During my visit to Holland this summer, our friend Dr. Carl Rohde interviewed me for Tijdschrift voor Marketing.

Oddly enough, the article is in Dutch, so I won’t share it with you here, but Carl was kind enough to send an English translation. Here’s a brief excerpt of a couple key rules for the new world of marketing:

- Develop your guts to make mistakes. In America there is a tendency for smart people to feel that they always have to be right. To be successful today you need the opposite attitude. You have to experiment, to fail and learn. Try to be wrong, at least from time to time.

- Don’t ask people to do something they are not already doing. Don’t try to turn MySpace users into film makers. Find ways to plug into what they are already doing. Give them tool to improve that.

- Invest in culture. The best brands have become part of the fabric of their consumer’s cultures. Red Bull, Nike, Apple are worldwide icons for this.

Thanks to Dr. Carl Rohde for the interview!

If you didn’t know, we’re looking to hire a salesperson. I placed on ad on LinkedIn and have gotten over 40 responses - some of them very qualified. I also posted the job within two niche communities - WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and A Small World - thinking that because these are small, closed networks that members would be paying attention and I might find some good quality candidates.

I find it interesting that I got zero submissions from either of them. Any thoughts on why?

Oh, and if you’re interested, here’s the job:

Rebel Industries needs a salesperson. You can call it business development if that makes you feel better. Either way, this position will be responsible for bringing new accounts to the company. That means identifying and qualifying potential new business, and leading the charge to develop and close deals.

Don’t call us…

- If you don’t have strong relationships with decision-making marketers and agencies in one or more of the following categories: consumer products (Fortune 1000), automotive, entertainment, technology, youth brands, urban brands
- If you don’t have a “book of business” based on relationships that you can bring with you
- If you don’t have a proven track record of meeting and exceeding sales goals
- If you don’t already understand how to package and sell things like events, branded entertainment, guerilla promotions, viral/buzz marketing
- If the idea of busting the status quo doesn’t excite you
- If you can’t handle working in a non-traditional, creative environment
- If you have to be told to think out of the box, or are inclined to use terms like think out of the box

Otherwise, contact us right away. Base salary/commission is negotiable. This job will be very lucrative for the right person.

Left: New-school thinking, Right: Old-school thinking

What exciting times we’re living in! For those of us whose values include transparency, integrity, and natural law, it’s pretty amazing to watch the chickens come home to roost (I’m really hoping I know what that phrase means). In case you’ve been too busy, I want to bring to your attention two unfolding stories that particularly stand out to me:

1. The Big 3 are no longer big enough to be worthy of the title, and have been renamed the Detroit 3. They’re begging for cash in Washington. While every news outlet, many consumers, and Congress have been debating whether or not to bail them out, the top execs showed up in D.C. in their private jets - three separate private jets to be exact - causing outcry from all of the above. This action obviously did not support their case that their heads are on straight, they’re making sound strategic decisions and they just need some cash to tide them over.

2. Zappos.com went through a round of layoffs. CEO Tony Hsieh, an avid Twitterer and (crowned by us) a Rebel, posted updates about the layoffs on his Twitter feed, and even offered up a copy of the email sent to employees on his blog. The outpouring of support from Twitter followers was pretty incredible. Many applauded his openness and commiserated with the tough times businesses are in. Others promised to actually buy more shoes on Zappos and tell their friends to do the same.

Let’s consider these two stories as a juxtaposition of old-school and new-school thinking. Both are stories about companies going through hard times. One handles it with bravado, finger pointing, and an air of desperation, the other with humility and humanity.

What I find most interesting about the Zappos situation is not that Mr. Hsieh went public with traditionally private company matters, but that he had previously created an environment in which it made sense for him to do this now. He allowed himself the freedom to do the right thing in tough times, because he lived right when times were good.

Conversely, the problem with Detroit is not that they showed up in Washington in private planes, it’s that they were asleep at the wheel so long that they didn’t realize they have no business flying private planes. Ever.

Sidenote: New to our blog? Check out the first post here - consider it a map.

Ad Age says now that we have a black president, the White House will now be the place from which urban trends emanate. I’m not kidding.

What the article clearly demonstrates is that the writer has no concept of how trendspotting works or even what constitutes a trend. The examples he gives: basketball, the fist bump, and eating at home. For at least the first two, you could easily argue that these are trends, and that they did start with black America and then trickle out into the mainstream… in the 80s.

