I told someone it was Tony Bennett, but I think it may actually have been his vocal coach who said, “If you sing like everyone else, you’ll end up in the chorus.”

The point was clear.  Celebrate your individuality.

I’ve just read “Palmetto Portraits,” a rather extraordinary collection of photographs of South Carolinians, put together by Mark Sloan for the Medical University of South Carolina.  Sloan is a very talented curator and director of the College of Charleston Halsey Art Gallery.  The book’s front cover includes about 65 postage-stamp-size portraits, and one is instantly struck by the diversity of face, expression, and character.

I’m reminded of when I go to the gym and look at the bank of machines facing out toward the windows.  Each machine has a TV, and each in invariably tuned to a different channel. 

How diverse we are, and how diverse our interests and tastes are!  And yet, of course, much binds us together.

Time was when, as marketers, we focused on the aspects of a product or service that resonated across the board.  That is still important.  And now we can also match specific product/service benefits with the interests of individual consumers.  It’s a constant balance.   I find sometimes that when marketers get too tied up in their ability to customize, they neglect the overarching benefit – the uber-brand position – that ultimately carries the day.  And vice versa.

Yes, we want it “our way.”  But we want to know what “it” is.  And “it” better have some powerful points of difference, or we’ll go for the less expensive version, which invariably exists.

OK, here’s a question.  What would you do if you were BP?  And what can WE do to prevent the recurrance of this horrendous tragedy?  On that second question, for openers, I’d say we can stand firm against any complicity in greenwashing.  I am one – and maybe you are too – who was sucked in by BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign.  I thought they were trying to do things differently.  Of course, it appears now that they weren’t.  They were only trying to appear that way.  Some members of our industry were complicitous.  Not good.  Rawle Murdy has been very fortunate to work with clients who are fully committed to environmental responsibility.  And we are very proud of them.  Were it otherwise, I hope we would either walk away or – better – successfully encourage our client to live up to the positioning that they wanted us to help them espouse.   We can all be part of the solution.