by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 18, 2007 | Blog, Policy, Social Marketing
Ten points if you can name the current Surgeon General of the United States. Ten more points if you do not work in the Department of Health and Human Services and still know the answer. Did you say Kenneth P. Moritsugu? Didn’t think so. To be fair, he is the ACTING Surgeon General, and only since August. Okay then, so who was the Surgeon General before him? I couldn’t have told you, even though I would like to think I’m fairly aware of these types of things. Give up? It was Richard H. Carmona. Oh, of course.
Contrast this with the name C. Everett Koop. If you were around in the 80s, you knew who he was, and probably even remember receiving his brochure about AIDS that was sent to every household in the US in 1988. Other Surgeon Generals like Joycelyn Elders, Antonia Novello and even to a lesser extent, David Satcher were somewhat familiar names to regular Americans during their terms. Also, we may not remember the name of the Surgeon General who was in office in 1964 (Luther Terry), but most of us are familiar with the “Surgeon General’s Warning” that appeared on all cigarette advertising and packaging as a result of the report on smoking that came out that year. What happened to the stature and visibility of this office?
The Surgeon General is the head of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a uniformed service of public health professionals who protect and promote the health of the nation. But more importantly, in my opinion, the Surgeon General is the face of public health and a symbol of the nation’s commitment to protecting and improving the health of all Americans. A key part of the job is to educate the public about disease prevention and health promotion.
While I’m sure the Surgeon General keeps busy with various health promotion initiatives, we have not heard much as a public from our Surgeon Generals since George W. Bush took office. The Surgeon General should be visible and loud, not just issuing reports and press releases, but getting in our faces and showing us how to become healthier. The Surgeon General should use his bully pulpit to exhort people to prepare for local disasters, to get their flu shots, to exercise and eat right. The potential impact of the office is being squandered.
President Bush needs to make it a priority to appoint a Surgeon General for the new term who will get in front of the public and be the spokesperson for public health that we need. Is C. Everett Koop still available?
Technorati Tags: surgeon general, public health, koop
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 17, 2007 | Blog, Cause Marketing
As much as I like the approach that Heifer International takes in helping donors to understand concretely what their donations pay for, others feel that the organization is being dishonest. The fine print states that the funds do not actually go toward buying a specific animal for a specific family, but are allocated as the organization sees fit. I don’t have a problem with this, since I assume that the prices in the donation include administrative costs, and the money within the organization is fungible. As long as they are buying animals for people who need them, I don’t really care whether they actually gave the flock of chicks I donated or instead applied the same funds toward a sheep for someone who needed that more.
Think Personality relates the story of Philip Greenspun, who wanted to donate a water buffalo but also wanted to make sure that it was more than a symbolic contribution. Robert Thompson, an American violinist living in a small town in Yunnan, China, read Philip’s blog about this. He left a comment saying that he went out to the fields and asked local farmers whether a water buffalo would be a good gift (they wholeheartedly endorsed the idea). Robert offered to purchase a buffalo on Philip’s behalf and find a suitable family to give it to, and they made arrangements for him to do so.
Robert made an amazing video of the process of finding and purchasing the water buffalo and delivering it to the needy family. The touching scenes of the elderly matriarchs of the family of four generations being overcome with emotion at the gift, the scenery of the Chinese countryside, and Robert’s soundtrack (an instrumental version of, fittingly enough, “How to Save a Life”) are all reasons to watch this video. See if you can choke back that lump in your throat at the end.
It’s a heartwarming story of how blogs can connect people, how one person can make a huge difference in a family’s life, and how you don’t need to give to a charity to give charity.
Technorati Tags: heifer international, fundraising, marketing, blogging
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 17, 2007 | Blog, Communication
This amazing picture of second trimester triplets in the womb is part of a series of 4D ultrasound scans created for a National Geographic special. Sometimes pictures truly do speak louder than words, and who can doubt that a pregnant woman seeing a picture like this of her own baby would bond even more than she might otherwise with the moving bump in her tummy. When social marketers promote prenatal care and healthy habits for mothers-to-be (e.g., not smoking or drinking alcohol, eating nutritiously, etc.), pictures like these can help to make that abstract baby more real. If the technology gets to the point that everybody’s 18-week ultrasound is this detailed (and not just those who can go to the boutique ultrasound storefronts), I think we will see women being even more conscientious about how well they take care of themselves (and thereby their babies) during pregnancy.
