Happy #Tweetsgiving...

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, a few quiet days to pause and reflect. It’s so easy to get caught up day-to-day in the things that are “wrong” in our lives – or the things we want that we don’t have; and such a relief to find the perspective that Thanksgiving brings, of the absolute abundance we have for which to be grateful. Especially when so many others around the world are struggling just to put food in their bellies at all.

I am thankful for my very stressful new job that keeps me challenged and provides well for my family. And I am thankful for the amazing yoga teachers that help me breathe my way through it and occasionally sleep at night.

I am thankful for a black dog that cries like a baby when my two stepdaughters come home from college for the holiday. And I am thankful that they come home for the holiday, and that they are the wonderful people they are.

I am thankful for the love of my husband, who has the patience of a saint and a heart of pure gold.

I am overwhelmingly thankful for my beautiful, curly-haired little boy, Griffin, who loves me a million-trillion-gabillion (which is a lot), and reminds me every day to laugh more.

I am thankful for my 85-year-old father, and the fact that he is still with us on Earth. Even though he is far away (Florida), his spirit comforts and encourages me. I am thankful for my mom, who is no longer with us on Earth, but gave me the gift of being here to enjoy all of this.

I am thankful for the rest of my family: my two deeply sarcastic-and-entertaining brothers, with whom I wish I was closer. My two sisters-in-law whom I love and wish were really my sisters. My awesome niece and nephew, who grew up way too fast.

Right now, I am thankful for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the barking dog next door, the dog hair tumbleweeds on the floor, the heaping pile of toys in the living room, and all of the things that so often annoy me, because they are all abundance.

On a lighter note, I am thankful for good coffee, dark chocolate, J. Crew, guacamole, Mexico, finally trying kayaking this year, and looking forward to trying kiteboarding next year, come hell or high water.

I’m thankful for new friends and colleagues, like you, from whom I learn so much and who make life so much richer.

People like Danny Brown, from whom I heard about #tweetsgiving. Check out his great post,  Gratitude is Simply Attitude. Most important, please visit the Epic Change Tweetsgiving site and donate what you can to help some kids in Tanzania get a new school. It’s one thing to be grateful, and it’s another thing altogether to do what you can, however small, to help others who need something for which to be thankful. Epic Change is doing great work, and I am thankful that people like them exist to make the world an even more joyous place. Happy #Tweetsgiving to you and yours.

How about you? Have you stopped to think about it lately? What are you thankful for?

Zappos handles even astroturfing with style...

Yeah, I know. Like Zappos needs any more social love, right? But, I have to tell you how well they handled this whole astroturfing thing. This post could also be titled “three simple steps for how to handle a mistake flawlessly.”

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about Zappos’ social storytelling and how sometimes, I think it goes too far. An employee at Zappos posted a comment on the blog about how great the service is, not disclosing that he or she is an employee, and then failed to respond to my three e-mail inquiries on the topic. So, I wrote this post about brands behaving badly and pretending to be happy customers, without disclosing that it was a Zappos thing, because I wanted to see how they handled it first.

After consulting with yet another person much smarter than I, @edwardboches, I decided to message @zappos about this, not really expecting much, given the less-than-rockstar ranking of my blog. But lo and behold, Tony Hsieh, the uber-CEO himself, responded within a day or two asking me to e-mail him the details, which I did. He looked into it right away and confirmed that the comment came from behind the Zappos firewall. He apologized, and promised to remind everyone that astroturfing is decidedly uncool. I was satisfied. Then day or two later, I got this comment on the blog:

Dear Sue,

My name is Rob Siefker and I’m the Sr. Manager for the Customer Loyalty Team (CLT) at Zappos. Thanks for writing your post, although I’m sorry someone from our team wouldn’t be transparent or forthcoming with their response to your original blog. I doubt the intent of our employee was to be misleading, but unfortunately it came across that way. I wouldn’t claim that we’re perfect, but it’s part of our culture to strive for customer service excellence. In this case, we didn’t put our best foot forward.

I’m thankful for your blog because it is a learning opportunity for us. We certainly don’t condone “astroturfing”. It’s the opposite of what we want to accomplish as a company. We’re going to remind everyone at Zappos about how important our interactions with people are to our service culture and brand. We’ll use this as an example, and hopefully it will resonate.

Thanks for your temperance and transparency. Your experience will help us be better in the future, and we appreciate that.

All the best,
Rob

This is instructive in many ways. 1) Rob says those magic little words: “I’m sorry.” right out of the gate, and admits that it was a mistake. 2) He tells us what corrective action he is going to take. 3) He comes across as very sincere, authentic, whatever you want to call it. He’s very human, not corporate. In my book, Rob could be the master of blogger relations with these three simple steps.

So, at this point, I am ultra-impressed, and ready to head to Zappos.com, even before two more very cool Zappos employees chimed in.

Nicely played, Zappos. I have come to believe that you really are “Powered by Service.”

Calling B.S. on P&G...

I sometimes recommend strategies that are about differentiating through brand integrity – how a brand treats its customers, employees, community and the environment. Lately it seems everyone is jumping on this bandwagon, even more than ever. Or maybe I am just noticing it more. But as friend, former colleague, fellow strategist John Karlson and I were discussing recently, there is a big difference between making a quick buck off of a cause marketing promotion and making an authentic long-term commitment to a social mission, corporate responsibility, brand integrity, whatever you want to call it.

For example, which one do you think this is, from Dawn dish soap (P&G)?

Smells like the former “quick buck” strategy to me, and the very healthy discussion of the spot on YouTube seems to mostly agree, though it’s definitely the “Skeptic” segment pitted against the “Pollyanna” segment who ran out and bought Dawn because the commercial is cute and the music is great. If you know me, read my blog regularly, or follow me on Twitter, you know which segment I fall into

The commenters point out that P&G tests its products on animals, while the company states that such testing is a last resort. Which, in effect, is sort of a corporate escape hatch, IMHO. Further, the company has formed a “strategic partnership” with the American Humane Society “committed to the elimination of animal use for consumer product evaluation.” Was the objective of that strategy really “doing the right thing”? Or was it “form a defense against PETA”? Either way, if I can be super tactical for a moment, the fact that the spot is a Simulated Demonstration calls its authenticity into question.

Lo and behold, Dawn’s actual Good Guide rating is a whopping 5.7 out of 10. Not “Terrible” – though of couple of their products are rated “Terrible” in the health category – but certainly not good enough to call themselves the environmental good guys. So I’m officially calling BS on this Good Guy strategy, folks.

What do you think? Do you think P&G is for real in this case? Or do you think its corporate whitewashing? If you know anyone from P&G, feel free to invite them to weigh in. I would love to be proven wrong.

For more on brand integrity, I highly recommend the brilliant Marketing Meritocracy blog by John F. Karlson. For more explanation of Good Guide ratings, go here.