Or in other words - what, in ascending order, have the people that we’ve met in business been most concerned with this year?

10. Provenance
9. Environment
8. Health
7. Moving CSR to the centre rather than hiving it off to HR
6. Changing behaviour and doing things differently – NOT changing the advertising or hiding behind the brand
5. Squaring what the business stands for with the way the world is going
4. Being less cynical about the consumer, and trying not to talk down to them
3. Ethics
2. The business behind the brand
   

1. SUBSTANCE
   This has changed a lot in 2007. Ten years ago, business was concerned with new markets. Then came a shift towards inward-looking approaches, and tight business discipline. Now there is a swing back to looking outwards, while also asking questions about what the business is, and why it works.
   
   In essence this new approach comes down to one question: what is our licence to make a profit? Can we save the planet, respond to consumers, and make money at the same time?
   
   Not all brands are talking about this, but most of the ones who are serious about being masters of their own destiny are.

Almost everyone we spoke to about this felt they wanted to build more “substance” into their business. At times the ownership of substance felt like the difference between future success and failure; between a new way of working and the old one.

But what do we mean by “substance”? Lots of different things, really:

• Sincere and committed local engagement
• Doing what you say you do
  
• Doing it at every level
  
• Not outsourcing all your problems
  
• Provenance
  
• Involvement, not observation
  
• Competence, experience, purpose

It isn’t necessary to distil these to an essence. “Substance” signifies a big change, and one that will be multi-faceted.

But the big question is, if we substituted the word “reputation” for “brand”, how would our companies stack up?

The interest in substance means the old prevalent cynicism we used to indulge in in business is becoming unsustainable. Now employers are being asked to talk about what they value, and what matters to them. New recruits, consumers and journalists are asking those questions of bosses, and they expect them to be answered.

If you believe in nothing other than revenue and brand image, you’re going to be lacking.
This is complicated by the new hyper-cynicism in consumers. Hyper-cynicism comes from the reluctance to invest unqualified hope and positive emotion in anything because of the fear of subsequent disappointment.

It allows you, for example, to experience pleasure if your team wins something, without sinking your heart into believing they can beforehand. Or to choose a new cable TV supplier, while knowing in your heart that it will probably be as bad as the old one.

This is bad news for business because it means the gap between expectation and satisfaction widens. It means customers get crosser quicker.

Politicians’ fake apologies and loophole-gymnastics; the PR surveys we all know are bogus; advertising briefs based on what you can get away with saying, rather than what you might reasonably deliver. These have always been with us, but never before in such quantities.

Responsible, serious people appearing on TV to make statements that everyone knows are essentially lies is surely one of the most depressing spectacles of the century so far. And the increasing numbers are not just down to coincidence. This is what happens when we think about “brand” when we should be thinking about “reputation”. When we think we can get away without having values. When business and politics become hyper-cynical. In the end, no one believes anything.

Can it be reversed? It needs to be because…

The customer version of acceptable lying involves demanding higher ethical standards in public, while actually purchasing goods that have lower ones. Very typically seen in the food market.

It frustrates the business community, but we might ask ourselves - who started it?

Is the age of spin ceding to the age of stonewalling? Media training has created a generation of politicians and spokespeople who now, when they appear on radio or TV, routinely ignore all questions in order to get their point over.

Is this really a “successful” appearance?

Surely it connects with no one but the boss. The spokesperson thinks “Phew, he didn’t get me!” The audience thinks “What an untrustworthy bastard.”

In the days when companies built workers’ housing and social facilities, the commitment behind their social-responsibility rhetoric was easily seen. Wouldn’t contemporary claims about undeveloped-nations workers’ welfare be more credible if they were accompanied by investment in schools and hospitals?

In fact, many businesses use the distance of these new workforces to conceal the lack of welfare investment. Hiding responsibilities under the carpet becomes even easier when the carpet is conveniently situated in Indonesia.

But if we believe that substance and meaningful values are of value to a business, then surely companies who really invest in their global workforce in a meaningful way are most likely to endure in the 21st century.

The only problem is that investment return from this takes a bit longer than it does from outsourcing your call centre.

One brand that always comes up in discussions about how to communicate substance is Innocent.

