The Seam: Where Mission Meets Marketing

Almost normal. . .

2011-01-26T05:33:00.001-08:00

While doing my normal daily internet research (I think "internet research" sounds much better than just saying "mindlessly surfing the internet") I found the ads below.

These ads, sponosored by the LGBT group In our voices, have been popping up in Schenectady, NY to the normal din of homophobic rhetoric. Pastors are, of course, up in arms because they fear the following nightmare scenario described by Rev. Alfred Thompkins of Calvary Tabernacle: “A thirteen-year-old looks at these billboards and says, ‘That must be it, I must be gay.'" (Much in the same way after I looked at a Baywatch billboard at the tender age of 13 and thought that I must be Pamela Anderson Lee.)

While I absolutely love the idea of showing more LGBT people of color, I'm not digging these ads. One, they're too hard to read. The color choices for the copy is some shitty neon color that gets totally washed out by the eye and the everything outside of "I am gay" is way to small to see, especially in a billboard. Two, the call to action is hard to read and not clear. Ok, there are gay black people and. . . . what. . am I supposed to call someone, read something, sign something? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next and without some sort of follow up thing, there would be no way for IOOV to actually judge whether or not these ads are doing anything. Lastly, and probably most damningly, these ads do the opposite of what they are trying to do. These ads are seeking to normalize being gay (which I'm all for) but by placing the words "I am gay" (followed by some really pathetic rhyme) doesn't normalize, it accentuates, it makes them stand out. Imagine if in the family picture ad, the tag said something like "Families come in all varieties in Schenectady" or something like that. I know the lines not perfect but rather than forcing the issue, it allows the connections to be made in the viewers mind. It wouldn't say "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it" but rather "all are apart of our community".

I long for the day when LGBTQ ads and media no longer exist, not because LGBTQ issues are squashed but because the community is integrated completely. I'd want to see an action movie where the lead just so happens to be gay, or a soda commercial where the lead just happens to be be trans. I think the key to normalization is not in saying "where all around you" but in saying "we are you".

Back from vacation

2010-11-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been so long since I've last posted. I have to admit, I haven't been out fighting the good fight, I've been on vacation, but the best thing about being on vacation, is that when you come back to the real world, there are a ton of interesting things to talk about. So I'm just going to make my return post a hodgepodge of interesting things I've seen over the past month.

1) The red scare

Over my career I've put together a political ad or two. I get the game. I understand that political advertising is about scaring people, but do we have to be racist while doing it? When it comes to evaluating this ad as a marketer, I have to admit that the ad is on point. Its shot beautifully, its focused, it gives a clear call to action (personally I'd recommend an easier to remember website name) and it screams republican without actually having to say the word (which would probably incur all sorts of rules and regulations if they did say the r word) but what I don't like is the fact that it capitalizes on xenophobic and racist fears of China taking over the US. This is one of those situations when advertisers have a great idea but have to ask themselves if this is something that they can ethically stand by doing. I guess they can look themselves in the mirror knowing that they added to closeminded fear of the Chinese and be ok with it, but I know I couldn't.

2) Don't Vote

Wow you gotta have huevos grande to actually put up an ad telling people not to vote at all. At least the first ad was well done, this ad is just long and un-American. Christ, I'm not even going to dignify this ad by talking bad about it.

(to be continued)

When your org needs money and your ads kinda funny . . .

2010-10-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

I was looking over the past few blog postings and I noticed that most have been my random musings about events that I’ve participated in or navel gazing about the crazy universe that is nonprofit marketing and I’ve strayed pretty far afield from one of my main goals of this blog, namely critiquing cause marketing. I think that’s mostly because there is such a dearth of work that is either good enough to praise or terrible enough to ridicule, most of it is just a beige blah, but the other day I stumbled across a gem. This ad is either so good that it’s brilliant or so terrible that it is . . .well, terrible and the best part is I really can’t tell which one it is.
See for yourself:

WTF!
Seriously, wtf? I have so many contradictory feelings about this spot. After seeing this spot I definitely remember that diarrhea is serious as shit (forgive the pun, I couldn’t help myself) and that it something needs to be done about it, but at the same time I almost feel used. Like the ad agency pulled such a sharp 180 that I have whiplash. It’s almost too much of a jolt, so much so that I’m still in a lighthearted mood when the rug is yanked up from under me. It’s like the ad agency knows all of my buttons and then presses them without any subtly or finesse whatsoever.

Tactically speaking there are definitely a few things I’d suggest. 1) Cut down on the diarrhea joke time upfront. OK, I get that we treat diarrhea like a joke, when in reality it is deadly serious but you eat up precious seconds that you could be using to get the call to action across. 2) Increase the call to action. Send me to a website where I can do something about diarrhea, let me know that this isn’t just a death sentence on this poor little kid. At the end of the spot there is this lame ass wateraid lockup (if you can even call it that), send me to a website, let me know what I can do. 3) In my opinion they shouldn't have had the African child rhyming about his dead sister. He could have easily just said his sister died of diarrhea and the spot would have worked just as well (without the uncomfortable urge to laugh)

Beyond these points, there is a lot that this ad does right. For one it puts a face on a serious problem, it is disruptive enough to really make me think about the issue, it has kids in it (studies show people are automatically more interested when things have kids in it), and it's for a good cause.

So what’s the verdict? I like this ad. It’s shocking, it’s engaging, it’s not perfect but It gets the point across. I’ve been reading the posts and the reviews and lots of people don’t like this ad. Well screw those people, they can stick their opinions up their. . . well you get where this is going.

PS. This has nothing to do with this blog, but do you ever read the comments under ads like this? Here’s the link to the youtube page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dNFmBCogeA

If you ever want to question your belief in the inherent goodness of humanity check out the comments. It’s amazing how anonymity gives people the courage to say the most fucked up things they can think of. I guess it’s great that there is a forum for people to share their true feelings but it’s kind of disheartening to think that those comments reflect some individuals true feelings.

Mr Lundy goes to the awards

2010-09-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

So I just left the Glaad Media Awards (thanks to my friends at Glaad for the invite) and strangely enough, my first thoughts as I sat down to write about my experience was “I love for-profit companies”. Now let me back up, for those who don’t know, Glaad is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (funny how all of the lgbt orgs have some happy name like Glaad or Gleam or Glsen and stuff like that. . . some would say they’re trying too hard) and every year they award companies that have had positive depictions of lgbt people. This year I was invited to attend and, like any hyper critical ad man, I was more than delighted to attend. But during the actual awards show, something interesting yet annoying happened. Whenever a representative from a company came up to accept an award they did the traditional “than you mom, God, and Elvis” thing but they ended with some sort of pitch i.e. “American airlines has always been devoted to queers” (of course said a bit more eloquently, but you get the point). At first I was annoyed, I mean I didn’t show up to go to a freaking infomercial, but then I thought “well, what else are they here for?”. I love for-profits because they never ever ever forget why they are here. This company representative sees a room full of affluent white men (yours truly being among the few exceptions) and they realize that their job is to sell. They aren’t here to pick up a nice shiny award, they are here to sell you on their business and convince you to give them your money. Of course their pitches were clumsy and clawing and obvious but at least they realized why they were there and they gave it a shot. I wish nonprofits could be as focused on their goals.

At the Glaad awards show there was food and liquor and silent auctions and live auctions but there was precious little about Glaad, what they have achieved, and why I should care enough to support them. I love it when nonprofits put on events and create experiences for their stakeholders but these events need to serve a purpose. Events need to have a clear audience, a clear message, and a clear goal. This event felt like it was trying to be everything to everyone. Half of the time I wasn’t sure if Glaad thought I was an advertising agency, a media company, a consumer product company, or a potential donor. Without a clear sense of the audience, it was totally impossible for them to make a coherent pitch. The for-profits, on the other hand, all seemed to decide we were all potential consumers and spoke to us like potential consumers. I may have been pissed that it felt like the awards show was being interrupted by commercial breaks but at least I knew where I stood.

