The Tip Jar – 4/15/07

by | Apr 15, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Live from Baltimore, here’s last week’s slightly late (or this week’s slightly early) edition of the Tip Jar…

  • The Social Marketing Quarterly has undergone a complete makeover and looks simply stunning in red. The 4-color cover featuring artwork from campaigns described in each issue is a nice departure from the old black and white abstract photos. And the accompanying website provides an assortment of social marketing resources in addition to the journal abstracts and subscription information.
  • Deborah Rodriguez is a Michigan hair stylist who gave more than haircuts and highlights to Afghan women. By opening a beauty school in Kabul, she inadvertently brought about social change and independence to hundreds of women there:

    Rodriguez is quick to note that her school’s 182 graduates have seen their incomes grow significantly. Education for women was banned under the Taliban, so many Afghan women are illiterate. Many are war widows, or are otherwise isolated or shunned by society, and without a source of income.

    With beauty-school skills — which include waxing (all body hair must be removed before a wedding, by Afghan custom) — women who had earned $40 a month are now able to make $400 to $1,000 a month.

    “It is the one and only industry in the country that women can own and operate without male influence,” she said. “Women can do carpet weaving, chickens, eggs, tailoring — but a man can interrupt that at any point.”

    The beauty school is an anomaly. “Men cannot see uncovered women. They are not allowed in the building,” she said. “It’s a sanctuary.”

    Another case of unintended consequences, but this time with positive outcomes.

I will be reporting about what happened at the Innovations in Social Marketing conference soon, but after taking the redeye last night and spending the day at the conference, I just don’t have the energy tonight. I will say, though, that some of my concerns have been allayed after learning that conference organizers made a big effort this year to include more people in the conference, with an initial mailing list of over 500 people. From a show of hands, it looked like about half of the people came for the first time. More soon…

Photo Credit: crispyteriyaki

The Tip Jar – 4/8/07

by | Apr 8, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Tips and snips from around the world of social marketing…
  • The Social Marketing in Public Health conference is coming up on June 20-23 in Clearwater Beach, Florida. It’s a great way to learn the basics of social marketing, for those new to the field, as well as to learn more about what others are doing in their own programs and about topics of interest to social marketers. As always, they are also offering a more intensive Field School with 5-day courses before and after the conference on topics like formative research, health message design, consumer behavior and focus groups.
  • While I so far have been pretty down on Twitter, Dan McQuillan has found some ideas for how it could be used for social change. First responders to a disaster could easily use it for text messaging each other with updates and requests. It could help in places where the internet does not yet reach or is censored by the government. It can provide a feeling of immediacy in activism efforts. Maybe it’s not a complete waste of time. 🙂
  • A recent study found that more than one-third of the people living in Washington DC are functionally illiterate (vs. about one-fifth nationally). I suspect that this is similar to other big cities. This fact has major implications for social marketing efforts. Don’t rely on printed text to get your messages out, and make sure that your visuals support your message rather than showing what you do not want people to do. This oldie but goodie publication from the National Cancer Institute — Clear & Simple — gives tips for reaching low literacy audiences.
  • My alma mater, the Harvard School of Public Health, is joining other organizations in lobbying the MPAA to incorporate depictions of smoking as a factor in determining movie ratings. HSPH found that 66% of the top-50 grossing films in 2004-2005 contained depictions of smoking. I agree that showing positive characters smoking can make the practice seem more acceptable and desirable. I’m concerned, though, that there is no sense of context in how it is depicted. If a villain or unlikeable character smokes, I think that is perfectly fine. Smoking is one way that writers and filmmakers portray an aspect of a character, and I think the key is in getting them on board to change how they use that tool. I just can’t see parents keeping their kids from going to a movie because it shows someone smoking.
  • If you speak Spanish, Alan Andresen just passed along the information on the social marketing listserv that there is a 2004 social marketing book written by a Mexican professor in Monterrey:

    Luis Alfonso Perez Romero, Marketing Social, Teoría y Práctica, Editorial Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004

