Do I stand alone or am I one in a chorus of dissent about the new name and face of ‘g’, The Boston Globe’s section for Arts, Entertainment and Lifestyle?

Okay, I understand the rebranding was driven by economic factors under the guise of market research touting what Globe readers really want. As the press release says, “In creating ‘g’, we’ve sought to deliver a section that serves the needs and passions (of Globe readers).” But, to me, I just don’t get it. ‘g’ seems very generic and though it is a pretty letterform with loads of potential, it looks, feels and sounds like  a commodity. Let’s see… we already have the much better known Google “g” that shows up everyday in our search bars and the well-known phrases “g string” and “g spot”. What kind of company will this little “g” keep? I am certain the folks behind this effort spent a lot of time and care figuring out the relationship and legacy of the great The Boston Globe and this reworked, revitalized botoxed section. But having the “g” logo splashed in red and cropped at the top and bottom next to the magazine sections, make this little ‘g’ seem more like the red sheep of the Globe family.

Right. The biggest casualty of the current financial crisis is trust.

Wall Street, already viewed askance by Main Street for it’s lavish ways, now conjures images of the Strip in Las Vegas after a losing streak. The self-styled “Masters of the Universe” that Tom Wolfe skewered so justly in Bonfire of the Vanities, have duped us again – and themselves in the bargain. Lehman Bros., a brand that was almost a synonym of trust, has vaporized overnight. Banks are taking money from the Fed for nominal interest and hanging onto it, afraid even to loan it their fellow banks. Credit is “tight” because trust is the scarcest resource. Collateralized Debt Obligations? Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

We spend most of our lives, and particularly our economic lives, walking on air, supported by the trust we place in the financial institutions we take for granted. We measure our sanity on the shared belief that our world is governed by reliable, predictable rules and behaviors. To question everything that is questionable is annoying and paralyzing, and in its extreme forms, even clinical. We know in our minds that “historic performance is no guarantee of future results,” but in our hearts we believe that if we just walk fast enough and don’t look down, we will stay aloft.

The good thing about falling is that it usually wakes us up, at least for a while, to the reality – or maybe unreality – of the stuff we call money. Money is based on a web of agreements, assumptions and contracts. Money is not, and never was, “your money,” in spite of the slogans of the anti-tax ideologues. As we have seen in dramatic form recently, no government, no money. The dollar may carry the slogan “In God We Trust,” but the real trustee is the U.S. Treasury, which, as of this writing at least, is still solvent. This solvency is based purely on the trust we place in one another as citizens and as taxpayers. The self-indulgent party of the few is now over, and we on Main Street are looking anxiously at one another and the resources we have left, testing the ground before we take the next step. There is something bracing about this alertness, this focus on what is really important and where value really lies. But it is only a matter of time before we tire of our vigilance and drift back into our dream. Trust me.

The following article by Chris Klaehn, Partner and Director of Account Strategy, appeared in The Boston Herald Business Today section on March 1, 2008.

Is our collective preoccupation with corporate social responsibility — judging companies by their contributions as good corporate citizens — a fad, a flash in the pan, a passing fancy? According to the prevailing wisdom, integrity pays. It pays to be the good guy; it pays to be socially responsible.

In marketing terms, it’s the art of doing well by doing good.

Who wants to support a company whose values are out of whack with the rest of society? The perception of companies driven primarily by quarterly sales figures and rising stock prices run the risk of appearing to be in business largely for themselves and little else — or so the argument goes.

But companies with a cause — those who tell us how, in the course of doing business, they’re trying to making the world a better place — want to create those critical emotional connections with customers — customers who have the potential to become their greatest evangelists.

This is not a new concept. Think Mobil and Masterpiece Theater. In fact, it has become a multi-million dollar PR specialty, with many large firms opening divisions to advise their clients on how to market their philanthropic and charitable activities.

Coca-Cola ran an ad in The New York Times letting readers know of its partnership with the World Wildlife Fund. Others are promoting their environmentally friendly products: General Electric, for instance, is marketing a line of energy-efficient light bulbs, washing machines that use less water and airplanes that use less fuel — all known under their “ecomagination” brand umbrella.

Timberland Co. is taking an edgy approach. It has attached a “nutritional label” to its shoeboxes that reports on the company’s social and environmental impact.

As The Wall Street Journal said recently, “Corporate-responsibility campaigns, once a backwater in the ad business, have taken off in recent years. Recognizing the rising fervor around environmental and social issues such as education, hunger and poverty, companies are devising ad campaigns to remind consumers of whatever do-good efforts they have made.”

Is there a downside, a marketer-beware here?

The answer is a resounding “yes.” Business confidence, post-Enron, is at an all-time low. Telling your clients that you use recycled paper and soy-based inks is not enough. Nor is anything that smacks of self-congratulation. Savvy information consumers that they are, buyers will see through these half-hearted efforts. Real social responsibility must be fundamentally tied to your core values, a reflection of what you and your organization stand for. Touting what you do for your employees, your community, your world must be an authentic reflection of your brand.

Companies need to be socially responsible to build their reputational capital, which is the underpinning of any brand they have to offer. A company with lots of reputational capital in the bank will be a company that more people want to work for, charge more for its products and services, and become more attractive to investors.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives — the equivalent of those popular rubber “cause bracelets” in yellow and other colors — show the world that you and your company care — about your global footprint, about the welfare of society, about your local community. If done well, there can be a significant marketing benefit from altruistic social programs. Take Target, for example. According to their Corporate Social Responsibility Report for 2007:

“We strive to ensure the ongoing health and strength of our communities by giving more than $3 million each week and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours in support of education, arts and social service organizations.”

CSR and branding are inextricably linked. The efforts that you and your company do to make the world a better place goes to the heart of what branding is all about. We make emotional connections with the companies and products that represent our own values. We naturally do business with the companies and people that we trust, who represent our beliefs, and whose values most closely mirror our own.

And this is the kind of brand that all companies hope for — a brand that is built on a rock-solid foundation of customer belief. The more closely aligned our value systems are perceived to be, the greater the chance that we will become devoted brand and product loyalists.