Mao and J. Edgar Hoover as library posterboys
Images of J. Edgar Hoover and Mao Tse-tung show up in a library campaign in Minneapolis–reportedly with a misleading implication that Hoover was a librarian. So that’s supposed to make us civilians love the profession?
Edgy PR campaigns can be fun, but this just plays into the hands of government-haters. Is a thuggish Mao or Hoover approach meant when people say librarians should rule the Net? Definitely not. In any event, the campaign is more nutty than edgy and not exactly an image-enhancer. Not everyone has the requisite sense of humor.
Alas, I couldn’t immediately find a link to the source material via the Web site for Friends of the Minneapolis Library. Is this a joke on Skyways News, which seems to have broken the story? I don’t think so. April Fool’s Day was last month.
Libraries exist in part to help patrons shoot down advertising and PR crap, not spread it around. I’d like to see FMPL disown the campaign from the “buzz”-fixated Andrews/Birt agency. (Hey, guys–happy with the free link I just gave you?) What’s the FMPL trying to do? Boost the library or Andrews/Birt?
Related: Librarian.net’s take on this (thanks for pointing to this gem, Jessamyn) and thoughts from The Bleat.
Correction: Contrary to an earlier version of this posting, yes, Mao really was a librarian at one point before becoming a mass butcher. But Hoover? At the Library of Congress he was a mere clerk–working to pay his way through law school.
May 12th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Yeah, thanks for the link!!
For the record, we don’t do client advertising for our own self aggrandizement. We never submit our work to the self-congratulatory awards shows that our industry is obsessed with.
Our record stands with our buzz branding approach for the City of Exelsior (Succed from Starbuck’s Nation), Byerly’s (You are what you eat) and British Telecom (Be Sure, Keep Tabs) and several others all of which were wildly successful campaigns with relative small budgets.
And, it looks like we have another success story with the library, too.
Thanks!
May 12th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Appreciated the comments, Bill. I’ll reproduce my reaction below and suggestions for your agency, now that I’ve seen more material from the campaign. Very best of luck to MPL with the fund-raising campaign–whether or not it keeps the images of Mao and J. Edgar Hoover! – David
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Batgirl and Casanova are way cool, but J. Edgar Hoover and Mao still
won’t cut it. In the most graphic way you’re associating libraries with
images of the world-class control freaks. The explanatory captions won’t do the trick. Nor will your balancing out a right-wing thug with a left-wing thug. What’s more, both men are associated with bureaucracy and ugly, overgrown buildings. What a monstrosity is the one named after Hoover!
Keep in mind that I’m not saying, “Libraries have a duty to demonize
Hoover and Mao.” Patrons should make up their own minds. I want to
libraries to carry everything from Masters of Deceit to The Little Red Book–and let both the John Birch Society and leftist radicals use meeting rooms. But that’s a different issue from the choice of posterboys for an ad campagn.
Just where do you stop? If you ran a Coors campaign, would you do a
spiffy poster of Hitler as a beer drinker? Hoover isn’t in the Hitler
category, but Mao sure makes it, given what a butcher he was.
These are not abstract issues to me. A library student in China tells me he’ll accept my invitation to do a TeleRead essay about e-books in his country. So what happens if he says the wrong thing? Mao’s legacy lives on.
Now that you’ve created The Buzz, why not show some sensitivity here?
Bunny Wilson from Desk Set could replace Mao, and Marian from The Music Man could replace J. Edgar Hoover. The captions could be just as clever.
No male librarians? So what? I think it’s weird that three of the four
figures in the present campaign are men–when we know that librarians are overwhelmingly women.
What’s more, who would you rather get help from–with your homework assignment or job-hunting search? Mao or Marian?
I hope this is helpful. I’d welcome your agency’s reactions to my
reactions–as well as thoughts on a campaign built around testimonials, tips and library trivia and an interactive Web site.
Testimonials from visitors to the site, in turn, could be used as ammo for the people who count here, the donors. Speaking of the D word, I’m chuckling a little. Do you think that Mao’s image will draw money from a right-wing Republican businessman, even with Hoover to balance it out? The response more likely will be, “This is how they’re spending my taxes?”
