Like when a venerable and large accounting firm gets caught with their sticky fingers way too far into their clients' pockets and then whoo...openings for executives turn into windows, somebody goes to the clink, and the name of the firm, which probably belonged to a guy who died about a hundred years ago, becomes the punchline of the week on Letterman.
Then the venerable firm pulls the blinds, turns out the lights, for awhile, and then ,Shazam!
Blinds pulled back up, lights on, new parking spaces drawn, and a sign that once read "Abraham O'Riley & Sons Excellent Bean Counters," now reads "Whiz Mongrels & Sons, Sort of ExcellentBean Counters," and hey, we're back in business.
That's called "Brand Management," and it was invented by a guy from Procter and Gamble.
Brand Management is basically revising a corporate vision, and restating a corporate mission statement...or, when urgent circumstances alter the public perception of an organization so radically that something has to be done..... changing that letterhead, and fast.
And that urgent circustance could be anything. Like when somebody figures out that the once venerable name of the organization just doesn't fit the new 'vision' of the company, after a study is released by the Surgeon General saying smoking is a death sentence, and then a cigarette company, like Philip Morris, changes its name to "Altria. "
Or when (we won't mention the name) an airline loses one of it's jets when it nosedives into a swamp and knows nobody in his right mind is going to get on a flight to anywhere which bears the name of a jet that took a dive into a swamp, so it changes the name to "Fly Real High Over Swamps."
And we here in Homeless Nation, having experienced some urgent circumstances since, oh, forever, like the media knocking us about with too many homeless on the street; too many homeless on the sidewalk; too many homeless in the bathroom at the Burger King shaving and washing their socks, and then going out and wiping everybody's wind shield with the soap from the soap dispenser.
Well, we decided we needed some of that Brand Management.
So we called a caucus of our executive council of street puppies and sat around on a street corner, and in between scratching our heads a lot, and dodging pedestrians, we hammered out a new corporate vision statement.
First thing, the new name. We are no longer homeless. We are Domestically Challenged. Howzat sound?
Ok, then, that takes care of the corporate vision thing.
But now, we had to think up a mission statement to go along with the vision thing.
And that wasn't real hard. Seems we have a lot of new corporate suit street puppies around here who worked, until recently, at places that deal in mission statements and corporate vision.
That is until those visions and statements started coming to them in memos written in the language of Bangledesh, and telling them that the corporation they had worked for had just envisioned how much money they could save themselves by outsourcing everything but the distribution of postage stamps to their employees so they could put them on outgoing resumes.
These guys...and gals...are terrific. They're still in shock, ya know, dreaming of the day, not long ago when they could ride around in the back seat of a car without being cuffed, and had credit cards and Blackberries and stuff. But they can still do corporate think, and that's what we need.
First, we are forming an R & D department. That's research and development, not run and duck. And, these former corporate suit people have a terrific first project in mind.
Stealth technology. That's right. We will soon possess the technology to make ourselves invisible! And what a relief that will be to all of those people who will no longer have to pass us by and go "tsk, tsk," look what too many Budweisers on an empty stomach for ten years will do to ya."
Also, from R&D, and maybe even before Stealth....we will have Morphing! We can morph into any shape or vision we need to be. Means we can sleep anywhere and not be bothered because the guy who owns the lawn or porch we're sleeping on will think he's looking at a big ole' friendly, snoring bassett hound curled up there.
Then, and this is the one I really like. We will have our own Taser technology.
Think of it. No more "Can you spare some change for a bar of soap, sir?" We just whip out that taser thing. Don't even have to use it, just kind of twirl it around in our fingers, and before you know it, we'll have enough change to buy our own soap company. Look out Procter and Gamble.
And we haven't even started. These new corporate suit street puppies are going to come up with all kinds of things which will give our homeless nation, er, domestically challenged nation brand a whole new image. Yup, and a whole new restated vision , and a revised mission statement.
Why, we will have Human Resources. And Growth and Management. And Corporate Outreach. And our own mouthpiece, ta da....A Public Relations Maven.
Yeah, things are going to change around here. Now, with our whole new breed of corporate suit street puppies, out here working for us on Brand Management, we'll be in high cotton.
We might even get our own reality TV show with Donald Trump.
And what an irony. Just think. What would all of our new corporate suit brand managing street puppies have done, to spend a fortune for their clothing, if Ralph Lipschitz hadn't changed his name to Ralph Lauren!
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