One of the best examples of bravery I have witnessed in my career is in someone I have been fortunate enough to have as a client. I’ve worked with him over the last five years and have seen him take on seemingly insurmountable tasks. His name is Marc Barasch and he is the founder of Greenworld – an environmental organization that regenerates the world’s most degraded regions by planting trees.

Re-greening the planet is a colossal task. The world is now losing 80,000 acres of forest everyday. Where does one person find the inspiration to take on such an overwhelming ‘Goliath’? Part of the answer comes from a book: Marc is not a tree-hugging environmentalist (well, perhaps a bit) or an expert in agro-forestry. He is a best selling author. When he wrote his book, The Compassionate Life,  he never dreamed it would compel him to live up to the book’s core message. Perhaps hanging out with homeless shelter workers and kidney donors affected him on a deep level. He realized that before penning another book, he needed to get up from behind his desk and do some good in the world.

Marc had an epiphany he describes as ‘green compassion’. He worked for free, using his kitchen table as his headquarters. He partnered with individuals around the world – including farmers in Ethiopia, villagers in the Philippines and the indigenous Tlahuica community in Mexico, who are standing up to the logging companies that are clear-cutting their ancestral forest.

Soon, Marc had a small army of supporters: a climate change lawyer in London, a former World Bank country director, a geo-spatial expert in Berkeley and yes, an ad agency with the rather appropriate name of David & Goliath. 

However, this wasn’t an easy undertaking. When his personal savings were depleted, he began to doubt his sanity. Out of nowhere, a Hollywood director wrote a check to support him for a year. “I like the idea of planting trees,” he told me, “but right now, I'd like to water the tree-planter.”

As new projects were added and those first saplings promised to become living forests, Marc continued to find ways to get the word out. Last March, Marc approached us about creating an Earth Day Times Square ‘takeover’. We had a miniscule budget but I knew Marc well enough to take his idea seriously. We actually pulled off this seemingly impossible stunt in less than 30 days. Several companies donated $2 million in free media. We produced a beautifully animated film in just over a week. The film, broadcast on 10 jumbotrons, encouraged spectators to text in a donation to plant trees. One screen featured a massive real time digital tree that grew with each contribution.

With each success there are endless challenges, yet Marc has stayed unwaveringly committed to his vision. I have rarely witnessed anyone so persistent and, yes, brave. Someone I am lucky enough to also call a client. 

After social media helped spread the message of “Let’s burn London down” from smaller towns and villages to key London districts, can we continue to deny the controversial role it plays in spreading massive unrest and in the case of Egypt, revolution? As the harsh sentences come down today in the UK, it will echo around the world that the consequences of social media engagement for the incitement of violence and destruction can have serious and surprising consequences.

Libel cases involving twitter are heating up as well – especially in the entertainment and music communities, with notable cases involving stars Johnny Gill and Courtney Love (including, in Love’s case, a $430,000 settlement!).

Flash mobs, once an innovative way to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson, have taken a dark turn. Flash mobs have been used to instigate a Northern California transit strike, leaving commuters stranded and have been used to organize as many as 28 people to loot a local 7-11 in Maryland.

With all that’s going on out there, how can companies safely engage consumers with their brands? The answer is a simple one: social media is still a powerful tool for positive brand building through messages which seek to build communities, empower entrepreneurs and work for social good and justice. It is a fluid ecosystem which is constantly trying to respond and compete with itself and in that sense, provides the ultimate opportunity for cut through.  

As quickly as the Blackberry Smartphone snapped pictures which looters posted to twitter, users turned the tide, commenting on Facebook in an effort to organize community cleanup and communicate information regarding public safety.

Corporations are seeing the benefits of aggregating content by creating Facebook hubs which direct traffic away from brand profiles to measurable hotspots on the interwebs. All this has pushed Facebook to up its game (as we speak) and find ways of providing analytics to marketing professionals (including my phone number, not to be posted in the DNG bathroom wall!).  Grassroots brands like Tupperware have taken their parties to a whole new level by moving the “original” social network online and putting additional power into the hands of purveyors to organize.  (“Also, Supperware products are ideal for storing leftovers to help stretch your food dollar.” - Airplane)

Mashable honored the best social media campaigns of 2010, bringing awareness to sites like PSGive.org which allows users to participate in online events by nonprofits and win cool prizes like the iPad, while helping a charity of choice. Twitchange.org stands as the web’s first celebrity twitter auction where users can up their twitter credibility by adding a super star tweeter to their followers, while working for social change. All these efforts push the user one step further beyond “Liking” the traditional cause pages on Facebook to actually creating change.