Technorati Tags: pregnancy, babies, marketing
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 16, 2007 | Blog, Marketing
Is it just me, or is comedy just not as funny anymore? I went to a comedy club in Hollywood last night for the first time in I don’t know how long (well, to give you an idea, the last time I went, smoking was still allowed in the clubs in California). In the B.K. era (Before Kids), I had gone to many comedy shows and remember laughing so hard it felt like my sides were going to split. In contrast, last night there were a few guffaws, but the rest were small giggles, if that. So that the night did not go entirely to waste, I’ll use it as blog fodder to relay some marketing principles that you can apply whether you are using humor in your campaigns or not.
- Freebies can help you get customers. We chose the club we went to because it offered free admission before 9 pm on Sunday nights. But with the two-drink minimum, the club still made money instead of having two empty seats. Plus, with more people in the room, the comedians perform better, which improves the overall product and presumably makes people want to return another time. By giving a little, they get a lot.
- Use your internal resources wisely. The first part of the evening showcased some of the comedy club’s staff, who are mostly struggling comedians hoping for their big break. Each person had about 5 minutes on stage, and we must have seen at least 10-15 people in that time. Some were funnier than others, but from the club’s point of view they get an unending stream of hungry comics wanting to work for them, as well as the possibility of being able to say that they discovered the next big star. Do you have staff who could be more involved in improving and marketing your product in ways beyond their job titles?
- Shock value is overrated. Having seen so many stand-ups perform one after the other, the truism emerged that the number of swear words in the act was inversely proportional to how funny the person was. Dropping F-bombs seemed to be the fall-back position when someone did not have much talent. In marketing, companies are sometimes tempted to do flashy publicity stunts when they don’t have much of substance to back them up. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that getting people’s attention for a moment is all you need to do to be successful.
- Pay close attention to your audience. A good comedian is constantly gauging the audience’s response to his material and adjusting how it’s being delivered. When one joke falls flat, he can take a different tack, changing the topic or energy level or making a joke about how much of a dud the previous joke was. Good marketers also need to constantly evaluate and readjust how they are delivering their campaigns, based on the audience’s reactions.
- Connect with the familiar. The jokes that were the funniest (to me, at least – I don’t know about that weird guy in the row in front of us who howled at everything) were the ones about everyday life. These were things like driving in LA, having kids, having to put the airplane tray tables in a locked and upright position (or else the plane will crash!). Somehow the jokes about transvestite hookers just didn’t connect with me as much. Use the situations or ideas that are most familiar to your audience to make your point.
- Don’t bury the lede. After sitting through umpteen different comedians, we were ready to leave around 11:30 even though the show was scheduled to go until 2 am. We got up and stepped out the door just before we heard the MC introduce the next act — Andrew Dice Clay. I don’t know that I would have particularly cared to see him perform, but at least he was someone I had heard of. If the club had wanted to keep people from leaving early, they could have given a hint that someone well-known would be coming on soon. While it’s good to use the lure of the unexpected to keep people’s attention, if you wait too long, you may lose their interest.
Maybe someone should start a Comedy Marketing School, like they have Comedy Traffic School. But I think next time I’m in the mood to laugh I’ll go see an improv troupe like the Groundlings now that I’ve seen the state of stand-up. And I’ll bet there are a slew of other marketing lessons that we could draw from them.
Photo Credit: stephanieontour
Technorati Tags: comedy, comedians, marketing
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 12, 2007 | Blog, Miscellaneous
A nice reminder that we are always traveling through time. Look! Out there! It’s the future!
from xkcd
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 11, 2007 | Blog, Marketing
It being January 11th, you would think that a holiday gift that arrived today would be considered a little late. Well, that depends which holiday you’re thinking about.
Today I received a package in the mail from the team at Personality, the cause marketing agency based here in LA. It was a holiday gift… for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is coming up on Monday. In the box was a “Dream Vocabulary Kit,” based on those magnetic poetry sets made up of words on magnets that can be arranged to form phrases of your choice. In this case, the words are taken from several of Dr. King’s writings and speeches, with an accompanying guide to some of the quotes that can be recreated (e.g., “The time is always right to do what is right,” “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter,” part of his “I have a dream” speech, etc.).
What a creative and appropriate gift, which fits so well with their mission and brand. Thanks to Brian and the rest of the Personality team for the inspiration. Buzz well-deserved. Check out their blog, which is chock-full of cause marketing news and commentary (and the hint they sent out about this gift).
Technorati Tags: personality, martin luther king, cause marketing
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. 