If your media awards are going to be a fundraising event, then treat everyone like potential donors, tell your message, tell what you’ve done, tell why you’re important , and tell me how to help. If it is an awareness event, treat everyone like future evangelist, tell us the issue, tell us why it is important, tell us why what you are doing helps the issue, provide us with an easy message to share and a means to share it. If the awards are for partnership development, do all that other stuff and provide us with opportunities to partners. Don’t try to make one event that serves every population, it just doesn’t work. Pick a population, understand that population, decide on what you want from that population , and make a strategy to achieve those things that you want.

Simple right?

Why can't we all be like poptarts?

2010-09-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

The other day, while meandering through the streets of New York, I stumbled across one of the newest-old fads in for-profit pr and marketing - the pop up store. For those of you not totally abreast of the various fads that permeate (or plague) the world of marketing, pop-up stores are like the gypsy carnivals of the retail world. They're stores that suddenly appear where once there was nothing, they're over the top, over-priced, and are gone the next day (before you have a chance to return the overpriced crap they convinced you to buy in a moment of impulse buying ecstasy). Normally these pop up stores are reserved for the fashion and are designed to create a feel of exclusivity but I found one that was decidedly not high fashion and not exclusive.

Yes, a pop up store dedicated to those sugary sweet pseudo-breakfast treats we (or at least I) grew up loving known as Poptarts.

Inside the store you could get a variety of hard to find Poptarts as well as make your own Poptart shirts, get specially made poptart desserts, and immerse yourself in poptart lore.

While I have to admit that my fondness of poptarts started to wane once I realized that my attractiveness was inversely proportional to my daily intake of poptarts (each 'tart' is like 300 calories!), I do admit that I actually like the store. It was bright and colorful and really immersed the visitors into the world of poptarts.

So, I began thinking: why don't non-profits do stuff like this? Why can't we create experiences that immerse people in our cause? Then it donned on me. We do! The only problem is that they suck. They suck like a hoover strapped to a black hole. The non-profit version of these pop-up stores is the pop-up tent, just like the one I saw later that day in Union Square:

This was an event put on through the Office of Emergency Management and the ASPCA to get people to register their pets and have a plan in case of emergencies. As a dog owner, I'm a big sucker for these types of things but I literally had to go out of my way to find someone and ask them "what's this all about?" to get any information at all. These tents and handout days are the go-to marketing/pr vehicle for so many nonprofit initiatives because they're cheap and easy, but the hard and fast truth is that you get what you pay for. Most of the time these are a total waste because they're boring for the people running them and boring for the people who happen to stop by. I'd bet my hat that they would get the same results by just having someone stand on the street and hand out fliers (since their metrics for success are almost always the number of fliers handed out) and that they'd get a much bigger bang for their buck by putting more money into the event, getting a space, and creating an experience.

Organizations need to ask themselves, "what am i really getting out of this?" I think if they asked themselves that, they would realize that they are often getting virtually nothing out of these half-assed events and either 1) more money should be spent, metrics for success should be made, and more excitement needs to be inserted into these events or 2) they don't need to waste time and money on this and a different vehicle should be used.

I mean really, if you can make an engaging store around poptarts (which people like but don't really care about) imagine what you could do with people and their pets?

Back to basics (part 1)

2010-09-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

I took a break from writing last week, partly because of Labor day and partially because I've just been so uninspired by a lot of the stuff I've seen. I wasn't really sure what was driving my boredom, and the seeming deluge of uninteresting work, but a new acquaintance of mine at NYCON, pointed me in an interesting direction. While we were talking about the communication and marketing needs of the sector, he pointed out that often Nonprofits don't really know the difference between marketing and communications, the role of strategy, and a ton of other things that I take for granted. This confusion of terms and lack of knowledge allows people who are just graphic designers to claim that they're marketing strategist (and making executions that totally miss the mark) or for strategist to claim that they are graphic designers (and making executions that are boring and uninteresting) or all sorts of people doing all sorts of things that they frankly stink at.

With this in mind, I've attempted to put a little order to this madness by creating a framework (I know, a consultant making a framework, big surprise) but trust me, this is good:

Ok, so what are you looking at? This is essentially a virtuous cycle of marketing with 4 key phases. First there is market research, then there is strategy and tactical development, then there is material development, then constituent relationship management, and finally back to market research (which starts the whole cycle over again). The line on the bottom (the X-Axis) means that the boxes on the left tend to be more quantitative and the boxes on the right tend to be more qualitative. The line on the side (the Y-axis) means that the boxes on the top tend to need more sector specific knowledge and the boxes on the bottom use more general knowledge. Now these rules and segmentation's aren't hard and fast (life is complex and you gotta stay flexible) but they are a great way to get you lined up in the right direction. Generally you need someone with deep knowledge in strategy for market research and strategy/tactial development, you need someone who is a great designer/writer/programmer etc for material development and a great data-miner for constituent relationship management/monitoring.

I think that each of these boxes deserves talking about but I also believe that no one reads long posts, so I'm going to explain the chart in installments. This week I'm starting with the top right box: Market Research

Essentially this is about learning about your various stakeholder groups. At the beginning of this process is where you need to understand who your various stakeholders are, what they want, what they do, and why they're doing it. Knowledge about the workings of the nonprofit sector is great here because nonprofits, unlike many for-profits, often have all sorts of stakeholders (government, community members, clients, donors, relatives of clients, staff, board members, etc) and a keen understanding of the nonprofit sector is key. In this area you gotta think about not only what stakeholders you want to research but how you plan on researching them. Often since money is a factor people tend to subjectively pick important stakeholders (usually donors or clients) and then use an assortment of traditionally quantitative research tools (surveys) and qualitative tools (focus groups)* to get a sense of how their organization and their mission exists in the minds of those people that matter most to the organization. This is a key stage that often gets the short end of the stick because nonprofit-eers (even more so than those that work in for-profit) often feel that they already know their constituents inside and out (which they very often don't). It's important for people to check their egos at the door and to realize that they don't know everything (if they did they wouldn't be struggling so hard to achieve their mission and meet their goals).

In the next few installments I'll take you through the other boxes but in the mean time please feel free to post comments or send thoughts on how to make this framework better (I'm always open to new ideas).

Thinking through this framework made me think about one of my very favorite quotes and so I'm going to end with it:

“It is not enough to do your best. First you must know what to do and then do your best."- W. Edwards Deming

* on a quick side note, I actually consider focus groups fairly quantitative, despite the fact that they're normally called qualitative. As someone who has sat through hundreds of focus groups in all sorts of categories, I can say without a doubt that the vast majority of usable insights come from things that people say over and over in different groups. The thing that make insights pop in groups is the number of times you hear that insight arise. It is true that sometimes a participant in the final group will say something brilliant and the strategist behind the glass will pick it up and run with it, but those times and few and far between.

By the Grace of god

2010-09-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

One of the organizations I've recently encountered is the Grace institute (http://www.graceinstitute.org/). It's a really interesting organization that's located in the upper east side and I've been chatting with some of the people who are running the place. The mission of Grace is to provide training to women looking to get jobs in the corporate sector (mostly around administrative assistance and office help). In the constant serendipity that is my life, I just so happened to walk onto a train this morning where I encountered the following ad:

So I figured, I'm brave enough to talk about all sorts of other ads, why not talk about this ad? I mean after all, it's easy to say stuff about orgs that you'll never talk to but you gotta believe in what you say to write about an ad when the people who made the ad have your telephone number!

So what do I think? Well the ads not terrible (does no harm) but there's plenty of places to improve. So what's good: 1) It has a clear sense of the target is (clearly focusing on women) 2) I know who made the ad - Grace institute - and clear how to contact them 3) Easy, meaningful tagline - Educate.Empower.Employ.

How to make it better? Overall it's just too flat. It's hard to tell where I should look and what I should take away from this. I have some ideas (as always) to make it better 1) Put the contact information at the bottom - people read from top to bottom and left to right - people won't want to contact you for no reason, so putting the contact info at the top, before your pitch, doesn't do any good - also do you need the address? website and phone number seems like plenty 2) too much text - I like the idea of having a quote but who's going to read all of that? 3) I like the image of the woman but I'd rather have her in a more aspirational background (and office or something) not just on a white void. 4) add a logo - I think it's an easy way to remind people of your org and who it's for.