  • Britt Bravo let me know about NetSquared’s upcoming conference (May 29-30 in San Jose, CA), which will provide 20 social change nonprofits using social media with an all-expense paid invitation to the event and technical support to help them get to the next level of innovation. Voting will take place from April 9-14, and you can find a list of all the nominated projects here. One of my personal favorites is Buttons of Hope.
  • Happy Easter to my friends celebrating it today. And happy Passover to those who have been and will continue to celebrate it until Tuesday night (then let the bread eating begin!) On Passover (Pesach, in Hebrew) we commemorate going from slavery to freedom. But we cannot forget that many people are still enslaved in the world (and even in our own country) today. Please consider making a donation to the American Anti-Slavery Group today via the blue Network for Good widget on the right side of my blog (scroll down a bit to find it) or directly to free a slave in Sudan or support their other activities. We cannot truly be free if others are enslaved.
  • Speaking of fundraising widgets, congrats to Beth Kanter who received the Fantasticness Award at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. She’s the hardest working gal in blog and roll, and I think she’s fantastic not just for the sheer volume of content-packed blog posts she puts out, but also for her willingness to help us learn along with her as she explores the cutting edge of social media. You deserve it, Beth!

I lost my voice completely for three days after Social Marketing University, so I’m going to spare my fingers the same fate and stop here. I will be out on Monday and Tuesday for the last days of Passover and will jump back in after that.

Photo Credit: Aureus

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The Tip Jar – 3/9/07

by | Mar 9, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Let’s see what we find in the Tip Jar this week, shall we?

  • Suzanne Hawkes gives a great overview of the different types of approaches that can be used to bring about social change. She divides it out into direct service, social marketing/education, business/consumerism, policy advocacy (i.e., government and corporate), and politics (i.e., via elections). While I generally think about it in terms of education vs. persuasion vs. coercion, Suzanne’s more detailed breakdown would be useful in thinking about how to use each approach within a particular campaign.
  • When your audience has a low literacy level, the use of pictures becomes critical in your print communications. The National Institute for Literacy brought in guest speakers Len and Ceci Doak and Dr. Peter Houts to lead a e-mail-based discussion on Using Pictures in Health Education on its Health and Literacy Discussion List. The discussion is rich with information on everything from where to find free health-related clip art to why to draw stick figures with thicker lines in Africa (very thin people are thought to have AIDS) and how to do your own photo shoots. (via Medical Writing Blog)
  • Yet another ad has been pulled in response to criticism from advocacy groups. Dolce & Gabbana’s ad showing a bare-chested man pinning a woman down by her wrists while other men look on elicited condemnation from Amnesty International, the National Organization for Women and others for its implied depiction of violence. High fashion advertisers have already gone so far in pushing the lines of acceptability, they now seem to feel they have to cross the line to stay cutting-edge.
  • Will a machine be able to do a better job at predicting intentions to perform a behavior than we’ve been able to glean from self-reported data?
  • Those who disparage Second Life users as pasty chair jockeys in their first life may be surprised to find out about Moriash Moreau‘s contraption that lets him physically walk around the virtual world on his actual feet:
    Moreau took a second-hand treadmill (surplus from a fitness no-longer-enthusiast), a second hand USB keypad, and assorted wiring and contact switches, and wired up an input device where he could make his avatar walk by, well actually walking, using some press buttons to steer (his blog contains all the construction details.) Moreau performs regular walks around Second Life, exploring on foot, but it doesn’t stop just there.

    Moreau has found a way to contribute to others. Moreau is going to walk in the Second Life Relay for Life this year. His avatar is going to walk the course, and Moreau will be doing all the leg-work. Literally.

    It certainly helps to be a technogeek when you have an idea like this and can just take out the old tools and cobble it together. I can see something like this taking off as SL becomes voice enabled, when someone in Los Angeles can exercise alongside a friend in London and carry on a chat while doing so.

  • Don’t worry about finding the influential people when trying to bring about social change, but rather look for the easily influenced people, says Duncan Watts about the commonly accepted model of influencers outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point.
  • Hospitals are producing professional-looking TV health news segments that are being used as-is by local news programs without any disclosure of the source of the material. This is not a new development in the field of PR, but it seems to be more common now among hospitals.
    It’s the product of a marriage of the hospitals’ desperate need to compete for lucrative lines of business in our current health system and of TV’s hunger for cheap and easy stories. In some cases the hospitals pay for airtime, a sponsorship, and in others, they don’t but still provide expertise and story ideas. Either way, the result is that too often the hospitals control the story. Viewers who think they are getting news are really getting a form of advertising. And critical stories—hospital infection rates, for example, or medical mistakes or poor care—tend not to be covered in such a cozy atmosphere. The public, which could use real health reporting these days, gets something far less than quality, arms-length journalism. (via Harvard World Health News)

    This is yet another indictment of the mainstream media’s “journalistic standards.”

