Watch Alex Bogusky Talk About The Future Of Responsible Companies

A new documentary, The Naked Brand , asks business and advertising leaders about the future of brands in a new world of ultra-transparency.


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Watch Alex Bogusky Talk About The Future Of Responsible Companies

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By Morgan Clendaniel

A new documentary, The Naked Brand, asks business and advertising leaders about the future of brands in a new world of ultra-transparency.

If people are going to eventually find out anything about your company, it's no longer prudent to base your business off doing bad things to people or the planet. You will be found out and then people may be less interested in patronizing your company anymore. In this new world, the meaning of advertising changes, and that's what The Naked Brand, a new documentary which opens November 20, discusses: what it means to be a brand in a new age of transparency and openness, and how you interact with consumers.

The clip above features ad whiz Alex Bogusky and his transformation from shilling for Burger King to being the cofounder of Common, a self-described "accelerator for social change." (They made these great fat polar bear ads.) In the clip above, Bogusky doesn't sound much like a man who spent a big chunk of his life selling things for multinational corporations.

Now Bogsuky is working on models for companies to be better citizens, and part of that involves a different take on advertising so that the new information you get about a company isn't a gimmick, but hard facts about its performance. "Brand is going to change radically from what's been a fictional story that's stood between you and the company to real-time, up-to-the-minute truth about your company," he says. "Can you--through that--convince me to buy?"

The film--co-directed by Jeff Rosenblum, co-founder of the agency Questus--features many other companies, like GoodGuide and Zappos, that can serve as a good model for this new era of business. As Bogusky says: "Transparency isn't a choice. The only choice is does it happen to you or do you participate in it."




Fast Company Copyright 2012 by Fast Company. Reprinted with permission.


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