Not a terrible ad, not a great ad, could be made more aesthetically pleasing but you don't want to sacrifice the message and the mission for a pretty image. As Emerson said "Beauty without Grace is the hook without the bait".

PS: Check out my new site on the interweb www.Seamnyc.com - tell me what you think (as long as what you think is that my site rocks)

I'm taking a 360 degree turn

2010-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

So I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and one thing I've been seeing unanimously is that it's best not to be critical (Sadly, being critical is my specialty). With that in mind, I decided that today's blog post would focus on an ad or a campaign that I liked (or, if not actually liked, something I could see the positives in). So without further ado, here's an ad I came across while perusing one of my favorite sites: www.adsoftheworld.com.

These are anti drinking and driving ads that are running in Sao Paulo Brazil. These ads have a bunch of positives: 1) Big clear copy and a big clear logo 2) simple message 3) Tone is right in line with classic MTV ads. In the "area's for improvement" side of things, is really only one thing, namely the fact that, as pieces of cause marketing, these ads fucking suck and that's not me being critical, that's a fact. Just like water is wet or deserts are dry or "George Bush doesn't care about black people" (thank you kanye), these ads fucking sucking as cause marketing is an objective fact. Why do they suck? Simple, these have nothing to do with drunk driving at all. These are MTV music ads with some copy just slapped on them.

Golden rule of cause marketing: The images should tie into the copy to create a cohesive story. These images are just of people having fun with no link to the dangers of drunk driving and no real explanation of why MTV has decided to make this a cause of theirs. At the end of the day there is no message, no cohesion, and no cause marketing. It's just another boring, lazy mtv ad, in a sea of boring, lazy MTV ads (just this one is poorly disguised as promotion a socially positive cause). . . . hey, I guess this not being critical thing is easier than I thought.

I was born free

2010-08-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

That's the video from M.I.A.'s song born free. . . I love that video and song (if you haven't seen it yet and just skipped over it to read what I'm writing, take this chance to go back and watch the entire thing. . . it's worth it. . . I'll wait)

I have been thinking about the concept of freedom lately, mostly because of what's going on in my life, specifically the fact that I'm leaving my current position as a management consultant with a big organization and putting my full efforts towards servicing the marketing and communications needs of nonprofits under my own banner (Seam). The freedom of being my own boss and being in total control of how I spend my time is great, but also scary. Scary because it comes with risk. What if no one hires me? What if I look back and I regret this decision? The price I pay for gaining this freedom is the loss of safety. That's a price I am willing to pay and a price I believe all those who cherish freedom should pay.

It is for that reason that I believe that the below ad is so disturbing

This is the ad that's been making its way around NYC as a protest to the Muslim community center that is going to go up near ground zero. People all over the country are complaining about this center and thankfully some of our politicians have grown enough of a back bone to stand up and say that this center needs to go up. I'm not taking a stand either way about whether it's good or bad for the center to go up so near ground zero, what I am taking a stand for is the rights of Muslims all over the world to practice their religion wherever they choose (I also don't mind in taking a stand in saying that this is just an ugly ad: hard to read, hard to tell what I'm supposed to look at, if I didn't know that this was the anti-muslim center ad already I would have never been able to tell - sometimes I thank the heavens that so many ads for these quack orgs are done by shitty marketers).

This ad is disturbing because by asking a seemingly innocuous question like "why there" as a means of obfuscating the fact that it is essentially asking you to add your voice to the voices of tons of people all over the country that automatically say that Islam is bad and needs to be contained. By saying that it shouldn't be there, people are essentially saying that the Muslims of NYC don't have the right congregate and worship wherever they want. That's not a sentiment I can get behind. To me the answer to "why there?" is simple. "Why there? Because I, you, they, and we were all born free"

"Those who give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - B. Franklin

Sometimes reality is the best marketing

2010-08-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that (shockingly) I'm not a huge fan of MTV. While watching the occasional Jersey shore-er fist pump the night away isn't exactly my cup of tea, I try to stay up on "what the kids are up to now-a-day". One of the shows that caught my eye the other day was "16 and pregnant"

What I find really interesting about the show (and its sister show 'teen mom') is that in its own weird - slightly exploitative - sort of way it's a form of cause marketing. So much so, that some organizations have taken to actively encouraging teens to watch it and have created discussion guides around it (http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/16-and-preg-discussion-guide.pdf)

In a way, it's almost as if nonprofits have co-opted something that clearly was only designed to make money and capitalize on our societal voyeurism (I choose to believe it is voyeurism and not schadenfreude) and instead use it as high quality marketing for their cause. I personally think that that's the essence of good cause marketing. It should first look at the population you are trying to change, think about their interest, and then authentically match your cause to their interests.

I wonder what other materials are out there are just waiting for co-opting? Does the apprentice teach the value of education? Does inception teach the virtues of science and math? probably not, but could it? Probably so. Maybe there's a space for cause placement in movies and TV shows the same way that there is product placement? I mean, nonprofits copy other ideas from the for-profit sector. Why not this one?

It aint easy being black

2010-07-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

If Kermit the frog, thought it was hard being green, he should have spent some time being black. It seems like every time I turn around I'm hearing more and more about how blacks have higher rates of sickness, higher incarceration rates, lower educational achievement, lower salaries, on and on and on. As a black man myself, for me it always felt like there was a huge bifurcation in the community, on one hand you have the blacks who are driving those statistics and on the other hand you have blacks like me who are well educated, have fancy jobs, probably aren't going to go to jail (I hope!) and exist as the perpetual counterpoint to those aforementioned underachievers.

The other day I saw an ad that really spoke directly to this sense of a split community

That's an ad by 100 Black men's Baton Rouge chapter (if you don't know about 100 black men you should definitely check out the website. They are a national nonprofit that provides services to black men to help them stay on the right track). Technically speaking I don't hate this ad. I'm not in love with it but it's simple, big, has an interesting image, clear next steps, all in all not a bad execution of a billboard ad. The thing that really struck me about the ad was that it set up a false choice that I think often makes things so difficult for so many black men.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a home where "pinstripes" was a perfectly achievable goal, and therefore, I did the things I had to do to make sure that I'm able to afford my fancy suits, but for many of my peers, pinstripes is an unattainable goal. Many black men couldn't imagine themselves in corporate settings (and the homogeneity of the corporate world and the potentially discriminatory hiring practices isn't exactly helping) so the only other option that they see is the 'prison stripes'.

I always say, as marketers for causes, we have to do better, and I believe this was a case of a marketer sacrificing the message for a pithy line. Am I being nit picky? Yes. Do I think that this is important? Yes. If you set up an argument in the viewers mind that has a foregone conclusion ("I'm never going to get to pinstripes, so it's prison stripes for me") the viewer won't follow up on your call to action. Rather than being a provocative question that deserves investigation by going to your website, you end up with a statement that may end up actually playing against your mission. There are plenty of alternatives to prison stripes and you've got to make your destination a place for people to go to learn what those alternatives are.

We've got to do better.

Data Fetish

2010-07-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

da·ta –noun
1. a pl. of datum.
2. ( used with a plural verb ) individual facts, statistics, or items of information: These data represent the results of our analyses. Data are entered by terminal for immediate processing by the computer.
3. ( used with a singular verb ) a body of facts; information: Additional data is available from the president of the firm.

fet·ish –noun
1. an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.
2. any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.

The other day I was sitting in a conference about something or other (most likely about consulting or marketing) and after about an hour of patiently waiting for knowledge to come pouring down from my orators mouth into my open mind, I looked down at my paper and realized that the only thing I had written was 'Data Fetish'. Reviewing the presentation in my mind I could only recall a dizzying flurry of numbers and statistics and thinking 'So what's the point?' To quote Marshal McLuhan the medium has for many organizations become the message and in this case the medium is numbers. I think in the nonprofit space there is an interesting bifurcation into two camps, one camp of people running the mom and pop nonprofits with no data tracking systems at all and no idea of what to do with the data once it was tracked and then another camp of people (probably mostly at foundations) with a full fledged Data Fetish, who simply can't make a decision without looking at a complex excel model.

