He was the Socrates of San Francisco. The Godfather of Guerrilla. The Financier of Flahoolick, or princely generosity. He worked out of an old firehall and his ads were very, very different.
His name was Howard Gossage and he died on July 9, 1969-exactly 10 days before I was born.
This odd bit of trivia has always struck me as ironic. Mostly, I suppose, because it’s disappointing to have just missed sharing the planet with the guy who would have the single greatest effect on my professional modus operandi.
For those of you who don’t know, Gossage is the father of empathetic advertising. Among other things, he introduced Marshall McLuhan to America, hired Jay Conrad Levinson out of the army and was directly responsible for the creation of “Earth Day.” So what does all this have to do with anything?
Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about Howard Gossage. In particular, I’ve been trying to imagine how he would have used the Internet to encourage audience participation. I’ve been playing through all his little schemes, many of which were clearly guerrilla, though the term didn’t exist in advertising at the time. And I’ve been pondering his belief that we should all be using our talents to make the world a better place.
Those thoughts were kickstarted when I met Wayne McRann, who was looking for an agency to help turn his little not-for-profit organization into a household name. Wayne, a retail merchandising expert by trade, started going on “service vacations” to the developing world with his local Rotary Club. He found these experiences to be profoundly rewarding, but you can only do so much in two weeks. So Wayne came up with an idea. What if someone put together larger, longer term projects that used waves of service vacationers to build things that could really make a difference? With this, Developing World Connections was born.
By the time Wayne ended up in our boardroom, DWC had completed several projects and was nearly finished rebuilding an entire village in Sri Lanka that had been wiped out by the tsunami. The project provides sustainable living opportunities, including micro-financing for small businesses and educational initiatives for children and adults.
From the beginning, Wayne was surprised by the number of professionals signing up for trips. Apparently, affluent people are looking for a vacation experience more personally fulfilling than sitting on a beach. Even more surprising, their companies are sponsoring these trips-sometimes sending more than one executive at a time for team-building or as a way to retain key employees.
As we wrapped our heads around his business, we came to view this phenomenon as an amazing opportunity.
So we put together a plan to introduce Developing World Connections to the business community. The plan is to find ambassadors who can share their first-hand service vacation experiences in a way that’s interesting and relevant to their respective industries or professions. We don’t have any money to purchase media, so we’re going to try to convince industry publications to help share these stories.
By now, you’re probably starting to catch on to my little Gossagian scheme. This piece is, in fact, an ad. The intention of it has been to introduce you, the marketing professional, to Developing World Connections. In true Gossage fashion, I am the first ambassador.
During the first two weeks of November, Lindsay Carswell (another MacLarenite) and I will be going to Swaziland to help build housing for children who’ve lost their parents to AIDS. Marketing has graciously offered to host a travel diary/blog that I will update near-daily from the field. This will provide the opportunity for Gossage-grade audience participation and help us build a template for future ambassadors to use. In return for this privilege, I will attempt to make each entry interesting, authentic and worth your time.
If all goes well, our talents might just make the world a better place.
Somewhere, the Socrates of San Francisco is smiling.
Hagan Ainsworth is general manager and creative director at MacLaren McCann in Vancouver. Read his blog from Swaziland starting in November at marketingmag.ca