As we follow President Barak Obama on Foursquare (you joined now, didn’t you?) on his re-election campaign (for more hope), and track any updates to Wikipedia that may be required based on presidential stump speeches (Paul RevereDID wake the British accidentally!), its sure to be a brave undertaking to get in and play the game and do it for good.

At David & Goliath, Brave is our motto 24/7. That means even when you’re say, on vacation in Maui, you need to keep that in mind. Last week, I was there celebrating my birthday and decided - why not scuba dive with sharks, without a cage. 

For the days leading up to the event, I mentally prepared myself watching Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Of course that wasn’t all. I also caught an assortment of shark related YouTube clips, including one of a jackass who attempted to kiss a Nurse shark, only to have his lips bitten off.  Then I figured I was ready.
 
The morning arrived and I woke up with excitement not fear. But just to be safe, I opted not to shave for fear of cutting myself and getting the sharks excited.
 
I arrived at the Maui Ocean Center and signed several pages of liability waivers.
Surprisingly the dive was open to any certified diver with “Ball$.” And by “Ball$” I mean anyone with “ball$” of cash to pay for such an opportunity. Then it was time to begin. As I leaned over the dock and dipped my mask into the water to clean the fog I noticed the dorsal fin and striped topside of a Tiger shark pass by. If my memory was correct, that was #2 on Shark Week’s list of the ten most dangerous sharks. The dive master tried to put me at ease telling me it was a 6 foot juvenile Tiger shark they picked up last week off the coast. While the size did seem slightly less intimidating, the fact that this shark had very little human contact made my heart pound just a little faster. I took a deep breath and entered the water.
 
As I descended, I soon found myself surrounded by more than 20 sharks. White Tips, Black Tips, and several Scalloped Hammerheads. All of which were also on the top ten notorious list.
 
As if that wasn’t enough, there were half dozen stingrays that were no joke 15 feet in length. As I looked one in the eyes, I couldn’t help but think about how my friend dressed up like Steve Irwin with a stingray barb through stomach for Halloween. And how I laughed hysterically. Could this be karma wielding its ugly barbed tail? Crikey, I hope not. But as I petted its buttery flaps, I discovered this creature had no beef with me.
 
Then came the fun part. The 11 AM daily shark feeding. Soon foot long dead tuna were being dropped into the tank all around me. The Hammerheads began to circle in a frenzy. “Fins to the left, fins to the right.”  Come to think of it, now would be a good time to be sipping on a drink in Margaritaville. Then past the sharks, I noticed the crowd of people pressed against the dry side of the aquarium, waiting for a good show. Like Romans waiting for the lions to feed on the Christians. Even my wife had a somewhat sadistic smile on her face. Was she looking forward to cashing in on that new life insurance policy on me? I would soon find out.
 
Now since this dive took place in the 750,000-gallon tank that was part of the Maui Ocean Center, I felt pretty confident that nothing was going to go wrong. Then again, these were wild animals, some of which were caught in the last 2 weeks, so you never know. Even one of the Shamus went postal on a trainer at Sea World.  And I wasn’t a trainer. I was a stranger in a shark tank. A stranger who just met them and already peed in their house.
 
Well, even though the hula pie birthday dessert I had the night before probably made my black wetsuit appear more seal-like than usual, these sharks were not nearly as interested in me as I was in them. I was able to appreciate them for the amazing creatures that they were. And I survived with all copywriting fingers still intact.
 
Now I didn’t do the dive to be Brave. Rather, my desire to experience this was simply greater than my fear. And for me that’s what it means to be Brave. Metaphorically speaking, whenever it is time for me to “sleep with the fishes,” I want to know, there’s not much left in my tank. I don’t want to say, I wish I had done this or that. I want to use everything I’ve got. And as I climbed out of the shark tank with less than 500 PSI of compressed air in my tank, at least I can say on that day, I did.
 

When marketing is the only real difference between two products and one product sells significantly worse than the other, what do you blame? If you’re Miller Lite, you blame the weather.  And while, force majeure may be the easy way out, a more honest assessment may lie in a failure to properly understand cultural nuances and the speed-of-light changes in consumer attitudes. 

