San Francisco Chronicle: In most ads, a company is trying to sell you a product, or a brand, or some oxymoronic notion of corporate philosophy (as if the pursuit of profit wasn’t credible self-justification in a capitalist marketplace).
But flipping through a recent copy of the New Yorker — the Sept. 5 issue, to be precise — I came across several ads for leading companies that spoke to a relatively new trend in corporate outreach.
Although the companies in question collectively touch nearly all U.S. consumers and are together worth billions of dollars, they’re not selling products here, or their respective brands, or even a clear declaration of philosophy.
What these companies — Chevron, Altria and Starbucks — are selling is their own thoughtfulness.
“They’re trying to elevate the conversation above what it is they do,” said Steve Manning, managing director of Igor, a San Francisco brand consultant. “They want to be thought of as something bigger than just goods and services.”
This approach, he added, should be a red flag for most consumers.
“Honest people don’t tell you they’re honest,” Manning observed. “Cool people don’t say that they’re cool. We should all be wondering why these guys feel a burning need to tell us how good they are.”
