20 | September | 2006

TourPro got me thinking about New York’s Adirondack Mountain country where I grew up. His site is an excellent guide to that region. Then my old pal Tom, who really should write more often in his blog because he’s a great wordsmith, reminds me that Maple collection is in the spring, not fall. Funny because I’d blended the memories together, maybe simply under the category of “maple tree stuff”?

I actually remember (at least I *think* I remember) picture perfect scenes like this from the woods a short drive out of Plattsburgh, NY. Image is from Dale’s Ponies Gallery: Sap horse

The more newfangled approach lacks the romance, but probably pulls a lot more sap out of the trees.Maple trees with the bucket system seem to use the difference between the pressure in and out of the tree via the tree’s transpiration system. Hey, DOW makes the filters for this gadget. Why don’t the put THAT fact in their ad campaign with a few horses and maple sap buckets and sugar shacks and I wouldn’t be reminding people of their sordid chemical past.

Sap Extractor

The DOW Chemical TV and internet ad campaign about “The Human Element” always strikes me as odd, though I think in some ways fits with my Dad’s excellent notion that advertising often talks about a company’s weaknesses as if they were strengths. Using people and faces in an attempt to get across the point that DOW is about people, not chemicals and technology, backfires for me and gets me wondering “what are they trying to hide here?”.

Maybe it’s a generational thing as I always make the Vietnam era “Dow = napalm” reference which in turn leads to the world famous photo of a Vietnamese girl burned by napalm.

DOW can hardly lay much claim to moral, people focused “high ground” but I also don’t buy into the narrow vision of corporations as heartless. Somewhat like people, a corporation is a curious blend of innovation, competition, selfishness, profiteering, good will and more. I believe corporations are as much a reflection of the forces that built that particular company (the “corporate culture”) than subject to standard rule sets. This suggests that DOW may be a bit off with their version of the old Coca Cola campaign about the world singing together. In fact it kinds of creeps me out like the people in invasion of the body snatchers – is anybody even SMILING in those commercials?