On Leveraging Faith

by | Apr 9, 2006 | Blog, Marketing, Personal

And I’m back… Apologies for the not so brief hiatus, during which time I went to Israel and England for my brother-in-law’s wedding to an amazing Brit. Upon my return, I was knocked out by a killer sinus infection, from which I’ve only just recovered. And I’m about to disappear again for a few days while I join millions of other observant Jews around the world in the culmination of the annual cleaning frenzy to prepare the house for Passover, which starts Wednesday night. Every inch of the house needs to be cleaned to make sure no crumbs of leavened food remain, to recreate the Jewish people’s experience in the journey to freedom after being enslaved in Egypt. It’s a beautiful holiday (once the cleaning and cooking are done!).

As I was taking all the food out of my cupboards and scrubbing away a year of accumulated shmutz (dirt), I reflected on the power of faith to motivate people to engage in behaviors that involve hard work, inconvenience, no immediate benefit, and a substantial monetary cost (sound like some of our social marketing behaviors?).

Believing that something is a religious obligation — whether it is keeping kosher, spending time in a far-off country as a missionary, or making the hajj — can be a major motivator for members of that religion to take on that behavior. What are the benefits? They may vary from person to person, depending on their reasons for being part of that religion in the first place, but they could include believing that you will go to heaven as a result, feeling included in the community, imparting your values to the next generation, feeling the satisfaction of doing what God expects of you…

There are many religious values that are consistent with other health and social values we as social marketers might want to tie in. For example, many Jews and Christians believe it is a religious obligation to tithe their income to charity — how can your nonprofit relate its fundraising pitch to that religiously-motivated giving? The Torah holds the value of pikuach nefesh (saving a life) above just about every other commandment — in a campaign trying to increase organ donation, this value might resonate with a Jewish audience. I have been involved with a campaign by the American Anti-Slavery Group relating freeing modern-day slaves to the concept of freedom at the center of the holiday of Passover.

Of course, I am using examples from what I know, but you can think about the religious values of your own faith and figure out ways to make connections with various social marketing issues. Faith is a powerful motivator, and you may be able to harness its power for your own program.

To my Jewish readers, chag sameach v’kasher (a happy and kosher Passover). To everyone else, a wonderful and productive week.

Carnival of Marketing

by | Mar 6, 2006 | Blog, Marketing

This week’s Carnival of Marketing is now up, hosted by Jack Yoest at Yoest.org. It has several very interesting articles on various aspects of marketing.

Also, forgot to link to the Carnival last week, which was hosted over the course of the week by Larry Bodine at the Professional Services Marketing Blog. Here is the link to the first day of posts, which started off with yours truly (it says “Day Two,” but the first day was just the introduction). Follow the links at the tops of the pages to see each day’s post.

Becoming a Trend Watcher

by | Feb 10, 2006 | Blog, Marketing

Who would have suspected ten (or maybe even five) years ago that cell phones would evolve into a multifunction tool that allows you to surf the internet, check your email, take pictures, send text messages, download and listen to music, get GPS directions, keep your schedule and contacts organized, play games, watch TV, and have your fortune read — let alone talk on the phone? How many of us foresaw a few years ago that millions of people would share their deepest personal and professional thoughts on blogs (over 27 million blogs now, with a new one starting each second)? How do these trends affect what we do to try to reach our target audiences?

Trendwatching.com gives us insight into the techniques they use to track consumer trends in their latest briefing on Tips & Tricks on How to Become a Better Trend Watcher. What exactly is a trend? They define it as “a manifestation of something that has ‘unlocked’ or newly serviced an existing (and hardly ever changing) consumer need, desire, want, or value” — something that we definitely need to pay attention to as social marketers.

The three main challenges they lay out that we face in watching and using trends in our own work are:

  1. Management and corporate culture (‘They’re just not into trends’)
  2. Resources (Information overload or starvation, lack of time and/or lack of funds)
  3. Understanding and applying trends (How to think Big Picture? What to actually do with your point of view?)