For instance, shopping at a Walmart in Arkansas may signal American pride, but do the same in LA and you’re liable to get dirty looks.  Likewise, when Mr. T beckons British men to “Get Some Nuts” for Snickers, Miller Lite’s similar admonishment to American guys to “Man Up” completely misses the mark.

If culture is the operating system of society, then globalization and technology are allowing culture to transform faster than ever.  This means that, if you want to maintain relevance, you got to create more things, more often, with more current meaning.  There’s very little margin for error.  What was celebrated and embraced yesterday becomes the “Leave Britney Alone” of an hour ago and the “Chocolate Rain” of five minutes ago.  And, apparently, American dudes don’t think it’s funny for a beer company to tell them that they’re getting girly.  Only Mr. T can do that.  

Since day one, I’ve always imagined creating an agency model that was different from anywhere else. One based on a culture and a mindset designed to take on challenges of any size.  

In fact, it’s never been about an ad agency per se. We’re in the business of brand building and creating consumer affinity in the most honest and approachable way possible.

To do so, we created a brand called David&Goliath. Our philosophy is about being BRAVE — a filter we use for everything that we do. From the people we hire, the clients we work with, to how we approach life on a daily basis. Now BRAVE isn’t about picking up a sword and swinging blindly into the fray, it’s about being smart, efficient, flexible and entrepreneurial. It’s about giving yourself permission to step outside of your comfort zone, to dare to be better and take on Goliath-like obstacles that most people would run from. We do this because we know, that before you can do anything great, you have to be BRAVE first.

I’m not saying we’re for everyone. There are probably a few people out there who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about bravery. And we’re totally cool with that. In fact, we encourage those people to find the place that’s right for them.

What we are saying, is that in order to build any type of brand affinity, you have to start with you, and ask yourself what you believe in and whether or not you are marching to that beat in the most passionate, confident, and undeniable way possible.

Fact is, we are all brands. The key to being our best is to live our brand in everything we do, not just advertising. For us, it’s all about being BRAVE here and everywhere. Because the more we step outside of our comfort zone on a daily basis, the more we inspire others to do the same.

At David&Goliath, we ask all our employees to frame their worst fear and hang it on the Wall of Goliath. On a daily basis, they are reminded of what they need to overcome. In addition, we have office doors painted with the words, “Do what you fear, watch it disappear.”  So every day we’re reminded that fear is the one thing that stands between us and our potential. We’ve lived and breathed it since the beginning. It’s what separates us from everyone else out there.

We believe that before you can ask a client or anyone else to embrace their brand, you need to know who you are first. And when you embrace your truth, it’s the easiest thing to remember.

We are David&Goliath. Welcome to our BRAVE culture.
 

When Mark Zuckerberg asked us to sign our names in blood on Facebook’s privacy policy, we gladly pricked our fingers.  Some of us even cheered.  And now, here comes Japanese band Sour, turning all of the evil beauty of our share-a-holic world into a web genre-bending and paradigm-shifting music video, “Mirror.”  It’s kind of social media Fantasia, connecting a viewer’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, along with his webcam, to become part of a hyper-interactive music experience.  “Mirror” has a strangely immersive — or is it invasive? — element as you see your name magically appear in the Google search bar, your Twitter followers come to life, and a giant robot composed of your Facebook friends walk through a Google map of Manhattan.  And then, holy crap, there you are in the video, composed of zeros and ones and pixels and other computer jibberish.   And just as you’re thinking how cool this all is, you can’t help but wonder – if a music video can do this with your Facebook account, what else can strangers do?

While mash-up music may have reached its apex with Danger Mouse’s Grammy win, a new generation of artists is taking a deeper and more thorough look at blending all kinds of different media.  These intrepid innovators are re-thinking the idea of media as a single-use communication tool, and using anything within their means as potential collage elements.  Pop-up books meets digital projection?  Check.  Fashion meets burlesque meets lights show meets hotel rooms?  Of course.  Harry Potter meets ink meets a public bathroom?  Why not?  Without boundaries or rules, media blending is transforming society’s idea of storytelling and its possibilities.  It makes you wonder whether the word “media” is even still relevant, since anything can now be turned into a piece to be cut, mashed, transformed, and repurposed.  And the resulting metamorphosis is often layered with the kind of magic that accompanies true innovation.