Frankly I don't think either end of the spectrum is particularly right. Those data agnostic are often operating with either a total ignorance of the power of data (and as such wasting precious resources) or operating with a fear of what the numbers will tell them (and as such wasting precious resources). The data fetishist are convinced that their numbers are the god's own truth (totally forgetting that the numbers could be wrong or were derived from completely bat shit wild guesses and baseless assumptions) or are so fixated with getting the data that important decisions are tabled until this magic-cure-all data can be found (and as such, wasting precious resources).

I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Don't get me wrong, I'm as evidence driven as the next fancy pants management consultant but I never forget that data is just a tool that informs one's judgement - it is NOT the judgement - and I also remember that judgement without a base of information is just some crazy bat shit guess.

So what's the answer? Well it lies somewhere between my two favorite quotes:

"It is not enough to do your best. First you must know what to do, and then do your best"

&

"A good plan in time is better than a great plan too late"

-C

On foxes, scorpions, and black babies

2010-07-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

Once there was a fox about to cross a river. On the banks of the river sat a scorpion. Doing it’s best to avoid scorpion, the fox prepared to make his crossing, when, surprisingly the scorpion called out to the fox. “Mr Fox,” the scorpion said, “would you please carry me across the water? I desperately need to get to the other side and I can not swim.” The fox crinkled its orange brow and shrewdly said, “But I am a fox, and you are a scorpion!Were I to allow you on my back, you’d simply sting me”. “Not true,” the scorpion replied, “for I will only climb upon you once you get into the water, and were I to sting you once we're in the water we would both drown. Frankly, I have no desire to drown.” The scorpions logic seemed sound and the fox agreed to give him a ride. The fox entered the water, the scorpion climbed upon the foxes back, and the fox began to swim. When the fox made it about half way across the water, the scorpion strung the fox and injected him with poison. The fox, dumbfounded, looked back to the scorpion and asked “Why? Why would you sting me and doom us both?”. As the fox began to drown (along with the scorpion) the scorpion replied “because I am a scorpion”.

I saw an ad the other day that made me think of that ancient fable.

This is one of the 65 ads that went up in Georgia last February (Black History month). It’s an ad by the Radiance Foundation (an organization that is being funded by ‘Georgia right to life’) and the campaign is based around the idea that that abortion clinics like planned parenthood have an agenda to exterminate black babies. Normally ads just piss me off because they suck so much, this ad (and campaign) is different, this ad offends me, deeply. I make no effort to be bipartisan nor do I pretend to be objective in my views on this blog. I think women should have the right to have abortions, I think people are equal even though situations are unequal, I think watching someone fall and injure themselves on youtube is funny and, while this campaign assails two of those beliefs, that is not the main reason this campaign offends me.

This campaign uses the veneer of nonprofit marketing, marketing that is essentially there to “do good”, to pass on a poisonous lie. One that strives to make African American women more fearful of getting the help that they need, one that tries to position well respected organization like Planned Parenthood as a white conspiracy to exterminate black babies, and one that racistly depicts black women as dupes and black babies as animals (endangered species?!?!). I believe that people have the freedom to say what they want, and while I disagree with some messages and with standpoints, I want them to say it well. I feel that advertising and marketing have the obligation to tell the truth, ads that blatantly sell lies and encourage dangerous behaviors do not have the right to life and should be aborted while still in their creators minds. Mass marketing, like journalism, is too powerful a tool to be infused with lies and it is up to responsible professionals to fight back. To steal the motto from McCann Erickson, advertising should be “truth well told”, not fearmongering well funded.

I’ll end with an ad I like.

The format is clean, the headline is an easy and quick read, the call-to-action stands out, and most importantly, it's 'Truth well told'.

Finally an ad I don't hate

2010-07-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

As I've begun to write this blog and actively critique the things around me (not that I don't always critique the things around me, I'm just normally keep them down to 3 word summaries like "That fucking sucks" or "God that's terrible") I've noticed that, for the most part, I think most ads suck. It is for that reason that I'm tickled pink (or as pink as a black man gets) when I see an ad for a good cause that doesn't suck. Case in point:

This ad doesn't suck. . . . thank god, something that doesn't suck.

Why doesn't it suck? Simple, because it's simple. Without going the gross out route and showing some poor bikers head splattered across the car (I'm talking to you "anti smoking" and "anti sugary drinks" ads) they get across the point that cars smash up bikers. Furthermore they give the viewer a simple, achievable action to do, to prevent smashing up a biker "look". Of course there are things to improve upon. The name of the org is blending into the background and it's hard to see the website, but come on, who goes to the website anyway? Do I really want to learn more about how not to smash a biker while I'm driving? No not really. It's a minor technical point and certainly not enough to make the ad suck.

Good job whoever made this ad, you reminded me of the one key truth of advertising: Ads don't have to suck, it's just that most of the time ads are made by people that suck.

In celebration of Pride Month

2010-06-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

As some of you may or may not know, this month is pride month and, while I was too busy moving and painting my new office to go out and enjoy the festivities last Sunday at NYC pride, I've decided to celebrate pride by featuring the latest ad by SAGE

This is really a god awful ad. God awful.

Firstly the art direction is terrible. I don't know where to look or what to look at. Are there three vertical stories or am I supposed to read it like a cartoon strip? Also why are those people in those retarded positions? Who stands like that? Furthermore, for the images at the bottom, why are the faces so close? It looks like that first bald guy is going to try to eat that other guys brains or like that lady in the last frame is pondering that old guys nose hairs. It's just terrible. Even if you can move past the terrible art, the copy is horrendous. It's like they're trying to trick me into reading a tiny confusing book. I can't tell where to start or where to end. The call to action is crazy small (yeah, it's there all the way at the end) and then you have those two huge logo's taking up 20% of the image. Once again I'm confused. I can't tell if this is a Sage ad or a SageCap ad, or even how they interplay.

This is what the ad needs to do 1) Pick one of those six images and stick with it, before and after only works with weight loss ads - and they especially don't work when the 'before' picture is the same as the 'after' picture 2) Cut down the copy - nonprofits are always trying to do a million things at once, just do one thing really well 3) Come up with some kind of a headline (duh) 4) stop making the logo's compete - pick one 5) bump up the call to action and 6) cut down on the copy - I'm not here to read your brochure, even if you disguise it as an ad (I know I said that earlier but it should be repeated).

This is a classic example of one ad trying to do too much and ending up failing miserably. As always K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid.

Who uses direct mail anyway?

2010-06-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

As you could probably imagine. I'm a big fan of social media. I think it's one of the great equalizers and allows even the most meager budgets to extend far into the donor/consumer market. That being said, I also love seeing new uses of old media. So show me a creative use of a billboard or a great TV spot (like the Nike one that has all of the soccer players imagining what happens if they screw up the next play) and I'm in love. That being said, last week I got this in the mail.

It's a piece of mail soliciting a donation but what's interesting about it is that it has a nickel in it. Maybe I'm a sucker for cheap gimicks but I opened it and learned, much to my surprise, that a nickle was more money than the government now gives per patient to fund cancer research (thanks for the info Memorial Sloan Kettering). I get a ton of junk mail and even more spam, and frankly, I never, ever open them but low and behold, I opened this piece of mail. I opened it because it did something very simple: it triggered my curiosity. Now I'd be lying if it compelled me to give (I didn't) but it did get me to open it, and that's a lot. I think the question we need to ask ourselves as marketers is, how can I trigger my donors/consumers curiosity? Everything now is all about how marketing is dead and the world is totally driven by consumers going out and finding specific pieces of information but what gets them to find these specific pieces of information? Curiosity.

How can we make people curious? What blocks their curiosity? And then, once they've given into their curiosity, how can we inspire them to act? That needs to be our driving mantra, our reason to exist. The media doesn't matter, at the end of the day, it's all the same.

(shit, I went though an entire post without cursing once. I must be getting old.)

