I didn’t really get into CBC until I got married. My wife introduced me to CBC 16 years ago and now I’m hooked. Because my wife’s parents lived in Winnipeg, we went to Winnipeg and the family cottage in Kenora a few times a year. En-route and there we tuned into CBC Radio and TV. The content continuity made us feel at home although Toronto was a long way off. Over the years CBC, the local and national personalities have become part of the brand family we welcome into our home, car, hotel room and cottage.

I listen to CBC while I’m traveling because I have learned that I will receive the same content – no matter where I go. If I can’t get it off-air or by cable, I can try the internet. If all those media-channel options fail, I look for NPR. NPR is different, but has the same sensibilities and also carries some CBC content.

For years I worked with new franchisors who didn’t understand why brand consistency was important. I often used car rental, fast-food and hotel chain examples to help them understand. In the future I’ll be using CBC as well – because it’s not just a practical thing. It’s a cerebral thing as well.

Over the last 35 years I’ve worked  on lots of different accounts and hundreds of clients. George and Bruno were both real clients. Here’s why I miss George and not Bruno.

While George didn’t believe that advertising could help the Canadian division of the international Brand he managed, he kept an objective, open mind and listened to reason.  Every call, letter, fax or e-mail from George began with ‘Dear Frank, could you please . . . ’ and ended with ‘Thank-you very much.’ He showed me, our agency his team-mates, the franchise and his customers how common courtesy, common sense and the common touch can be used to build a Brand-Loyal Business one customer at a time by addressing our basic need for acceptance, dignity and respect.

The collateral benefit of George’s approach included the following – and more:

• he brought out the best in me as an individual,
• he encouraged me to become a great, not just a good, agency director,
• he offered our Agency the benefit of the doubt when things went wrong and heaped on the praise when things went right,
• At George’s meetings you parked your ego at the door because the meetings probed and challenged emotions and intellect to ensure all stakeholders agreed with, could support and would defend the decisions made there.
• We all worked long hard for George, and the brand we nurtured as a team.

In the end we proved George wrong. Our promotions worked so well that we often ended the campaigns earlier than planned.

Bruno had a sign on his desk: “If anything goes wrong – someone will die”. Professionally he didn’t like Partnerships. He had one with his wife: that’s it. He liked people that did as they were told. Bruno liked being in charge and in control. It was VERY important that all stakeholders thought Bruno was brilliant.

While Bruno was a regular guest at our agency, and was always available for a cross country TV shoot, lunch, dinner and golf, to make the most of any event the spotlight had to be on Bruno from start to finish.

Bruno did whatever it took to make his numbers and did not care who got thrown under the bus when additional traction or a lighter load were called for. He never expressed appreciation because, in his mind, we didn’t exist – or if we did, only by his grace.

While little dictators like Bruno may have a role in our society, it’s definitely not in any play that involves marketing, advertising or customer service.

Great ideas are most often discovered where a key operational insight and an emotional contradiction collide like a pair of freight trains. Getting to that intersection takes intelligence, leadership, teamwork, insight and trust.

In the end Bruno lost most of the business advertising brought in because his operations rarely delivered on the advertised claims.

In the 1950’s Steinbach’s car salesmen were the top of the country selling more than 250 cars annually. But that wasn’t good enough.

In 1960 the Steinbach’s car dealers held a special promotion where anyone who came to Steinbach to buy a car had their hotel, restaurant and transportation paid for by the Steinbach Dealer Association. People came not only from Manitoba but also from Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Many other business owners took note. The rest is history, greed and folly.

• Over 60 years of discount promotions have taught three generations to shop for the lowest price and avoid the MSRP at all cost – pun intended.
• The discount mentality has spread like a deadly virus to every product or service category.
• Major markets like Winnipeg have become so obsessed with getting the lowest price on an item they will abandon local merchants and drive all the way to Grand Forks to get a ‘better (cheaper) deal’.
• Low price promotion shoppers are so addicted to getting more for less that they do not care that they are ruining the economies of their home town, province and Canada to get their fix.
• Discounting forces manufacturers and service providers to move their companies out of Canada.
• Small service businesses depend on customers that believe that quality and service are important.
• Large businesses dredge the market with low price promotions and reduce small business survival rates.
• Countless studies show that a customer that is treated well and is educated along the way is far more loyal and will pay more for and item. This bodes VERY well for smart manufacturers who are able to reinvest their higher profits into R&D that leads to better, more satisfying products.

I dare you to do promotions with a higher calling.

I dare you to look at your business and customers differently and ask yourself “how can I serve them better?

I dare you to look at your business the way Mr. Jack Layton looked at Canadians.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

I dare you.

Two weeks ago I watched Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour and last Friday I went to see Gorden Lightfoot play Massey Hall – perhaps for the last time. I wanted to see LGG’s show because I like her message, lyrics and strong branding. I think ‘Born This Way’ is brilliant because it will help many folks out there take pride in the skin they’re in a whole lot more. Lady Gaga reminds me of a rocket launch. It’s loud, spectacular, engaging and makes one hell of a statement. I look forward to seeing how she and her message evolves over time.

I wanted to see Mr. Lightfoot live one last time. He reminds me of Voyager 1 (launched in 1977, to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space, it is the first probe to leave the Solar System and is the farthest man made object from Earth.) GordonLightfoot has been on the road now for over 46 years. The message Voyager and Mr. Lightfoot send home on a regular basis have not changes for a long time and are comfortingly consistent in their tone and manner – although the signal is getting weaker.

American Idol just helped launch a few more artists into orbit this season. It will be interesting to see which ones fizzle out on the launch-pad, which ones are able to surpass the orbit of Lady Gaga and where they’ll be in 40 or 50 years from now.

When you’re laying track for your own brand identity or that of a corporate brand it’s important to step back, and get some perspective on what you’re doing and why.

Instead of sorting paper-clips or navel gazing to find the answer – try astral projection: go look at things from Voyager 1′s perspective.

Here’s a great Free Press reprint about our friend Leslee posing with Denny Crane (AKA William Shatner & Captain Kirk) at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.

Silverman presented with Governor General’s Performing Arts Award

Leslee Silverman, the longtime artistic director of Manitoba Theatre for Young People, received Canada’s most prestigious performing-arts honour at Rideau Hall on Friday.

She was one of six Canadians presented with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement. The award comes with a $25,000 prize.

Her fellow laureates are actor William Shatner, Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore, Quebec humorist Yvon Deschamps, dancer/choreographer Margie Gillis and theatre creator Paul Thompson.

Silverman, a Wolseley resident, has led MTYP for nearly 30 years, since its inception in 1982. She is recognized as a national leader in the field of theatre for young audiences.

She was instrumental in the 1999 creation of MTYP’s performance facility at The Forks, the only one of its kind in English Canada to be built from the ground up. She has commissioned plays from major Canadian playwrights and has directed 80 shows.

She was the first recipient in 2003 of the Manitoba Arts Council Arts Award of Distinction, recognizing the highest level of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievement.