I’m still recounting the events of the Innovations in Social Marketing Conference from earlier this week (see Day 1, Day 2 am summaries).
The afternoon of day two continued with a bang with Craig Lefebvre shaking people up as their dominant media paradigm came crumbling to the ground. If you read his blog (or pretty much any marketing blog these days), you already know how the new media are turning consumers into participants rather than members of a passive audience waiting to receive our messages. I’m not going to repeat the presentation here, but one fact he shared that struck me is that with 60 million members as of July 2006, MySpace is the equivalent of the ninth most populous country in the world (with Rupert Murdoch as its president). By the way, best wishes to Craig on his new position as Chief Technical Officer of PSI. Just a little side gig to add to his blogging.
The conference then featured two Federal programs that are good examples of being customer-focused. Betsy Humphreys of the US National Library of Medicine talked about how Medline and other products have evolved as they get feedback from their users. Because they serve so many different types of audiences — from physicians and researchers to individuals looking for information on their own health conditions, NLM has tried to organize information around common topics in ways that make it more accessible and simple to use.
Jill Abelson of the EPA’s Energy Star program talked about some of the campaigns and partnerships they have built to promote energy efficiency in products and buildings. They have over 9,000 partners including retailers, manufacturers, utilities, home builders and others. Over 2 billion Energy Star qualified products have been sold. Brand awareness of their consumer symbol is over 65%. Working with partners like Home Depot and Sears, they create promotional campaigns that make it easy for retailers and manufacturers to incorporate their materials within their own ads.
In the Q&A, I asked Jill whether they had done any outreach to home improvement shows or home makeover shows on TV, because they seem like ideal partners. I don’t think she quite understood what I was getting at, because she first responded that they do a lot of media outreach, quite successfully. But when I clarified I was not talking about public relations, but product placement within the shows, she said that she thinks it would be too costly and too much “Hollywood glitz” for 5 seconds of airtime. I have to disagree with her on both the cost and potential for increasing use of their brand. If the EPA were willing to invest a little time and money on meeting with the producers and hosts of these types of shows to make sure they understand what Energy Star is and how it could be featured within the shows, it could have huge dividends. Whether the host points out the Energy Star label on a new appliance and explains why consumers should look for it, makes an offhand remark that makes it seem that using Energy Star is just the normal and accepted practice, or the camera just pans over the label while showing a product, all of these things are easy for a show to do and cost nothing. It’s not Hollywood glitz, it’s reaching an audience of people who are primed to follow the advice of their favorite shows (and by the way, the going rate for 5 seconds of commercial airtime is much more than the cost of flying out to LA for a few days to meet with the staff of various shows or execs at HGTV). Just a thought.
I’m going to end the conference recap here. Soon I’ll write another post about the discussion we had about the future of the field of social marketing, but that’s for another time.
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
hi nedra, it’s jill abelson with EPA energy star. I did understand your question at the conferece. our gvt program knows about product placement, but instead we have leveraged our marketing resources with the large and independent retailers, as I described. we find this approach to be cost effective, directly impacting both product sales as well as consumer understanding of the brand. if we’ve neglected product placement it is because this strategy generates awareness, but not necessarily understanding.
Hi Jill,
Thanks for clarifying your reasoning. I still think that with an informed host or show writers who are willing to do more than just flash the logo, it could go beyond awareness to action and social norming. But certainly your current strategy is making a big difference in any case.