Okay, the handshake thing is a bit more complicated, since the preferred gesture du jour changes from time to time (remember the hi-five, pound, snap?), but again, white people have been tuned into black hand movements for at least a few decades.

What they should have said: A president who is more in tune with what’s going on in the country will have an easier time influencing our attitudes and behaviors than the “old white man” archetype that’s been in the chair from day one. But to suggest that the guy running the free world is somehow in tune with the latest street trends — or that those of us who are tapped into that sort of thing are going to suddenly look to the most mainstream voice in the country — is just plain ignorant.

Yesterday I snuck into the industry-only press day at the LA Auto Show to bring you the really real on what’s happening with the auto industry that appears to be in freefall.

Considering the grim news coming from the right side of the country, kickoff day was relatively upbeat, with an opening keynote from Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. He spoke briefly about the economic problems facing the industry, but was perhaps overly upbeat about the potential of the industry to bounce back.

Some highlights (and lowlights) from my 5-hour tour:

Nissan’s booth was the most interesting to me personally, having been a 3-time Nissan/Infiniti owner. I finally got to sit in the GT-R, which is pretty damn amazing. I got three speeding tickets just sitting there.

The long awaited 370Z is beautiful, but the big news for me was the very Scion-like Cube. Just about five years too late to be interesting, the Cube is sort of a nicer, less youth-friendly xB. The Nissan rep told us that the target was “bi-modal,” which basically means they want kids and boomers to buy the same car. Sounds like a bit of a recipe for disaster to me.

She went on to say that Nissan’s marketing will target Gen-Y through the look and feel of their advertising. When I pressed for specifics, I got a semi-cryptic answer that led me to believe their commercials will contain short codes to enable young people to interact with the brand through SMS.

Sounds like the good people at Nissan need to come to grips with the quote I love to throw around from Anne Busquet, former CEO of American Express: It’s not the age of the internet, it’s the age of customer control.

VW’s presentation was a lot more upbeat. It’s Jetta TDI diesel was named “Green Car of the Year,” and the presenter said “This (Jetta) model doesn’t know there’s a recession,” citing the company’s relatively healthy .6% drop in sales and 14% gain in market share.

Honda emphasized the company’s eco-friendly cars, from the relaunch of the Insight — the cheapest hybrid on the market — to the hydro-powered FC Sport Concept, which looks like a cross between the Lamborghini Reventon and a Transformer. Interesting, I just wish they didn’t have to tell us it was “cool,” because then suddenly it wasn’t.

BMW introduced the plug-in Mini E. Very hot.

Mazda made some significant upgrades to the 3, adding in some luxury-level amenities that should appeal to folks who may be trading down. They also gave out Sprinkles cupcakes.

The Ford booth was the only domestic I got to visit. GM and Chrysler decided not to hold press conferences this year. The upbeat presentation from EVP Mark Fields and (former Scion head / Rebel client) Jim Farley emphasized the fun of driving the redesigned Mustang and eco-friendliness of the Fusion hybrid, which along with the Milan, Farley said, will make Ford the #1 producer of hybrids in America.

Folks getting ready to enjoy a movie... in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA

Science of the Time is an international network of trend spotters who look for cool things happening around the world. We at Rebel Industries are proud to be charter members and contributors to the work of Dr. Carl Rohde, who organized the network and filters the submissions to identify underlying cultural trends and shifts in global perspective.

The site is updated monthly and the newest installment is up now. Check my piece on the cemetery film screening phenomenon happening in Hollywood at the moment. Yep, a blanket, some wine and cheese, a good flick, and a headstone.

We also checked out the rest of contributors for this month’s edition and a favorite is Stitsh: a photo blog covering stylish strangers on the streets, where you can actually buy what they’re wearing — contributed by Kees Elands, from the Dutch trend consultancy TrendsActive.

Bookmark the Science of the Times site - we did.

Man, these guys are right on it.

President-Elect Obama announced last week that he’ll be addressing the world weekly via YouTube and radio broadcasts. That’s what I’m talking about!

You might be wondering — Why? He already got elected, what does he need to do that for? How will he have time to do this? — and things of that nature.