Brand Vampires and BP

2010-06-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday I came back from some training in LA, and I pleasantly got a chance to meet up with one of my friends I met a while back. His name is Jay and he's in charge of marketing at Toms' Shoes (http://www.toms.com/). It's actually a really amazing org, that's built around the notion that whenever you buy a pair of their shoes, they donate a pair of shoes to someone in need. So while knocking back a beer or two, he told me how companies will call him up looking to partner with Toms without having any real sense of what the partnership should be about or how it should work. During our chat, I mentioned that sometimes companies are really just brand vampires looking to suck good halo from socially conscious organizations, while others are a really good fit. So after we parted I began to think about it a little more and figured that there has to be an easy way to quickly separate these brand vampires from other brands that were just brothers from other mothers.

To that end, I've created the matrix below, to help nonprofits and socially conscious organizations to evaluate how to handle a potential partnership with another brand.

Along the bottom is the estimation of how aligned the value and personality of the brands, along the side is how aligned the mission and the product are. If your mission fits with their product then you're in the high mission and product alignment zone, if your values and personality matches with their values and personality you're in the high value and personality alignment zone, and so on. In each box I put a little phrase to capture the essence of the relationship and in parentheses I put how the two org brands should interact ( either equal partners, endorsers, invisible)

1)High mission and product alignment and high value and personality alignment: These are the matches made in heaven, not only should you team up, you should say it "loud and proud". Think when about Feeding America (used to be called America's Second Harvest) and General Mills teamed up to donate a pound of food to each pound the viewers of The Biggest Loser pledge to loose. These brothers from different mothers should team up in an equal partnership.

2) High mission and product and low value and personality alignment: These also normally pretty good matches. An easy example I can think of is when Tom's shoes teamed up with the Red Cross to get shoes to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Both brands are there to help those in need and by teaming up they were able to provide a bundle of good to those that need it. Often one brand acting as the endorser of another brand is the best way to go (i.e. "The Red Cross with the support of Tom's shoes has delivered. . ." ). Both brands can, and should, be out front.

3) Low mission and product alignment and high value and personality alignment. These can be pretty complex since, the products are so different but as we can see from Product Red, it's very doable. Since the products and the missions are so divergent the best way to tackle these are with a new initiative (like Red) where a bunch of diverse entities come together for a worthy cause to make a change. Anything outside of a new initiative will come off as pretty artificial but the brands should still exist as proud endorsers of this new entity.

4) Low mission and product alignment and low value and personality alignment. Ugh. . . this is like Transylvania, where all the brand vampires live. 9 times out of 10 this is a bad idea, but sometime vampires have deep pockets and the good you can do with that money is worth the risk or outside forces demand the partnership. The thing that pops into my mind for this case is the truth campaign (which is funded by the cigarette industry). The partnership should be a new initiative (with a new brand) and both the nonprofit and the for-profit should remain as invisible as possible. The for-profit would do it for the good of internal moral (or because they are forced to) and the nonprofit should do it because of the impact that can be created. In the perfect world, the viewer would never know who pays the bills (which is part of what made it so hard for me to come up with a good example).

These aren't hard and fast rules but they'll definitely help you navigate some complex situations.

Also, I guess I should talk about BP since I promised in the headline I would. I actually find it really interesting that I'm hearing a lot of talk about the BP ads and how messed up it is that BP made those ads. Something that I'm actually not hearing a lot of is what people think they would have done if they were BP's head of marketing. So, being the forthright kind of guy that I am, I figured I'd stick my neck out and say what I'd do if I were in charge of BP's marketing. So what would I do? I'd quit. That guy (or gal) is fucked six ways to Sunday. Any ads that you put out will be construed as a waste of money and an attempt at spin, if you don't put out ads, you'll be seen as not communicating. So you, Mr or Ms Marketing exec, are up shits' creek (as my pappy used to say). Get a new job. In a few years, everyone will be back to their sweet, sweet oil dependency and BP will have rebranded itself and all will go back to normal, but you, Mr/Ms CMO, are screwed. Get over it. your company screwed the pooch and you're going to get boned. that's life sometimes. BP should keep making ads, should give constant and eternal 'mia culpas' and spend as much dough as possible to clean up this mess, but this is too big even for smart marketing to smooth over.

My own raven paradox.

2010-05-30T16:42:00.001-07:00

Today's post is slightly different than more normal. Normally I like to review some ad I've seen or go on a tirade about something that I've seen/heard/did-to-an-innocent-bystander, but not today. Today is a bit of a stream of thought. It gets down to marketing towards the end but the trip is a little "over the river and through the bend" (nice rhyme).

Today was my second day of experienced consultant training with Bain and Co and, frankly, I've been out of the loop. I haven't really been checking my email, I've barely tweeted, and I've been doing my best to be present in the training (I mean, this stuff isn't cheap), but I, of course, can't stop daydreaming. So today, while I was supposed to be reviewing the best way to create a work plan (yeah, thrilling stuff, I know), I happened to look over and saw this bird standing on the ground.

I looked at it, it looked at me and suddenly I thought: "what the fuck is that?" Firstly on the more obvious level, is it a raven? is it a crow? A blackbird? I have no idea. But on a more fundamental level, why is it black? I mean most birds I know are bright and colorful and are chirpring. From my High School biology, as far as I know the colors help the birds stand out for mates, blend in to hide from predators or attack prey. Clearly since all the birds of this type are black it's not a sex thing, so is it a hide from predators/attack prey thing? Maybe, but if that was the case, why is it out in broad daylight? Wouldn't it make more sense for this bird to be hunting at night, in total blackness?

(picture of that same bird at night)

My consultant's soul screams out to me that this doesn't make sense!! It says, Cerrone, you hate things that don't make sense and this needs to be fixed. That bird needs to be brighter and green so it blends into the trees or grass or whatever.

So is a black bird in the middle of the day a paradox? I may not know a ton about nature but I do know that mother nature doesn't tolerate waste. So if this bird does fly and hunt and do its thing during the day, there has gotta be a reason and just because that reason isn't immediatily apparent to me, doesn't mean it's not a good reason. Maybe if I was whatever creature eats this bird or whatever creature this bird eats, the reason it's black and diurnal would be painfully obvious.

So how does this tie into marketing and nonprofits? easy. Nonprofits, marketers, business people, nearly everyone who looks at a problem and wants to solve it, wants to make a seemingly senseless situation make more sense, but we need to remember that just because it doesn't make sense to us, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. We need to study the situation, put ourselves fully and totally into the scene, allow ourselves to see how it does make sense and then solve the problem that we feel as a member of the scene, and not the problem we felt as an outsider looking in. Maybe then we'd see that the raven doesn't have a problem at all or that the real problem the raven has isn't its color but the fact thats claws are too tiny?

So, I ask you this: are you solving your clients problems or are you solving the problem of the person watching your client?

Are we really that far behind? (AKA design has killed the branding star)

2010-05-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

The other day I was listening to a pretty interesting call with Sarah Durham and Nancy Schwartz. Both of them are fairly well known in nonprofit marketing circles (not sure how much that is worth) and they were giving a talk on the power of brands for nonprofits and how brands are more than just a logo. While listening to them chat about it, i couldn't help but wonder one thing (well two things if you include my thoughts about how antiquated call in meetings are, I mean christ, is a webcast so hard to set up?) are nonprofits really so in the dark about their brands and how important it is to maintain? True, I'd never assert that every nonprofit leaders has some fancy business marketing degree and some rarefied understanding of "branding" but is the majority as in the dark as we'd like to believe?
I dunno, I'm a numbers guy and before I can make an assertion I like to do research, but even without research one can see why it's in people like Sarah and Nancy's interest (and frankly mine) to maintain the belief that people are in the dark, that's how we keep food in our bellies. The problem is that the big push towards branding has come and past (that was really the business zeitgiest of the late 80's and 90's), now we're in the age of design. There is the chance that everyone may understand the importance of branding already and has moved on. Every third book is now about design, the army is using design to figure out how to win wars, and apple has a permanent lock on all our dreams. Design is the new placebo, the panacea to cure every business problem, and nonprofits are still worrying about branding.
Do I think branding is important? yes. Do I think design thinking is important? yes. Will I think that the next big business concept (i.e. fad) will be important? yes. Do I think that these are new ideas that successful people haven't ever thought of before? No. Frank Perdue knew about the power of branding back in the 20's (or something like that), IDEO has been using design thinking forever and ever. Successful nonprofits have understood how important it is to stand for one thing (the mission), stay true to the mission in all communications and actions (the brand), and to think innovatively about delivering the mission (design thinking) since the dawn of time.
I'm not entirely sure of where I'm going with this but it seems like we are eternally trying to label and formulate (and capitalize) on processes in the hope of being able to sell success.
Are nonprofits as far behind the current curve as these marketers think or are they just pandering to the easiest prey because they haven't developed the skills needed to go after the nonprofits that have already mastered branding?