  • Just a warning… I received an e-mail today that started:
    Hi,
    I’m Dr Brown Mcknight, born in Tetax,live in England.I love making Friends from all around the world, most especially honest individuals.I work in my organisation as a Youth director and also for the U.N.H.C.R as Staff in the refugee department, and also served the World vision as director to Canada two years ago.. I Would love to meet you in person to know how best we can uplift the plight of children and youths in the less developed countries such as Africa and Asia and see how best we can make the world a better place to live in.

    It is my pleasure to tell you that there is a youth Conference coming up soon both in the United State and Spain respectively. .Theme-“anti-terrorism and child labour”.This conferences are Free, the Sponsors will be responsible for your air ticket, both in the United State and Spain and the Conference committee will also fax a Letter to the America embassy within your country,so do not worry about Visa, This conference is sponsored annually by UNICEF,USAID, WHO,UNESCO, the United Nations Security Council and First Ladies of Presidents of United Nations…

    It sounded somewhat suspicious but also slightly plausible — I often receive strange sounding but legitimate e-mails from people in other countries whose first language is not English (though I have no idea where “Tetax” is). I did a search on the organization, called the “Global Youth Centre,” and found out that this is a scam along the lines of the Nigerian 419 spam. Apparently people who sign up for the nonexistent conference are directed to send money via Western Union for the hotel. Just wanted to make sure you all are aware of this latest spam iteration, which I hadn’t seen before.

Photo Credit: Kaija

The Tip Jar – 3/2/07

by | Mar 2, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Here are this week’s items that were not quite big enough to merit their own entry, but which were bigger than just a del.icio.us link:

  • Envision Solutions released results of research on how people are using health information they find online, digging deeper into some of the findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study found that internet health information seekers are exposed to a significant amount of user-generated media (i.e., blogs, wikis and online bulletin boards), and also frequent websites developed by government, non-profits and corporations. Content provided by peers (particularly Wikipedia) may be perceived as being as credible as that from more “official” sources.
  • The video podcast from the Ypulse “State of Teen TV” event I reported on is now available for your viewing pleasure, along with others on “What Youth Brands Can Learn from the Action Sports World” and “The Future of Teen Magazines.” Check them out if you are working with youth.
  • The Kaiser Family Foundation has also made available a webcast of a forum held on Tuesday on “Public Service Advertising in Great Britain: Lessons for US Public Interests.” the event featured Alan Bishop, CEO of the United Kingdom’s Central Office of Information, the government organization that implements and coordinates all government public education campaigns, and a panel of several other high-placed American execs who deal with PSAs. (Thanks to Mike Newton-Ward for the tip.)
  • I’ve found out about a couple of interesting blogs related to social change efforts in Second Life. One is called A Better World in Second Life, and is part of Joshua Lev’s thesis project, which includes a machinima documentary about activism in Second Life. The other is NPSL: Nonprofits in Second Life, which is a group blog “about non-profit organizations and how they work in Second Life – to collaborate among themselves and with each other, engage with their publics, raise funds, teach, learn and further their real-world goals.” I haven’t been in SL in a while since my first life has been keeping me pretty busy, but I am still fascinated by the potential it holds for social marketing. (via Beth)
  • Grokdotcom, a blog focusing on “online conversion rate marketing” (which basically means persuading people to take action on your website), has an interesting analysis of the Canadian Make Poverty History website from the point of view of what they call the “four dominant personality types:”
    Methodicals want to know, “How can your solution solve this problem?”

    Humanistics want to know, “Who has used your solution to solve this problem?” or “Who supports your solution to this problem?”

    The Spontaneous wants to know, “Can you quickly tell me why your solution is best for solving the problem now?” and “Why is this the cause for me?”

    And Competitives want to know, “What makes you the best choice for solving this problem?” and “What are your credentials?”

    An interesting way to look (or relook) at any of your communications.