Anyway, best of luck to all in the MPL campaign! I hope you can do a
follow-up one with emphasis on the needs of neighborhood branches.
Thanks,
David
David Rothman | dr@teleread.com | 703-370-6540
May 12th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
We welcome any and all comments on our creative work for the MPL! For the record, you need to understand where AB is coming from with our buzz branding approach.
Here are some chewy facts:
1. 90% of all advertising messages are ignored.
2. When advertisements are read, only about 25% of the time do readers remember the advertiser or brand. Let’s see, that puts advertising at 2.5% effectiveness. But wait, there’s more…
3. When advertising is read and the advertiser or brand is remember, only a small percentage of the time is the product/service/brand clearly differentiated.
(NOTE: The top two facts are widely circulated industry figures. The third is my conjecture after spending 28 years in this business, but is most certainly on track.)
Any other industry with this kind of track record would be under
federal investigation and face huge class-action law suits. But advertising is inherently subjective. Everyone – including bloggers – has an opinion. That’s all right and, given advertising’s pulic nature, is as it should be.
I put forth that since we have you talking about it (and may others), the library campaign has at least achieved awareness and advertiser name recognition which makes it more effective than 97.5% of all advertsing.
We could argue until we are blue the how the library is being
positioned in the campaign. Clearly it’s our opinion and that of the FMPL that the campaign is hip and interesting and therefore positions the new library the same way.
You have a different opinion and, as I said, that’s all right – as long as you keep writing about it.
May 12th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Bill, I certainly appreciate the Catch-22, but do think that the topic is worthy of discussion. My idea is to help the library world, not hurt you. In fact, I even empathize with you. Now I’ll hope that the Minneapolis Star-Trib, which apparently is doing a story on bloggers, will spell my name right. I’m trying to educate the Trib that a TeleRead-style opinion blog is a newspaper not–and shouldn’t be. Maybe I’ll succeed.
Now back to your campaign. Remember the goal–to raise money for the library. The campaign may bring in a lot, but I myself suspect that a different approach would get better results and also be more helpful for the MPL’s long-term image.
It is fun to discuss these issues. What’s undeniable is the talent shown in the work your agency did on the campaign. I’d just like to see the talent used in a more helpful way.
Meanwhile is it okay to reproduce you Hoover image and caption while noting the campaign also includes Batgirl and Casanova?
No charge for the further Buzz. And my continued best wishes for fund-raising efforts.
Thanks,
David
May 14th, 2005 at 1:47 am
Sorry sirs, as a Minneapolis Public Library lover for many years I can’t be so balanced about the new ad campaign as some. This is shockvertising of the cynical Benneton variety, what Mr. Andrews, et al, have done is gamble with MPL’s hard-earned and long-running reputation in our community.
Yes I have seen the Mao ad for myself in a local magazine and now at the Friends website: http://www.friendsofmpl.org/Friends_adcampaign2005.html
Irony, indirection, trivial factoids meant to “create buzz,” are disengenuous tools when the stated aim is to “contrast” this least diverse of dictators with the glories of an open democracy. Hitler and Stalin are long dead and discredited in their homelands and the world over, while Mao’s grandfatherly visage–the same one as in this ad!–still beams down on Tienneman Square, and his legacy remains the rock on which the slave labor of the laogai in Communist China still stands.
Of course nobody in their right mind imagines MPL is in favor of Mao, or in any way aligns itself with him or his murderous past. But to split-screen his demonic mug with MPL, and then to coyly “asterisk” that image with a text of meaningless non sequiturs, that at best misconstrues, and at worst could actually be said to humanize the “Great Helmsman” on certain grounds, is just asking for trouble. Unfortunately in the fast and loose world of advertising, asking for trouble, like begging for media attention, is exactly the point, as you apparently live by with your “chewy facts.”
Personally I would rather the library go under-funded than to brand its soul with this nonsense.
May 14th, 2005 at 3:49 am
Thanks for your comments, Jay. By all means In your place, I would encourage you to complain to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune AND the director of the MPL (not just the Friends group). I’m rather baffled why the daily paper is taking so long to do a story on this. Meanwhile don’t forget to check out TeleRead’s collection of related links if you haven’t read it already. – David
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:49 pm
毛澤東與 Minneapolis Public Library
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