hang out with them in the company's version of Starbucks. We'll have a conversation, just as the new media dictates.
As these changes are going on in public relations, the other departments will be busy bees converting - with input from the people - this zeitgeist into marketable products and services. That's the American Way. The only thing that really changes is the way it happens. The new way is that people are in the loop.
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