Innocent’s key insight was that in terms of brand communication, adult-to-adult language had become debased by the cult of acceptable lying. We all know that “pure fruit juice” will be a) not quite pure fruit juice, but rather b) just not so far off it to merit prosecution.

Adult-to-child language is also full of lies, and child-to-adult is unnerving. That leaves child-to-child as the only comforting and honest language*. And luckily for Innocent, the simplicity of child-to-child aligns perfectly with the overall experience of the product.

Innocent’s potential problem is that once it reaches a certain size, the name may begin to grate. It may even look contrived. Some people have already observed to us that it should really be called “Knowing”.

When it comes to branding, rather than copying Innocent it would be more productive to consider what might follow it. A different kind of personality branding? Or an end to personality branding altogether?

Many of our acquaintances speak highly of Dorset Cereal’s substance and warm-yet-restrained tone. Beware, though. Some said they felt that the packaging overdelivers, ie it looks so pleasing that when you actually eat the product it is inevitably a bit of a let-down. Is it possible for branding to have too much substance?

Well, in our opinion there is another. The neglected form of advertising that really works is expert-to-expert – the sort of thing you get in specialist magazines like What Hi-Fi or Simply Knitting.

Contrary to all the talk of directness this year, we have noted a burst of activity on the business-jargon front. Our five favourites:

The Tallest Dwarf
i.e. the biggest fish in a little pond; “We don’t want to be the tallest dwarf with this, Tristan, we want to play with the big boys.”

Management Dashboards
Software that keeps you in touch with all information relevant to your job. CSC thinks keeping key business data readily available is a good idea, but we find graduate trainees are just as effective as software. They are only marginally more annoying, and they don’t keep trying to cross-sell you their friends and relations as upgrades.

Log
i.e. share; "Can I just log this thought?" One of several worrying examples of talking about one’s self and other people using the language of computing.

“Right now”
Not a new phrase, but increasingly copied from the US, where it is a popular device for making a failure seem like a cute little glitch between friends; “The server isn’t responding right now”, “this channel is unavailable right now,” etc etc.

Does it wash its face?
Meaning, “Is it self-funding?” “How many months after launch will this magazine wash its face?” Nothing to do with Makka Pakka, the cuddly OCD face-washer from In The Night Garden.

Publicising newly-acquired green credentials seems like a way of getting an instant substance fix, but at times this has felt like another new marketing exercise – one that is sometimes more devious than old-fashioned ones.

At the moment there seems to be a paradox in the new green business. A central Green argument is that we need to consume less. Yet green credentials are used as marketing exercises whose end result is surely to boost sales.

To be fair, consumers seem willing to see planet-saving as something that can be done through shopping – albeit by shifting purchases to greener choices. If there is to be a Green Revolution, it will be the most consumerist revolution in history.

To end, a cheery toast for 2008.

Most of us think we’re focused on turning customers into “loyalists”, “advocates” and the like – and yet we know from our own lives as consumers that business doesn’t always treat its customers well. When things go wrong, we often end up feeling more like assassins than “advocates”.

It shouldn’t be so hard to run a true service brand rather than a disservice one. Couldn’t some of the money spent on advertising go into the call centres and shops, to ensure the fabled 360 degree experience? Can’t training achieve more than ensuring the service feels scripted?

Can’t it just be better?

Putting substance into business not only means that it can – it means that it doesn’t feel like a concession to costs. It improves the company and the world immediately around it.

One of our favourite examples from 2007 comes from the offices of Anglo American, the mining company. On arriving, we were given a thorough talk on health and safety in the building by a senior exec who was not “from Health & Safety”. We were bemused, but then we got the point; if everyone at the company thought “safety doesn’t apply to me”, someone, probably somewhere hundreds of miles from the office, would be hurt.

Senior execs putting safety first in everything they did, gave other people in the organisation the excuse to put safety first in everything they did too.

This was good for business, good for reputation, good for the industry and good for the world.

For business in general, perhaps the big reward for substance is that if enough companies “be what they'd seem”, business won't always be society’s whipping boy.

And on the other hand, if not enough businesses do this – what a chance there will be to stand out!

The New Substance has the potential to be the most exciting thing to happen to business for thirty years, and we are all fortunate to have the opportunity to be a part of it. With that in mind, we at Camstrat Hall now raise a responsibly-modest glass of sherry skywards, and wish a most prosperous and substantial New Year to you all!