Here is the text of my remarks to a union conference in Sydney this afternoon:
Union membership is in decline around the western world.
There are many reasons for this decline but my topic is whether marketing can help reverse the trend?
So, I’m going to ignore the free rider problem and the problems of government and employer antipathy.
Instead, I’m going to focus on the question of whether unions can be exciting again.
My answer is -
Not if they take a safe approach to marketing
And not unless unions change enough to force people to re-think their perceptions.
Perceptions
For most people, unionism is an industrial age product.
Unions are good, they do good things, but they were more relevant in the past than they are to the world today.
People think of unions as part of a struggle in the past, before extensive welfare and universal education and so on.
People think of them a bit like other industrial age products
Like trains.
Railways were the greatest thing in the nineteenth century, they were exciting, they were transforming.
Nations like the US, Australia and France didn’t really exist before the railways.
Trains were faster and stronger than anything else.
But not anymore.
Information Technology is the late 20th, early 21st century equivalent.
Many young people now look on web 2.0, social media, social networking and so on with the same hope for change as their parents and grandparents vested in unions 50 years to 100 years ago.
Seth Godin is one of the most popular writers on marketing in the world today.
In his evocatively titled 2003 best seller “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable” Godin argues that marketing success is not just a matter of following the Ps – product, pricing, promotion, positioning and so on.
These basics are important but
To be successful you have to be remarkable.
Purple is the new P, according to Godin.
Brown cows are nice but not remarkable.
After you’ve seen a few, cows are just boring.
Something remarkable is worth talking about.
It has the buzz factor, it’s cool.
People want to recommend it to their friends,
They feel proud of their awareness of it and association with it.
Marketing starts with the product
Remarkable marketing, according to Godin, is not an add-on, it’s built into the product itself.
Some examples of remarkable companies include:
Starbucks, Google, Amazon, Apple ipods
None of these companies takes a safe or middle of the road approach.
Purple cows exist on the extremes
The lowest price or the most exclusive
The fastest or the slowest
Being purple is not about safety and comfort, purple cows attract criticism
Are unions brown cows or purple cows?
There is some evidence that unions are purple
The Workchoices campaign captured the public imagination.
It engaged people well beyond union members.
I see some parallels between the Obama campaign and the Workchoices campaign.
A simple message, a cause to be passionate about.
And the use of the full spectrum of communication techniques; from TV ads to youtube to shopping centre stalls.
Nevertheless, there is a lot more evidence that unions are brown cows
Survey research shows that people are sympathetic, they just don’t join.
Second, they see unions as being about ‘security’; something to fall back on if the employer goes bad on you.
that’s great but it doesn’t fire people up.
Why are unions more brown not purple?
Unions used to be very purple indeed
The message used to be more passionate – “The unity of labour is the hope of the world”.
Unions weren’t just about protecting what you have, they also wanted to hange the world.
But they have been around for a century
They are seen as part of the system, that’s fine it’s just not remarkable anymore.
To refer to Obama again, to what extent do unions still hold the position on ‘change’?
Some of the problem might be the opportunities and patterns of participation.
If you look at the Obama campaign you see a great welding of the old person to person, community style of organising to the new tools of social media and social networking.
Obama had 3.1 million contributors and 10 million supporters.
Obama’s campaign allowed people to get involved when, where and how they wanted.
Obama’s transition team is now working on how to make this operation ongoing.
Similar things worked in workchoices but is it an ongoing feature?
The message
As I said, the basics of marketing are still important: price etc still matter
But unless unions are viewed again as remarkable converting positive perceptions to actual membership applications will remain difficult.
Value propositions, all that stuff, will fall on deaf ears unless people are motivated at a much more basic level.
Unions must be seen as remarkable in the role they play, their objectives, and also the way they organise, as I’ve touched on before.
I imagine when most people think about unions there is very little clarity, and therefore, little impact in their perceptions.
Unions have to solve a problem for modern workers – but what is it?
As I said security is not that exciting, the message needs to be more uplifting and inspiring.
Unions have to be the best at something? – what is it?
Other organisations help workers. Welfare agencies, the state and so on. To some extent, unions may have given up some ground to these people.The challenge
Unions have to be so cutting edge that it feels risky and scary.
That’s not easy.
4 Comments
Unions are irrelevant because modern legislation recognises that employers cannot treat employees as involuntary servants.
Maybe if the unions hadn’t scuttled electricity privatisation, public transport reform and more in NSW, they’d actually be viewed as a progressive force in our society.