Obama’s platform was a little thing we like to call change. What he really meant to say was that he’s a Rebel. Apparently, he believes in the things we believe in, such as transparency, and conversation. Maybe he understands that if he engages the public in regular, relevant conversations, they will continue to support his brand. See my last post about this: a lot of people felt invested in the outcome of the election for the very first time, and now part of the President’s job is to keep them engaged.

This is the right way to do that: go where the people are, do something relevant to them, and be your brand.

You can watch the first address here.

Let me start by saying that this is not a blog about politics. There’s plenty of those out there. But, I do want to talk about something this election has brought us, besides a new president.

Perhaps most exciting about this election season is the unprecedented levels of participation by young voters. Having come up as part of the “who cares?” generation, I am personally and professionally excited by the engagement of vast numbers of millennials. On Huffington Post, Michael Hais and Harley Winograd make a fairly bold claim that:

“America’s last civic generation, Millennials will lead a makeover of American politics. This realignment will make the Democratic Party the dominant force in U.S. politics and will turn the country away from the divisive social issues and gridlock of the past forty years to a win-win approach that confronts and actually resolves fundamental economic and foreign policy matters. Welcome to the Millennial Era.”

As I said, this is not about politics, it’s about a trend. And it’s fairly clear to me that political engagement, or at least interest, is the latest millennial trend to sweep the nation, much in the same way that “not giving a shit” was the trend when my generation came of age and “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out” was the mantra of my parents’ age group. Millions of young Americans are on board with this trend of engagement for the very first time - most likely due to a confluence of factors including a challenging economic and world political stage, the quick and facile spread of information online, and the candidates’ handy use of all available media for fundraising and getting the message out.

But what’s the one thing we know about trends? They never last. More precisely, they never stay the same. The word “trend” itself connotes motion, and in reality a trend is not a physical thing the way it’s often described, but rather a direction in which things move.

So, the question for us all is what’s next? What is the next iteration of this trend? What will millions of kids do now that there’s no longer an end game in sight to energize them? Surely, some have converted to lives of political engagement that will last throughout their days, but my guess is that’s probably a smallish minority. Just as the hippies eventually cut their hair and got jobs, so will these youngsters move on from moveon.org.

More importantly, what will you do? Will you find a way to leverage all of this energy? Make your brand relevant to this trend while you’ve got people’s attention? Become the new hero that brings the change that both candidates promised and America so clearly wanted? Or will you sit back and watch it all disperse and then wonder why nobody cares about your marketing messages?

Old to the New

This story is a few days old, but with all the election hype, you may have missed it.

The good people at Pepsico have seen fit to redesign the logo for their cornerstone brand, Pepsi. In this post, Gawker estimates that the total cost of rolling out the redesign at several hundred million dollars (for all you math fans out there, that’s about .1% of the bailout package).

You might call this smart marketing: refreshing a brand that can easily get stale on store shelves AND making it look suspiciously similar to the logo used by our new president-elect. Or, you might think it’s a waste of money that won’t have much real affect on the brand’s performance or consumers’ perception of said brand. After all, says you, a logo is not a brand, but one small piece of the puzzle that makes up the elusive emotional connection a company seeks to create with its audience.

Me? I call it corporate malpractice. I think of all the things Pepsi can be doing to build meaningful, perhaps even lasting relationships with consumers by putting some of that money to good use supporting the culture people really care about. For example, for just a small fraction of what they’re going to spend on the re-brand, here are just some of the ways they could Rebelize their brand:

- Sponsor just about every nightclub in every major market in the United States, possibly saving the club business, which is surely taking a major hit through the recession, and make it a lot harder for Coke to continue owning on-premise consumption in the process.

- Build a Pepsi Music label, creating a bona fide entertainment company on par with any of the major record companies, except without all the PR baggage and distribution nightmares.

- Create a chain of community centers all over the country with fun, safe, educational and entertaining activities for kids and teens, entrenching itself in youth culture and giving a tremendous amount back to a crucial audience segment.

- Purchase the world’s largest record collection, immediately giving Pepsi something interesting to talk about with millions of music fans all over the world. We could turn it into a museum, and keep the current owner on as curator. This is a massive PR, experiential, and online play that just requires a little bit of money, which apparently Pepsi has plenty of.

Those are just a few examples off the dome. The good news is Pepsi would still have a few hundred million left to blow on things like a shiny new logo that nobody is going to care about.

I guess Pepsi figures if this doesn’t work, it can always appeal to the government for a bailout.