Mission drifting into a brick wall

2010-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Funder "So what does your organization do?"
Executive Director "Well we teach kids to cook, while using the food from a local farm, which uses seed from a coalition of restaurants, which get their power from a series of windmills, which were assembled by the kids we taught to cook, and then those kids use their windmill building and cooking skills to set up new windmill building cooking schools throughout the pacific north west and then they . . ."

Today I was thinking about the importance of strategic focus. When I look around at organizations, it seems like half of the time nonprofits are so desperate to pry dollars out of the hands of foundations and donors that they are willing to try to stretch their mission to cover everything under the sun. I mean, I can totally understand the logic behind that (go to where the fish are) but the problem is that they end up trying to be everything to everyone, and end up being nothing to everyone. Think about it, if you've got 5 seconds to pitch your nonprofit to some fancy pants grant manager or cause marketing director, you've got to have a crisp clear message about what your nonprofit does, why it does it, and why they care about that thing that you do. No one cares about (or believes) that one nonprofit is solving each and every problem in the world, but they can believe that your putting all of your energy into doing one thing very well. Further more, nothing is going to make you look worse that saying that you really care about X to one funder and that you care about Y to another funder and then for the funders to find out that you've been bullshitting them both just to get your hands in their wallets.

I believe that real power comes from doing one thing really well. Most of the famous stars and masters of industry aren't jack of all trades, they just have the ability to do one things way better than anyone else. That should be the goal of nonprofits (and forprofits for that matter). Rather than attempting to make your mission touch as many points as possible, you can really gain traction by being able to say "we do this one thing better than anyone else and if you want this one thing to happen, you gotta fund us." By doing that you can be unique, you can concentrate your efforts and you can stay true to your funders and, most importantly you can stay true to your mission (and fend out mission drift). When you look at the most successful nonprofits out there like the american red cross or Harlem children's Zone or Big Brothers Big Sisters, you'll see orgs with clear missions and a dedication to achieving that mission at all costs. If you're going to have a nonprofit that survives, you're going to have to have the courage to say that you do one thing really well and then convince others of your ability and the importance of your mission. Donors don't expect you to save the entire world by yourself, they just expect you to stay true to your mission.

Why is everything such a downer?

2010-05-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

I saw these ads the other day while wandering around Union square

I mean, they're ok ads. There is stuff that I'd change (logo is hard to make out, too much copy - am I really supposed to stop and read all that tiny stuff below the headline? Not sure what the body shop has to do with this, would like a website or something so I know what to do with the information that I've learned) but I've seen worse. The thing that struck me is that it's such a downer. In fact, I was looking back at my other posts and they too were downers. Is it just a matter of what I post or is ads and marketing for non-profits really as much of a downer as it seems? Seems like ads are either mindless fluff (look at the American Lung Association fightforair.com for an example of that) or it's all doom and gloom. I mean, is there a middle ground? Can something grab our attention without being the end of the world? Where are the empowerment messages? Where's the hope?

Next time you see a nice ad for a nonprofit that's not all doom and gloom, send it my way at Cerrone@seamnyc.com.

In the immortal words of Johnny Cash "I'd love to wear a rainbow on my back"

In defense of Susan Komen

2010-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Right now everyone in the nonprofit marketing sphere is having a group heart attack about the KFC/Komen team up and the pink buckets. For those of you who don't know what it is, essentially Susan Komen has teamed up with KFC to make these pink buckets and everytime you buy a bucket of chicken, Komen gets 50 cents for their research into breast cancer. Now everybody with even a small sense of nonprofit marketing is going off the handle about how crazy it is for Komen to team up with KFC since KFC makes fatty fried chicken. They're saying Komen has ruined their brand and alienated their supporters. To those people, I say "go fuck yourself". Yup I said it "go fuck yourself". I'm perfectly willing to be the one nonprofit marketer to stand up and say I stand by Komen and all those people out there who think that this was a terrible idea can go suck balls - deep fried greasy chicken balls

Lets have a quick thought experiment. Lets pretend you're in a hospital, you have stage 3 or 4 cancer, your waiting to have your breast cut off, and then to have months and months of radiation therapy (which I have had and can verify sucks) in conjunction with chemo therapy (which I haven't had but seen the effects of and can say pretty confidently sucks). Now while your laying there about to go under the knife, I want you to ask yourself "should komen get 1 million dollars from KFC to make sure no one ever has to go through this again?" I think your answer is going to be a resounding yes. This is isn't some fucking game, these are lives we're talking about here. It's not like Bally's is partnering with Krispy Kreme Donuts! This is an organization that has been tasked with stomping out breast cancer! It is their duty to do whatever it takes to do that.

Lets look at the facts:
1) Chicken is delicious, fried chicken is even more so.
2) Fried chicken, eaten in huge amounts, can cause all sorts of problems, ranging from greasy fingers to high blood pressure, to great big fat asses, but (and i could be wrong) none of the things they cause is breast cancer.
3) Susan komen's mission is to stop breast cancer, not stop great big fat asses. If you want to stop great big fat asses, find another organization, not Komen.

I am not saying that Komen should team up with anyone that comes knocking on the door. Teaming up with a cigarette company is not a good idea, because cigarettes cause cancer which defeats the purpose of thier organization. Chicken does not cause cancer. Yes KFC produced the double down sandwich but the double down (which is delicious I might ad) is 1) not targeted for women but targeted at 20 something men (which I happen to be) and 2) does not kill you. I ate it and I'm still here, I know women who ate it and they're still here, in fact I don't know anyone who's died from it directly, the same way people die from cancer. What people die from is eating too much of it, which is neither KFC's or Komen's fault. People have to take responsibility for their actions, including if they decide to stick a ton of friend chicken down their colossal gullets. Furthermore, there are cures for big fat asses, there is no cure for cancer!

Also, what is KFC supposed to do? Just because they make fried food (they also make grilled food and that accounts for 20% of their sales) they can't support positive causes? They can only support guns and liquor? Give me a break. I'd be pissed off it Komen passed up this chance and missed the opportunity to put another 1 million towards cancer research.

Additionally, I've heard that people are threatening to stop supporting Komen. To those person out there who is going to stop supporting Komen I say "you're an asshole". Komen is trying its best to save lives and if you're going to stop supporting them because they're taking money from an organization that makes fried chicken, then you're an ass and that's outside of Komen's control (you need to take that up with your parents and your questionable upbringing). If you don't like KFC, don't eat at KFC, tell your friends not to eat at KFC, go protest KFC, but don't stop supporting an organization that fights breast cancer because they realize finding a cure for cancer is important enough to take money from a purveyor of deep fried bits of chicken. I don't see those people bitching and whining about Komen and KFC going around and dropping off million dollar checks to Komen.

Do I think that this was the smoothest thing to do on Komen's part? No, of course not. They could have made it more under the radar, they could have positioned it as KFC making a small step to improve the lives of women, they could have partnered the brand up with KFC's healthier (though less delicious) offerings, they could have done all sorts of things to help with the brand dissonance but they didn't and now their taking flack for it. That's fine and understandable but to claim that it's the end of the world and that they shouldn't have taken the money is the same wrongheadedness that makes nonprofits think that they can't have run business and that they should feel guilty for generating income and that they need to live hand to mouth all the time. Komen did the right thing and I can only thank the great fried chicken in the sky that the nonprofit professionals out there who say that they would have taken the money aren't in control at Komen because if they were, a worthy organization would be out of a considerable amount of money and the people whose lives depend on that research would be suffering.

