Almost a year ago now, I advanced the argument that when your brand-reality dissonance is totally obvious, it puts people on the defensive, and ends up hurting your product. Nick and Design Observer recently introduced me to an interesting new test case for this idea, the Chevy Volt.

"What is 230?" From a Chevrolet Volt teaser ad campaign, Summer 2009

As the Observer points out, the 230 MPGGE (miles per gasoline gallon equivalent) figure comes from an experimental scenario devised by the EPA. They also point out that "all MPG tests are to some extent arbitrary...but this method is especially random." In other words, your mileage may vary -- a lot.

It's also interesting to note that GM didn't actually seem to need the 230 scheme to make the Volt attractive. It is attractive, running for your first 40 driving miles on electricity and then getting 50 MPG on gasoline. This strikes me as yet another case where a little bit of advertising restraint could have staved off a smattering of negative publicity, publicity you don't want when you're out there making an ethical appeal to consumers.

Nick recently wrote a post about the Civil Branding website and whitepaper. Here's his distillation of the whitepaper's argument:

Branding is a form of mass-communication. For better or worse, choosing brands is how we express which ideas we think are important. Therefore, marketers should encourage companies to adopt and promote progressive values in order to build a better society.

His argument against so-called civil branding is old hat for BlogLESS readers: Brands in fact shouldn't make vague, value-based promises in their advertising because in the best case they can't possibly keep them. He also noted that in many cases, these promises contradict a company's actions.

Putting a finer point on the latter case, Nick brought up a ludicrous set of recent advertisements for Citibank, who now promote their company using the notion "that there is more to life than the pursuit of money." Nick notes that Citibank hardly has the moral authority to make such claims: "That's a great sentiment, but it's hard to take seriously from a company that skims money from it’s customers’ accounts and takes unacceptable risks with their funds - all for the sake of making as much money as possible." I made a similar point in November to a PR person from oil multinational BP whose recent branding upgrade situates them "beyond petroleum."

The individual who wrote the Civil Branding whitepaper responded to Nick's concerns in the comments, suggesting that by merely putting forth "progressive messages," companies are taking on an ethically "constructive" role in society.

This idea is not only credulous, it's dangerous.

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