According to what I’ve read, a non-profit called “San Francisco Beautiful” was instrumental in getting the proposals defeated. While I commend them for their efforts to preserve the San Francisco landscape that I know and love, I cannot help but note the irony of San Francisco Beautiful having sold corporate sponsorships for its “2007 Beautification Awards Dinner” earlier in the month. Indeed, the logos of Citigroup and Parkmerced, a huge residential apartment complex that was once part of Leona Helmsley’s empire, grace San Francisco Beautiful’s home page.

While it is tempting to say something off-the-cuff and snarky about them pooh-poohing corporate sponsorships in one corner while gladly taking them in another, I’m more inclined to admire them for not kowtowing to the presumed preferences of their benefactors on the Bridge sponsorship issue. San Francisco Beautiful clearly put their constituents’ preferences first, and has earned my respect and admiration for it.

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Rice-A-Roni is etched in the minds of an entire generation as being “The San Francisco Treat” thanks to an addictively catchy jingle that was paired with an equally unforgettable advertising campaign highlighting the city’s beloved cable cars and the jangle of their bells.

“One thing my dad insisted upon was a jingle,” his daughter Marla Bleecher told The New York Times. “He said if there is a jingle, people will say it over and over in their heads.”

Mr. DeDomenico certainly got that right.

Given that the city and its famous cable cars are so much a part of the Rice-A-Roni story, it seems only fitting that San Francisco acknowledge the passing of a man who no doubt did wonders to boost the city’s tourism over the years. Rather than a minute of silence, however, I suggest a minute of loud cable car bell ringing to commemorate his memory.

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Is there a clinic that treats Rice-A-Roni Jingle on the Brain?

Now repeat after me:

Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. Rice-A-Roni the flavor can’t be beat…

4 of 9

• Googling Weak Journalism
• The Irony of the New York Minute
• Out of the City and Into the Woods
• Seeking a Cure for The San Francisco Treat
• Top 10 Ways to Help Hotels Go Greener
• Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part One)
• Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part Two)
• If You Are Going to San Francisco
• A Demonstration We Can Do Without

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SABEW’s Talking Biz News points us over to Marketwatch’s commentary on the rumored tensions between CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett, and the reasons why the network needs to ensure there’s room for both.

Shel Holtz takes issue with grocer A&P’s response after a customer complained about a risqué parody rap video that two A&P employees (and brothers) filmed in a store’s produce aisle after hours one night and then posted to YouTube. Holtz suggests A&P must be shorthand for “Antiquated & Prehistoric”.

Grumpy Editor says that daily newspapers can partially blame the unappealing, content-light layout of their front pages for their declining readership.

As noted on Seth Godin’s blog, JupiterResearch released a study this week on the effectiveness of viral marketing campaigns. Apparently less than one-fifth of them in the last year actually were effective in prompting consumers to spread the desired commercial word.

“Wikiscanner” fallout continues, catching plenty of organizations and their reputation management-inclined soldiers with their naughty fingers in the cookie jar – I mean on the keyboard – as noted on Portfolio’s tech blog.

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Few things in public relations are harder than getting reporters and their outlets to admit they have screwed up. And I don’t just mean when it comes to reporting on issues that are admittedly open to interpretation, such as whether the CEO really was “fired” (their choice) or “stepped down to pursue other interests” (the client’s preference). Wrangling a printed correction or clarification or even a verbal “oops” over the phone for any mistake at times seems more challenging than selling Soldier of Fortune subscriptions to Quakers.

So kudos to BusinessWeek for chowing down on a heaping plate of humble pie in its July 23rd issue by publishing a story about Volkswagen’s “last-ditch drive” to save its U.S. operations. It was just over a year ago that the same magazine published a rather different article – a cover story no less – that was much more effusive about Volkswagen’s prospects, thanks in large part to its retaining Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a “hot” ad team it hired to lead the big push to “rekindle” the Volkswagen brand.

To be fair, the earlier cover story wasn’t a total puff piece. The magazine did include commentary from ad industry execs who accurately foresaw the marriage of Volkswagen and Crispin Porter + Bogusky as an ominous one. Peter M. DeLorenzo, publisher of Autoextremist.com, was quoted saying that Kerri Martin (Volkswagen’s “director of brand innovation”) and Crispin Porter + Bogusky “would destroy the brand in the U.S. once and for all” if they weren’t stopped. BusinessWeek also noted that Advertising Age pulled no punches in its of review Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s first ad, writing that it was “so horrendously awful that it smoothes the way for Volkswagen’s quick and complete withdrawal from the American market.”

As it turned out, BusinessWeek should have given the detractors a tad more ink because they were right on the money. Volkswagen’s sales last year slid to 235,000 compared to 338,000 in 2002. Hindsight, what a wonderful thing.

Very much to its credit, BusinessWeek makes clear in its latest Volkswagen story that the exuberant vibe that ran through its May 2006 cover story was a bit premature and that its reporting could have benefited from a lengthier “to be sure” paragraph of cautionary insights. And it reminded readers of its earlier cover story. I wonder how many publications would have chosen to simply ignore Volkswagen’s current plight had they earlier published a similarly ill-judged cover story about the company’s turnaround efforts. I admire and respect BusinessWeek’s integrity, which is why I’ve long been a long and devoted reader.

Reading the two BusinessWeek stories side by side, there is a clear lesson to be learned from Volkswagen’s mistakes – and no, I don’t only mean the questionable decision to use a thick-accented, bleached blonde, dominatrix-type named Helga and an equally over-the-top German Engineer named Wolfgang to sell economically priced compacts.

It’s about overemphasizing image and style over “delivering the goods.” It’s about thinking that clever gimmicks, big marketing budgets, and slick ads are enough to make the silk purse from the sow’s ear and, if need be, make the sow’s ear as well. It’s about the dangers of putting all the public relations, advertising and marketing eggs in any one basket, and entrusting it to someone (or some functional group) who doesn’t know nearly enough about the multiple disciplines to keep a steady grip. Typically, it’s the Almighty Grand Poobah Brand Manager who gets that gig.

At Volkswagen, it was the “hot” advertising agency that seemed to be entrusted with the brand basket. It was Crispin Porter + Bogusky that talked Volkswagen into recasting the redesigned VW Golf as the VW Rabbit, a brand that hadn’t been used in 20 years (possibly, just possibly, because it was a problem-plagued car that frequently broke down or caught fire). Crispin Porter + Bogusky, by the way, is the same organization that believes good advertising “is anything that makes our clients famous” and responded to criticisms of its strategy by saying “I like that they are talking about the work. If they aren’t talking, then your brand is dead.” (There’s just so much wrong with those statements, but I’ll leave it for another day.)

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Crispin Porter + Bogusky is totally to blame for Volkswagen’s continued failure to launch. After all, Volkswagen was not exactly at the top of its competitive game when the agency was hired and the products they were asked to support are as lackluster as ever (there’s just so much lipstick you can put on a pig). And someone back in Volkswagen Marketing had to be signing off on those proposed storyboards, right? I guess that would have been Kerri Martin, the person who brought the ad guys in. She was shown the door six months after BusinessWeek’s cover story.

If Volkswagen truly wants to make a go of its U.S. operations, it needs to start with making better cars, ones that aren’t ranked by J.D. Power & Associates in the bottom 20% of automakers for reliability, quality, and service.

In the interim, save the ad dollars and stick those leftover “Drivers Wanted” signs in the front window of U.S. corporate headquarters. Hey, it worked for the Chinese restaurant down the street.

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