We have to do better,
-Cerrone

Word of the year: Insruptive

2010-05-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

I just came back from a 3 day retreat with my organization during which we heard, spoke, said, contemplated a ton of information all around the importance and power of the Nonprofit sector. During two of the key note speeches (one by Patty Stoneseifer from the Gates foundation and one from Geoff Canada of Harlem Childrens Zone) I thought of the power of something I dubbed "Insruptive Ideas". Insruptive means something that inspires by being disruptive. Now plenty of things are disruptive (and frankly, I fear that people may believe that I'm fixated with disruptive ideas) but disruption is not enough. Disruption by itself can lead you into all sorts of useless places. For example:

These ads are all over the NYC area. They're done by the city (at a total cost of $277K mind you) and ran for about 3 months. Are these ads disruptive? Hell yeah they are. They're fucking disgusting. Are they inspiring? Hell no they aren't. They're just disgusting. I'm not inspired to do shit but look away. This ad misses the mark. Marketing science tells us that the efficacy of 'shocking' ads follows an inverted 'U' shape, meaning that they are effective up until a point, after which their efficacy drops like human fat out of a soda bottle.

How about this instead?

Is it disruptive? yeah, is it inspiring. Ehh, kind of, but this is the best truth ad I could find online. Most of the truth ads are actually really good and inspire people to act. The truth campaign is a thousands times better than the crap that the NYC is putting out, and what's more. They're actually getting results.

"Studies have shown that the Truth campaign is successful in encouraging anti-tobacco attitudes and beliefs among 12-17 year olds (Farrelly et al., 2002). In addition to creating negative attitudes and beliefs, the Truth campaign is associated with “lower receptivity to pro-tobacco advertising and less progression along a continuum of smoking intentions and behavior” (Hershey et al., 2005, p. 22). This means that those who watched the Truth ads were less likely to start smoking or increase their smoking habits. In fact, these ad campaigns have been quite successful, even compared to anti-smoking campaigns in the classroom. Meta-analytic research shows very little long-term benefit to many school-based programs (Wiehe, Garrison, Christakis, Ebel, & Rivara, 2005); large-scale survey research, on the other hand, shows that the Truth campaign has a significant desired long-term effect on adolescent smoking attitudes and behaviors (e.g., increase negative attitudes toward smoking and decrease smoking behaviors) (Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, & Healton, 2005; Farrelly et al., 2002)."

These ads disrupt the views and inspire actions. That's an Insruptive ad. Is it a fine line? Yeah. Is it hard to do? Yeah. Is that reason not to try? No. We have to try. Every dollar we spend on shitty ads or misplaced marketing or poor communications is a dollar entrusted to us to make the world better that we have pissed away. WE HAVE TO TRY HARDER. Failing is not an option. We have to do more than just disrupt, we have to inspire. We have to be insruptive.

Maybe next time I'll explain how to make inspruptive communications. . . maybe.

The key to good cause marketing: 5 R's

2010-05-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Although I've branched out from my heritage of advertising into the broader world of marketing and communications strategy, I still have a soft spot in my heart for good advertising. I came across this great campaign the other day done by DAE and a consortium of organizations in San Francisco with the mission to fight Hep B.

I think that these are really interesting pieces because 1) they're targeted towards asian americans, a community known for generally being conservative and 2) they're for a cause related campaign, which as I always lament, tend to be ultra conservative and frankly tends to suck. Of course there are some changes I'd like to make (copy is too small, a little color in the headline would be nice, etc) but overall I think it's a strong campaign that draws attention to a serious issue.

Right now the zeitgeist is all about going from push marketing to pull marketing. Everyone and their mother believes that the Internet has destroyed the ability for marketers to grab peoples attention, but clearly there is. Ads and messaging like this commands attention and this technique shouldn't be tossed out like a baby with the bath water. At the end of the day, even though media may change the basics still remain the same:

Cerrone's 5 R's

1) Relevance: Why would your audience care about you or your message? Make sure your message is something that you audience cares about

2) Resonance: How would your audience know that you're talking to them? Make sure your message is in the right language/media/tone.

3) Retention: How will your message stick with the audience until the moment that they can do the thing that you want them to do (i.e. sign the petition, go to the doctors office)? Make sure your message can be kept in the viewers mind long enough to reach a point where some can be done (i.e. long enough for them to make it to the store or the medical center - think about a memorable catchline or slogan or jingle)

4) Reaction at the moment of truth: What will the viewer do at the moment of truth? Will they walk out of the doctors office or will they stay and get tested? Make sure the thing that they are supposed to do at the moment of truth is easy and pleasant (none of this will work if they medical center sucks or is hard to navigate)

5) Result: What will they do after the moment of truth? Will they tell their friends about how great the experience was? Make sure you've planned for what they can do after (turn a user into an evangelist)

It doesn't change and it's not rocket science. It's just using common sense and communication techniques to make the world slightly better place than we found it.

Amazing Cause Marketing

2010-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

I love rebel shit. Something harsh and amazing to wake people up out of there stupors, I think is great. Maybe not all the time but sometime, I think it's important that someone goes totally over the deep end. With that in mind, I've posted the video for M.I.A.'s latest single below. Before you watch it let me warn you: it is NOT safe for work (violence, language, some brief nudity). I'm not a huge fan of the song, but this video . . .this video is going to fuck up your chackra for the rest of the day. But it is worth watching because it speaks to a number of causes through the use of analogy and thanks to M.I.A.s brand you can tell the causes she is referencing. This is something that any reputable organization would never directly sponsor but the power of this video is undeniable, even if it goes too far at times, and after watching it, you want to do something. I felt like I wanted to go into the street and start a protest to end inequality. It drives you on a deep gut level to want to take action, and at the end of the day, isn't that our goal as marketers for a mission?

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Something else that this video makes me think about is the human need to be consistent and how that is rarely utilized in marketing for missions. Essentially, even if you don't agree with M.I.A.s stance on the Tamil Tigers, after seeing this video, you can at least agree that people shouldn't be abused for how they were born or who they are. Once you've gotten someone to believe that, they would be far more likely to support equal rights for LGBT people, or abolishing racism, or ending the inequalities that plague our world, because those issues have the same ideological foundation (i.e. that people should not be abused for who they are). I feel that we often get so caught up in the differences of our causes that we ignore the similarities and, as such, miss out on opportunities to partner with unlikely allies that essentially believe the same things we believe.

Jealous of my boogie!

2010-04-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

This morning I got on the train and sat down to read my latest book (Thinkertoys) and promptly this fat guy gets on the train and begin singing prince songs at the top of his lungs. I, like everyone else on the train, immediately get pissed off because all I want to do first thing in the morning is have a nice quite relaxing trip to the office, not listen to an american idol reject. I mean, this guy was so loud and so obnoxious that doing anything but listening to him was impossible. So I sat there and tried my best to read my book, but then I stopped and I thought about how silly I was. The guy was standing there completely oblivious to the feelings of everyone (by now he had moved on to singing RuPaul songs) but he was totally and completely happy in himself singing his heart out, and I was sitting there like a tool trying to pretend I didn't hear him. I heard him, and what's more, when would I next have a chance to hear a fat guy sing RuPaul on the train? I can read my book anytime, but this was a chance to have a beautiful unique moment. So I closed my book and opened myself up to the experience of hearing him sing. And frankly he wasn't that bad. He was singing "Don't be jealous of my boogie" and I realized that I was totally jealous of his boogie. That absolute abandon to do whatever the fuck he wants when and where he wants, with no care about what anyone thought. That's a beautiful thing and something we should all aspire too. Every day, the trip to work could be symphony!

When he got off the train, I was actually disappointed, and spent the rest of the day singing RuPaul with a smile on my face.

Guerrilla Nonprofit Marketing!