  • Yet another social network for nonprofits has come out called All Day Buffet. It has not quite launched, but is collecting contact info and areas of interest before the full roll-out. It’s not clear yet how this will be different from some of the many other social change social networks out there (e.g., Change.org, Idealist, Zaadz, etc.), but at some point I should really do a detailed comparison of them all. (via PSFK)
  • Speaking of social networks, the Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog had a great article on how green organizations are using MySpace effectively. And if you want to create your own customized social network, I’m exploring uses of Ning, a retooled site that I think holds a lot of promise for organizations who want to build their own online communities without the negative baggage of MySpace or Facebook.
  • If all my posts about using social media for social marketing have inspired you to consider using it in your own program, take a look at Christopher Carfi‘s list of questions to ask before jumping in. It includes a worksheet that will help you think through the who, when, where, why and how before you make assumptions about the “what.” Also see Britt Bravo‘s long list of examples of how nonprofits and their supporters are using social media (and I especially like her description of blogs as the “gateway drug” — seems to be true).
  • I love getting glimpses into other bloggers’ cultural traditions, so I thought I would share some of mine from time to time. Sunday is the Jewish holiday of Purim (another in the vein of “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”), which commemorates how brave Queen Esther saved the Jews of Persia from annihilation as decreed by the king. We celebrate by reading the story, dressing in costumes, giving gifts of food to friends and family, and giving money to poor people in our community. The traditional food, which I baked a ton of the other night, is hamentaschen — triangle-shaped cookies with a filling inside. (And the other, even more popular, tradition is to drink so much that you can’t tell the difference between the good guy and bad guy in the story.) Sadly, the story of an evil ruler of Persia who wants to destroy the Jews is not old news.

Until next week, keep the tips coming…

Photo Credit: fensterj

The Tip Jar – 2/23/07

by | Feb 23, 2007 | Blog, Resources

And now for this week’s snippets that don’t fit anywhere else.

  • Kaiser is not on board the HealthTrain, refusing to engage its critics openly about problems with its HealthConnect system and declining to speak on a panel at the Healthcare Blogging Summit. Dmitriy shares an article in Kaiser’s hometown newspaper on this and makes the very good point that Kaiser is turning their refusal to talk into the story itself.
  • Despite its major marketing push with partners like Apple, Gap and Nike, Bono’s (RED) campaign reported that it raised a total of $11.3 million in contributions in 2006. While that number is nothing to sneeze at, this is just a drop in the bucket for the Global Fund, which has committed $6.6 billion for 460 programs in 136 companies. Considering all the hoopla at the campaign launch, and the tons of advertising and free publicity, it would seem that (RED) is either not living up to its potential or the public is just not impressed.
  • I tried to leave a comment on Evolusent’s blog, but couldn’t get it to work for me, so I will comment here. They say:
    Pleased to see marketers embrace medium, in a fashion that demonstrates their understanding of social marketing. As is the case in Dell’s recent release of IdeaStorm a community driven blog, where customers tell Dell how to make them buy more. More organizations are exploring the merits Web.20 technologies, including internet tv, podcasting, blogs and online communities, as the numbers deliver.

    I say, too bad Evolusent doesn’t demonstrate their own understanding of social marketing.

  • Egyptian blogger Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman was just sentenced to four years in prison for expressing his opinions about the government’s failure to protect the rights of religious minorities and women, as well as other criticisms of Muslim extremism. The 22 year old is the first blogger in Egypt to be prosecuted for the content of his posts. His sentence included three years for inciting hatred of Islam and one year for insulting the president. Reporters without Borders is calling for the UN to deny Egypt’s request to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009. Knowing the UN, which has a great love for putting repressive governments in charge of human rights issues, and has already let Tunisia, another violator of online freedom, host the World Summit on the Information Society, UN delegations will be wining and dining in Cairo in a couple of years.
  • MarketingVOX highlighted a great use of social media on behalf of a nonprofit. The same concept could be done with many other issues:
    Titled Cute with Chris, a new three-minute video blog is using often-irreverent humor to target pet lovers, urging them to save homeless animals in Los Angeles, according to Three Minds.

    “Cute” also invites viewers to submit pics of animals to be featured on the show, which also partners with the L.A.-based Glendale Humane Society to allow fans to adopt a pet of their own.

    The video blog is optimizing its viewership by being available on all the major web destinatoins: in addition to the video blog site, episodes can also be viewed on MySpace and iTunes.

