Scotch Tape
I've always admired 3M. They are the people who invented scotch-guard, post-it notes (unless it was really Michelle) and heaven knows how many other incredible inventions. Their history is one of innovation until recently as flagged by a 'brand infiltrator' friend of mine.
A couple years ago a smart photographer and friends had an idea to plaster a colleague's vehicle in 3M post-it notes. (With friends like that who needs enemies but I digress.) The pictures were posted on Flickr and the concept went viral and took off. A year goes by and 3M the maker of post-it notes contacts the aforementioned photographer about using the photos for a national advertising campaign. Social media is all the rage after all.
Seeing how 3M is a multi-billion dollar corporation, it's not unreasonable for the photographer to think 3M could spare some change, do the right thing and pay him for the rights to either license his work or buy it outright.
Instead, it appears that 3M state on the record that they could easily copy the idea. So in their infinite wisdom they decide not to pay the photographer, steal the concept and launch a marketing campaign leveraging it anyway. With me so far? The whole sordid mess is recounted quite accurately here.
What's ironic is that on the corporate 3M website in the "Who We Are" section there is a little mantra about 'Our Values'. Number one on the list is: "Act with uncompromising honesty and integrity in everything we do." I guess the 3M marketing department didn't get the memo about 'Values'.
This really is a shame for a few reasons:
(1) 3M is a respected company but because it appears they decided to be cheap and save a few grand their brand got hurt. I'm sure their PR department/agency is not thrilled about this kind of attention.
(2) As a consumer, my perception of the 3M brand has been changed. They didn't play by the rules and it appears they misappropriated someone else's idea. (I'm being very polite in my choice of words.)
(3) The marketing person at 3M who contacted the photographer now has this incident on their 'online record' and sadly permanently. What do I mean? If you plug that person's name into Google, this incident comes up in the top 10 results. Not good when potential employers or business partners are checking up on you. (One recruiter told me they always do Google, Facebook and MySpace searches on possible candidates.)
I always thought that 3M was an acronym for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. One could be excused if they thought it stood for Massive Marketing Mistake. Perhaps I'm picking on 3M but I expect more from an organization of their calibre. One thing is for sure, it's going to take a lot more than scotch-tape to fix this marketing snafu.
