Part of what my clients pay me to do is to make connections. Sometimes that’s in the literal sense – an introduction. Most of the time it’s in the sense of making connections among seemingly random things – putting pieces together to form a coherent picture. This morning, I’m getting ready to go see another Bruce Springsteen show – anything worth doing is worth overdoing, right? – and I came upon two pieces that seemed to fit together so I wanted to share them with you.
Bruce Springsteen in concert (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The first is an excellent article from The Nation about Bruce’s political voice – where it came from, how it’s grown, and what it’s saying now. The second is a piece of research about socially conscious consumers. Now as you know, we don’t do politics here so there is an important business point both pieces make and that’s what I want to share today.
The Nation piece says the following:
Springsteen began to ask questions of himself about what really determined the contours of the lives of the working-class characters whose tribune he had become. “A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean?
Speaking to reporters in Paris on the occasion of (Wrecking Ball’s) release, he made the album’s inspiration—and intention—explicit. “The genesis of the record was after 2008,” he told a group of reporters there earlier this year, “when we had the huge financial crisis in the States, and there was really no accountability for years and years. People lost their homes, and I had friends who were losing their homes, and nobody went to jail. Nobody was responsible. People lost enormous amounts of their net worth. Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no pushback: there was no movement, there was no voice that was saying just how outrageous—that a basic theft had occurred that struck at the heart of what the entire American idea was about. It was a complete disregard of history, of context, of community; it was all about ‘what can I get today.’ It was just an enormous fault line that cracked the American system wide open.”
In other words, Bruce has done what most great artists do: reflects his times in a timeless way. We could digress here and look to the Occupy movement, the current presidential campaign, etc. but you figured that out already. As it turns out, many forward-thinking companies have as well. The second article is about a Nielsen study about how companies and consumers are becoming much more socially conscious:
The survey confirmed that the majority of consumers express a general preference for companies making a positive difference in the world. 66% of consumers around the world say they prefer to buy products and services from companies that have implemented programs to give back to society. That preference extends to other matters as well. They prefer to work for or invest in these companies. A smaller share, but still nearly half, say they are willing to pay extra for products and services from these socially conscious companies.
So today’s point is this: while doing well by doing good isn’t a mandate, consumers are paying attention, and if your business isn’t, you might be falling behind. To paraphrase Dylan, the times are a-changin’ yet again. I’ve pointed out before that marketing today isn’t about you but about us – your consumers and our connections to your business. That outward focus needs to mirror the concerns and solve the problems of your customers, who clearly are more socially conscious than they’ve been.
Those are how these pieces connect in my mind – how about in yours?