  • A new study found that African American women are less likely than white women to receive well-communicated results of their mammograms, especially when the results were abnormal. A higher proportion either never received the results or misunderstood what they were told, thinking the results were normal, when they were actually abnormal. This shows we can’t just blame health disparities on lack of access to medical care or cultural issues, but we need to make sure that healthcare personnel are trained in effective health communication as well.
  • And finally, we’ll end with what I think is some incredibly profound spam poetry that I received with a hot stock tip today:
    Ethics policy patent privacy policycopy inc part new york?
    Dashed at last minute dont think it.
    Yellow pages forumsmost popular american idol contestant.
    Info news events work sitemap reprints? Pages, forumsmost, popular, american idol? Party english koreatired of dealing broker chainsmost idolbest. Since after, watching again on tape. Pick so go see next.
    Blatant, attempt steering away.
    Policy patent privacy policycopy inc part?
    Started, found out would allowed. English koreatired of dealing broker chainsmost idolbest greeting cards?
    Eventstop things, to do, in, gay.
    Patent, privacy policycopy inc part new york times.
    Compare prices find date job online. Know whether, shed finalists since after watching. You, are newspapers radio tvgt upcoming eventstop things to.
    Upcoming eventstop things, to. March gets second chance even simon agrees she was. Did not start well though?

    • I’m feeling koreatired. So, until next week’s Tip Jar…

Photo Credit: mikeporcenaluk

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The Tip Jar – 2/16/07

by | Feb 16, 2007 | Blog, Resources

Lots of interesting bits and pieces in the Tip Jar this week:

  • Dove has just unveiled the newest piece of its Campaign for Real Beauty. Its “Beauty Has No Age Limit” ads for Dove’s pro-age skin and hair care products are doing for older women what its “Real Women Have Real Curves” campaign and Evolution video did for normal looking younger women. The ads feature real women in their 50s and 60s who bare all for the camera to make the point that aging is not a bad thing. It’s not exactly a social marketing campaign, since at the end of the day they are still trying to sell a product, but the messages these ads promote are definitely working towards creating healthy social norms.
  • In a sad social marketing-related link to the shootings in Philadelphia earlier this week, one of the victims, Mark Norris, was the head of the ad agency that created the controversial “Have You Been Hit?” HIV prevention campaign that portrayed young black men in the cross-hairs of a gun. How horribly ironic. My heart goes out to his and the other victims’ family and friends.
  • Weight loss advocate Julia Havey is calling Coca Cola’s bluff on their My Code Rewards program, saying that in order to win any of the top prizes participants have to drink a lethal amount of soda to amass the correct number of points before the end of the promotion. She has filed a legal petition against Coca Cola to stop the program.
    In order to be rewarded with the “Record like an idol at a recording studio in Los Angeles, California” reward, one needs to procure and redeem 41,600 points which would necessitate the consumption of 49,920 bottles of Coca Cola Product which, in the case of a non-diet product containing sugar, would give rise to the necessity to consume approximately 7,238,400 calories, which, in turn, would cause a human being to gain during the life span of the program approximately 2,068 pounds. On a daily basis, a participant would be required to consume one hundred fifty-one (151) 12-ounce bottles of Coca Cola, being a lethal consumption of the product.

  • Tateru Nino of Second Life provided some examples of both individual and organizational aid efforts going on in the virtual world. Besides groups of friends banding together to help the people behind the avatars who have real-world medical problems, Oxfam, the Red Cross, and Alcoholics Anonymous are operating within Second Life.
  • Have you seen the Indexed blog? Jessica Hagy uses Venn diagrams, graphs, geometry and other visual relationships jotted on index cards to make sense of the world in a clever and humorous way. Here are some of my recent favorites.
  • The National Media Education Conference will be happening in St. Louis, Missouri on June 22-26. Sponsored by the Alliance for a Media Literate America, the theme will be “iPods, Blogs and Beyond: Evolving Media Literacy for the 21st Century.”
  • MarketingSherpa has a great article on how to start a cause marketing program based on the Komen Foundation’s experience. Some of the most helpful tips include:
    • Tally your nonprofit’s marketing assets — what you can offer a potential partner in terms of exposure or other benefits.
    • Find a niche you can own, then find corporations who want to be there too.
    • Land one good partnership, make it work and use those results to demonstrate the value of a relationship to other corporations.
    • Seek new partnerships that expand your reach and give the partner a unique marketing position, not ones that duplicate existing campaigns.

    The article is only accessible until February 23, so make sure you go read it now.

Photo Credit: Jay Dubya

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