At BrandCulture Company, we have been seeing and are helping clients take advantage of a desire among consumers to shift their purchasing decisions back to smaller, local businesses. During the 80’s and 90’s, the Coca-Cola Company grew immense global market share with its “Think Global, Act Local” philosophy, but found that it became increasingly disconnected from its local bottling partners and customers.  In the beginning of the last decade, Coca-Cola began to evolve its go-to-market strategy with a “Think Local, Act Local” philosophy.  Coca-Cola continues today with its local community through its “Live Positively” campaign and Virtual Community Center .

Today, ‘buy local’ campaigns have emerged in cities ranging from Santa Clarita, California to Boston, Massachusetts – localized efforts to tap into consumers’ sense of place and home.

The “Move Your Money” campaign, while emanating from a populist dissatisfaction with mega-banks’ influence, also taps into this sense of local community.  Interestingly, among “Move Your Money” targets is Bank of America, a company that has attempted its own localized community focus, with community message boards and support of community arts.

But walk into a Bank of America branch and finding a banker that can actually do something for you is another story.  Instead of a real community focus, Bank of America’s sophisticated technology infrastructure supports a network of faceless banking professionals interacting with customers, cutting off their credit while charging extraordinary services fees. Its no wonder the Bank of America Community Message Board in this blogger’s local branch is nearly empty.

“Move Your Money,” we will follow with interest your effort to use consumer choice to spark a redistribution of power from big banks to community institutions. But let’s not forget that while local presence is important, what matters to consumers above all else is that the products, businesses and financial institutions that they choose deliver what they promise.

And now look at the Polish version:

Microsoft: how dare you?

It probably would have cost 1/10th as much as you spent Photoshopping this photo to buy a new one. Actually, judging by the quality of this stock photo, it might have cost 1/100th as much.

There are young, able-bodied marcom folks who are at this very moment having to make the choice between an iPhone 3GS and FiOS, and you pull a wasteful stunt like this? ITTET?

For shame Microsoft! For shame!

(adorning the rubbish bins)

Yes indeed, the Santa Barbara Pinnacle Club was none other than a stealth version of the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Pinnacle Club, renamed and rebranded.  To the uninitiated, the Motorola Pinnacle Club is a corporate retreat/award for select members of the top 5% company’s top national and international two-way radio dealers.

Although it is perfectly fine to keep outsiders away from a private event, the extreme cloak and dagger approach had the unintended effect of making it seem that Motorola had something it really wanted to sequester from public scrutiny.  Discretion is one thing, active concealment another.  Ever since AIG infamously spent over $440,000 to host an event at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa

after accepting $85 Billion in taxpayer bailout, corporate events have gone clandestine, or simply gone.  Back in February, Wells Fargo canceled its employee recognition event in Las Vegas, inspiring its CEO John Stumpf to take out full page ads in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal defending the intent behind the event:

Shortly thereafter, State Farm Insurance announced that it was canceling its 2009 sales meetings as well.

In light of Motorola’s 71% negative return to investors in 2008, it is understandable that the company would not want to be perceived as squandering corporate resources.  But Motorola is not AIG.  The company is not living off the public weal; it spent its own money on the Bacara Pinnacle event, not the taxpayers.  Motorola core businesses seem to be regaining solid footing and the market seems to agree:  MOT is up almost 70% in the last three months.  Placing a code of omerta over an event designed to honor the sources of revenue essential to improved financial performance puts those invited in the awkward position of feeling apologetic and guilty about their own success — and can undermine the very reason for hosting the event in the first place.  Making business events and retreats the scapegoat moreover adds insult to injury to the hard-hit hospitality industry — an industry that according to the US Travel Association supports 2.4 million jobs, $244 billion in spending and $39 billion in tax revenue though business travel each year in the US.

These are tough times for virtually everyone, and no company relishes being pilloried for perceived profligacy.  BrandCultureTalk is heartened that a company like Motorola is not only selling two-way radios, but it is selling enough of them to bankroll a great multi-day party.  There is nothing wrong or shameful with celebrating success, particularly when it’s so hard won these days.  And if past is prologue, invitations to corporate retreats will continue to provide powerful incentives for increased individual and corporate performance.  If all corporate travel and event sponsors act like Motorola and conduct their meetings and events on a clandestine basis, the current stigma toward events will only be reinforced when news inevitably leaks out, and delay the return to a more normal, sustainable business environment that rewards results.

It’s time to come clean.

Sorry – you actually would have heard of Blackwater Worldwide – the organization “re-branded” to that new name in 2007, after 10 years as Blackwater USA. On Valentine’s day the company “re-branded” again, stretching itself further than its first effort, transforming into “Xe” (pronounced zee), and renaming all of its divisions as well (e.g. Blackwater Training Center is now “U.S. Training Center”).

It’s beyond our ken to comment on Blackwater’s global deeds or misdeeds (surely there are some of each), and we’re even going to resist weighing in on the new name (hey – if BlackBerry and GoDaddy can work, then anything can!), but we will reprise this hot potato from last September : You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

Changing a name is the shallowest form of re-branding. If Xe doesn’t demonstrate tangibly and repeatedly that it operates differently than it did in 2007, then it won’t have re-branded at all. It will simply have re-named the same tarnished brand.

And by the way, it doesn’t matter whether the company and its employees were in the right or in the wrong during that fateful incident – the PR damage is already done. What Xe needs to do now is prove that such an incident will not occur again. A name change doesn’t do that. In fact, it may do the opposite. “Xe” might come off as an effort to sweep the company’s history under the rug.

A brand is not a name or a logo. A brand is the promise you communicate with your image, your words, and your actions – and the success with which stakeholders experience delivery on that promise. A brand is about what you do, how you do it, and institutionalizing that way of doing things throughout an organization. Only once you’ve defined your actions should you turn your attention to what they should be called and what their logo should look like.

Xe’s work isn’t complete – you can still pick up your Blackwater t-shirts, sandals, and 3/4 sleeve button downs (55% cotton!) from what is still called the Blackwater Proshop. But we’ll be watching Xe to find out if their effort extends beyond swapping logos on swag to the more substantive changes that really define a brand, and determine its long-term success.