They offer ways to deal with each of these challenges. Here is their handy list of the types of resources you can use to spot trends:

  • Papers, websites, blogs, news, newsletters (online and offline); also see VIRTUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
  • Magazines (online and offline), books
  • TV, movies, radio
  • Seminars, fairs, trade shows
  • Eaves-dropping, chat rooms, conversations
  • In-house trend units
  • Advertising at large
  • Other trend firms, thinkers (philosophers, architects, sociologists), management gurus
  • Street life, travel
  • Friends, colleagues, family
  • Customers(!)
  • Trend reports
  • Consultants, researchers, experts
  • Universities
  • Shops, museums, hotels, airports
  • Catalogues
  • Competition

And once you have identified a trend, what then? Ask yourself if the trend has the potential to change any of the following:

  1. Vision
    Influence your company’s vision
  2. New business concepts
    Come up with a new business concept, an entirely new venture
  3. New products, services, experiences
    Add ‘something’ new for a certain customer segment
  4. Marketing, advertising, PR
    Speak the language of those consumers ‘setting the trend’: we haven’t come across too many trends that were not useful in shaping (part of your) marketing messages.
  5. Internal
    Improve your organizational processes

I highly recommend reading the whole article and exploring trendwatching.com’s database of trend briefings. They are fascinating and may help you look at what’s happening around you in a whole new way.

No Score for Social Marketing at the Super Bowl

by | Feb 6, 2006 | Blog, Marketing

I have no interest in the Super Bowl. I guess that’s awfully un-American. Yet, yesterday I found myself at a family Super Bowl party, lured by the prospect of guacamole, chili and cornbread. So, while I must admit I did actually watch some of the game (who was playing again?), I paid much more attention to the commercials. Some were clever, some were annoying and some just made me say, “huh?” It’s not a good sign when you can’t remember what product the commerical was promoting as soon as it’s over.

While I saw plenty of ads for beer, cars, soda, beer, fast food, dot coms, beer and beer, I was disappointed that there was not much social marketing to be found. The NFL ran some PSAs of its own, promoting its players’ efforts to help after Katrina, and encouraging people to get involved with the United Way.

Dove, partnering with the Girl Scouts, launched its Campaign for Real Beauty to boost girls’ self-esteem about their appearance.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco ran ads to raise awareness of the effects of secondhand smoke. I don’t know if other organizations ran Super Bowl ads locally.

To see all of the ads that ran nationally, go to iFilm.

I realize that most organizations doing social marketing cannot afford to purchase an ad on the Super Bowl. A 30-second spot cost $2.5 million and reached between 90 million and 130 million people — many of whom were actually paying attention to the commercials. For a social marketing campaign targeting issues like men’s health, alcohol abuse prevention or obesity, this would have been a sterling opportunity to make an impact as well as generating buzz.

Online Advocacy Pros and Cons

by | Jan 31, 2006 | Blog, Marketing

Here are some reasons from Rohit Bhargava on why advocacy can be more effective online:

  1. Overcomes boundaries of distance & national borders
  2. Makes it easier for “observers” to participate.
  3. Gives you a destination to place all supporting content and messages to change minds.
  4. Reduces the necessity for celebrities, politicians and governments to raise issue profile.
  5. Provides less-intrusive way for people to pass on the message through email.
  6. Supports word of mouth activity and provides more venues for messages to travel virally.
  7. Allows individuals to support sensitive/political causes anonymously.
  8. Encourages “impulse” donations and makes it easier for organizations to manage donations.

I have to agree with all of these reasons. However, it’s easy to forget that relying exclusively on online methods excludes large numbers of potential advocates for your cause. Here are some statistics to keep in mind from a study released in October from the Pew Internet & American Life Center:

Sixty-eight percent of American adults, or about 137 million people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online, and it is not always by choice. Certain groups continue to lag in their internet adoption. For example:

  • 26% of Americans age 65 and older go online, compared with 67% of those age 50-64, 80% of those age 30-49, and 84% of those age 18-29.
  • 57% of African-Americans go online, compared with 70% of whites.
  • 29% of those who have not graduated from high school have access, compared with 61% of high school graduates and 89% of college graduates.
  • 60% of American adults who do not have a child living at home go online, compared with 83% of parents of minor children.

Using online advocacy methods only would make it impossible for most seniors and many minority or lower income populations to become involved with your campaign. For an issue that might impact these types of groups disproportionately, that would be a large potential deficit in your reach and effectiveness. Social marketers need to make sure that we don’t forget the basics of community organization when newer and flashier methods tempt us to just go with what’s easiest to implement.