2010-04-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Don't tell the powers that be, but deep down inside I am a hard core guerrilla revolutionary (well, actually not that deep down). Now of course that's not in the "praise the lord and pass the ammunition sort of way" but in a fight the power, rage against the machine, tear down the hegemony of the the mind sort of way. Nothing, and I mean nothing, makes me happier than to see some hard core non-comformist revolutionary shit and I think nonprofits, who aren't really being controlled by a need to make profit and grow shareholder value have the space to really do some hard core non-comformist revolutionary shit (HCNCRS). Sadly they don't. They don't because they're too scared of alienating donors and the conservative powers that be that run all the big foundations and governments. So all the hcncrs gets done by artists (who, if you think about it, are often the real shit when it comes to promoting a social cause/message without the fear that someone won't donate money). Therefore it is not a suprise that something like this,

which is a candy bar wrapped in the word Bulemia, was scattered about the city by our friends at TrustoCorp. This type of HCNCRS could have easily been done by a ton of nonprofits out there who's mission it is to fight obesity, been done cheap, and gotten a ton of buzz. Sadly it wasn't because the industry is still often afraid to take a stand and do something exciting and different. I think rather than leaving it to artists to be the sole risktakers when it comes to pushing a social agenda, NPOs need to truly embrace the HCNCRS soul that (I believe) exists in all nonprofits. Being a non profit is a revolutionary idea and nonprofits should take that lack of fear and direct it to all that they do, including their marketing and communications. I mean, look at all the chatter the 'Truth' stuff generated. This isn't hard, it just requires enough guts to be willing the push the envelope.

PS this was also put up by TrustoCorp in Williamsburg. Not exactly pushing a social cause (or is it?)

shenanigans

2010-04-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

Normally I like to keep this focused more on nonprofits or business or whatever is bouncing around in my head but I just saw this a few seconds ago and I felt the need to post it.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0419/Found-iPhone-4G-a-rare-breach-of-Apple-secrecy

Apparently someone lost an apple 4 g phone at a bar and Gizmodo got their hands on it. I personally have a very hard time believing that this was just a mistake. To me this sounds like either a marketing gag or someone stole a phone and sold it to Gizmodo. I've learned to believe none of what I see and only half of what I think.

The mind-body connection

2010-04-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

I saw this article the other day about how the position and activity of the body impacts the mind.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527535.100-mind-over-matter-how-your-body-does-your-thinking.html?full=true

It's actually kind of interesting because I think so often we see the mind and the body as different things that just so happen to always hang out with each other. what I find expecially interesting is that we're taught to sit still to think. So many of us have jobs that are focused on our ability to think and we spend all of our time sitting still in our cubicles.

No. Stop.

2010-04-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

While I think I do many things well (including being humble), marketing for nonprofits is one of my specialties. Nonprofit organizations have so many hurdles stacked against them and have missions of such import that how they get their message out, how they segment and target and how they generate impact is always inspiring.

These are two ads I saw the other saturday while walking around on park and 62nd in NYC.

These are not inspiring, they suck. The copy on the blue one says "Stay alive, volunteer in your community." The copy on the orange one says "Take control of your calories, eat less" and there is a little 'RX' sign at the top and a Mount Sinai logo at the bottom.

While I don't know the story of how those ads got to where they're at, I can hazard a guess. I'm guessing that the city had a certain amount of outdoor ad space that they were looking to off load and they decided to call on the nonprofit community to run something in those spots. Kind of like their civic duty or some bullshit. The nonprofit that got the lucky call was Mount Sinai and they decided "hey, we've got some space, lets put up an ad. Also we're doctors so lets make the ad look like a prescription! won't that be fun" (note, there is a chance Mount Sinai actually purposefully bought the space as some sort of ad campaign but that would mean that they knowingly went out of their way to put something like that up and that . . . I just can't bring myself to believe that someone would knowingly go out of their way and spend money to put those things up)

Why do these ads piss me off so much? First they're hard to read, cars will never be able to pick up the copy or the logo, so they must be for the pedestrians. Of all the pedestrian neighborhoods around is 62nd and park the most socially active neighborhood you can find? It's a lot easier to get someone on the fence or with a slight propensity to do something to do that something rather than getting a leopard to change its spots. Also there is no real call to action or way to help people execute on what the ad is asking them to do. Take the volunteer ad. Do they really think that people have never been asked to volunteer before? That someone is walking down the street, decides to look up, sees the ad asking them to volunteer and says "well, I never thought of that! let me go volunteer somewhere to feel more alive!" I call bullshit on that idea. Next, say someone does decide to volunteer, how am I as a marketer supposed to know that my ad got them to volunteer? How am I supposed to know that I moved the needle? If they provided some sort of number for people to call or website to visit they could provide information on how to execute and track the impact of the ad.

All of that aside, what really pisses me off is that nonprofits always clamor for the scraps of media that are tossed off the side of the table without thinking about whether or not they're the best one to use that media. There is an opportunity cost paid by the people. There could have been a good ad, targeted to the people in the neighborhood with a clear call to action and clear next steps that would help a nonprofit or a social cause, but because the city was too lazy to find that cause or because Mount Sinai was too greedy, we end up with this shit creative wasting space.

There should be a system where the best ads for the space gets the space. The city can have a media dispersal board composed of advertising and marketing and nonprofit specialist who evaluate what could potentially go in those spaces and pick the best one. Better to spend a bit more time and money to find a good cause and a good use of space than to just give the space away to whoever happens to be around at the time.

Be the heart surgeon

2010-04-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

I am a consultant, more specifically a general management consultant, and one of my biggest gripes with being a consultant is that the general consultant model is there to benefit the company that the general consultant works for, not so much the client.
I always liken it to being a doctor. If you have absolutely no idea what's wrong with you, it makes sense to go to a primary care physican, because they can diagnose your sickness and perhaps help solve some health problems, but if you have some sense of our problems, i.e. you have a heart attack, you don't want to go to a PCP, you'll go to a heart docotor. Most of the times, organizations are run by people with knowledge of what's going wrong in their companies, so they don't need a PCP to diagnose their issues, they need a specialist in marketing, or org or finance. Consulting companies want to staff themselves with generalist because (they say) that you get a wide assortment of projects and can learn about wide variety of issues and blah, blah, blah, but in reality the driving issue is that a staff full of generalist means you can staff easily (it's called being frontable). But imagine if instead an organization was staffed by specialist? It would be a nightmare for the staffing person but the clients would get people who have a deep knowledge of their particular issue.
I believe the key is to do away with the generalist consulting organization model and replace it with smaller specialist agencies. Clients should get people who have a deep and refined knowledge of their problems, no ta generalist who has to reinvent the wheel (or learn how the wheel works from a specialist partner) every time. When I go to get heart surgery I want a heart surgeon, not a team of PCP's and so do clients. Business needs to stop focusing on what it needs and more on what's best for the clients.

Where are all the black people?

2010-04-01T15:35:00.001-07:00

Once again the world of advertising and marketing are remembering about the black problem. That problem being of course that there are barely any african amerians making the ads and the brands, despite the fact that african americans are hyperconsumers of products. I saw this article the other day at ad age saying that ad agencies are still doing a poor job of hiring blacks and (kind of randomly) i went to this site ihaveanidea.org with profiles of leading creatives and, no suprise, there are no african americans on the site. I think it's a problem of exposure (I know a few AA CD's that are worth profiling) and a problem of hiring, which leads to a kind of chicken and egg situation (young AA's don't even consider advertising and marketing as a viable option because there are no role models).
We need a new system, where AA's are are taking the reigns. Real power is never given, it is only taken and young entrepreneurship minded AA's will have arise to take the power by force of will and talent.

Changing my motto

2010-03-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've recently really been thinking about design and how the tenants from design can be used to improve how well I think and how well I can create. Something that recently struck me is the mental devotion to certainty that I've developed. Design thinking is in many ways about how to embrace uncertainty, sort of moving from a deductive mindset to an abductive mindset. To that end I've been thinking about on of my favorite ways to probe the sources of a statement. Often when someone says we should do a certain thing, I would ask "do you think that or do you know that". By forcing people to separate out what they think they know from what they know for sure I've noticed that people become far more critical of what they are proclaiming. The danger with that is that there is certain strength in what people think. The universe of "think" is a universe of possibilities that are non-existent in the universe of "know". From now on, when I ask "do you think or do you know" it will not be to cast out what is thought into the wind but only to gain clarity. Thinking is as good as knowing, it just has a different purpose.