Responsibility Marketing

God, I love an ad that says “Shape up.”

I’ve noticed them more and more the last few months. My favorite is the Citibank TV spot where the fire and police chiefs call out all the troops — trucks, men, helicopters — to rescue a kitten stuck in a tree. A crowd gathers; one owlish man steps forward and suggests, “How about a ladder?” As the brigade rushes forward with way too many ladders, the voiceover says: “Just because you have the power doesn’t mean you should use it.” The tagline is, “Spend wisely. Seek balance. Live richly.” The message is: Whoa there, folks.

This spot probably strikes a chord because I always feel I’m carrying too big a balance on my own credit card. But I like marketing that says, “Consume responsibly” instead of just “Consume!”

Maybe it’s the gloomy economic mood — or maybe I’m still mad at that daycare giver who quit without even one day’s notice — but it feels good to have someone out there reminding us to take responsibility for our actions. It helps to balance out all those ads that kiss up to consumers with, “Hey, you deserve it” messages. I know: It’s marketing’s job to sell, and it sells by filling a need. But way too much marketing addresses bogus “needs” and persuades us that we deserve whatever it’s selling.

I had a voicemail the other day from “Jeffrey” at the National Consumer Council offering to help cut my personal debt, at no charge. I was suspicious. A non-profit, telemarketing its free service to me? Turns out the council is sponsored by Financial Rescue Services (Glendale, CA), which negotiates down personal debt and takes a percentage of the savings, and London Financial Group (Irvine, CA), whose home equity loans and mortgage refinancing pay off credit card bills. The council’s site has letters of thanks from tearful consumers brought back from the brink of bankruptcy.

I’m not calling Jeffrey back. It smells too much like opportunistic marketing of yet more loans to desperate people. I’m curious, though, how NCC got my number.

Citizen Rave

Responsibility marketing isn’t new. Beer and liquor ads all carry some “think before you drink” message, but now they’re getting funny. Take Miller’s spot: A guy finds out the hard way that while he was drunk, he invited his girlfriend to move in. “Face it, it’s a funny spot, and once we’ve touched consumers through laughter, it’s easier to make a more profound impact with our ‘Live Responsibly’ message,” said senior vp-marketing Bob Mikulay when the spot broke (via Don Coleman Advertising, Southfield, MI).

Responsibility mavens are offering new perks, too: The National Park Foundation will give me 500 American AAdvantage miles if I donate $50 to national parks preservation (1,250 miles if I give $125). It’s smart to target AAdvantage members — we travel, we like parks, we’re generous (aren’t we?). And as a fundraising premium, miles sure beat return-address labels.

Another phenomenon that fascinates me is teen-driven anti-tobacco campaigns. There’s The Truth Tour, run by the American Legacy Foundation (with part of the money tobacco companies paid in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with states). With orange trucks and the theme “Infect Truth,” the campaign recruits teens to tell other teens how manipulative tobacco marketing is. This summer, trucks toured New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta “spread[ing] truth like a great, big, fun plague around this great land of ours.” They don’t tell kids not to smoke, exactly — they just make it really hip to not be sucked into that whole marketing scam. Minnesota’s campaign, Target Market, uses actual tobacco company documents (turned over in the state’s suit, and now housed in the state capitol, St. Paul) for ads. I love that these campaigns expose shady marketing practices. I fret over the fact that they’re slick, persuasive campaigns themselves.

Citibank’s campaign — you know, the kitten (which you can see at agency Fallon’s Web site, fallon.com) — also has outdoor boards and print ads with simple messages in plain type: “He who dies with the most toys still dies.” “It’s a balance sheet, not a scorecard.” I see one and I think, “Damn right.” And then I feel smug about the Citibank card in my wallet whose balance is still too high but not, I am quite sure, as high as other people’s.

Sigh. It’s still marketing. It still works.