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March 27, 2012 at 5:00 PM by Guest

Knowing the ropes of celebrity partnerships can be an integral part of any marketing campaign, whether your organization is for- or non-profit. Take heed of these three entertainment marketing “need-to-knows” and you’re on your way to a successful and impactful celebrity partnership.

 

No. 1: Content is king

Carefully crafted celebrity partnerships help brands “tell their stories” from a credible third-party and highly influential perspective. More and more, a major part of this storytelling includes, and relies on, content – and lots of it. Engaging, creative content helps corporate and nonprofit brands differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace where people are increasingly looking for honest, transparent and “human” brands. To do this well, clients are tapping into relevant celebrities and entertainment partners to bring their stories to life.

When American Cancer Society celebrated its “Choose You” cause campaign in the spring of 2011, Cone Communications partnered the nonprofit with Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank to create the “Choose You” documentary, telling the powerful stories of three women on their journeys to put their personal health first. The full-length documentary was released nationally and promoted through social media channels.

 

No. 2: Celebrities and brands are social

Social media continues to be one of the most quickly evolving areas in public relations. Social platforms are no longer leveraged as “add on” tactics, but can be the foundation of some of the most successful campaigns. As social platforms continue to rise, so does the impact of celebrity voices.

During Fair Trade Awareness Month in October, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a Cone client and the largest purchaser of fair trade coffee in 2010, sought to drive awareness of the impact of fair trade with an authentic and powerful campaign for its Green Mountain Coffee brand. Green Mountain Coffee harnessed the power of social media along with Michael Franti and Grace Potter – two up-and-coming music artists who deeply care about fair trade – to raise the volume on the issue. Both artists hosted exclusive live performances on Green Mountain Coffee’s Facebook page to educate consumers on how small choices – like the coffee we drink – can help drive big change.

No. 3: Celebrities can work to draw attention to important issues

Nonprofits have been using celebrities to generate awareness, support and funds for many years… and the strategy still works, if done well. Whether a nonprofit is launching a new platform, trying to raise money for new research or continuing to keep an important issue top of mind among people nationally or globally, the power of celebrities – and the many people they touch both on and offline – is invaluable. However, choosing the right celebrity, and making sure the celebrity is doing it for the right reasons, is a must.

American Kidney Fund, a Cone client, recently launched Pair Up by partnering with spokesperson Laila Ali who has a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure, both which put her at risk for kidney disease. She signed on to be a spokesperson because she has a passion for the cause, and with her personal connection, she was able to deliver campaign messages authentically.

 

-Cone Communications' Entertainment Marketing Group

Tags: entertainment marketing nonprofit celebrities

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March 22, 2012 at 4:12 PM by Guest

It seems like every month, week and day is associated with a cause – October is synonymous with breast cancer, April 15-21 is National Volunteer Week, and yesterday was World Down Syndrome Day. The observance of every cause is important, but for me one stands out – World Water Day.

For the past five years, I have had the pleasure of learning about and supporting water issues as part of my work on Xylem Inc.'s* corporate citizenship and social investment program, Xylem Watermark, and every year I learn something new. Today – I’m learning about solutions to the global water crisis as our team promotes two new infographics that demonstrate how Xylem Watermark solves water.

For each share of the infographics on Facebook, Xylem will donate $1 to partners Water For People and Mercy Corps (up to $10,000, March 19-30, 2012). Visit www.xylemwatermark.com/infographic to participate.

Solving Water through Community-based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education

Taken by a Xylem employee who traveled to West Bengal, India as part of Water For People’s international volunteer program, this image demonstrates the power of water, sanitation and hygiene to change lives – clean water nearby means children, especially girls, can go to school instead of fetching water.

 

Solving Water through Disaster Risk Reduction

Capturing the devastating effects of water-related disasters, this image – taken in Jakarta, Indonesia after massive floods by Xylem Watermark nonprofit partner, Mercy Corps – represents the untapped power of disaster risk reduction, a newer approach to solving the global water crisis by proactively securing water resources from natural disasters before they happen. According to estimates, every dollar spent on disaster preparedness can save four dollars in disaster relief!

 

At Cone Communications, we support water because we are motivated to make a difference in the world. Today, I encourage you to find your reason. Maybe it’s because you, too, believe Sarita should have the chance to go to school rather than fetch water. Maybe it’s because you, like Rahmad, know the chaos and stress that water-related disasters can breed, and you want to help prevent that feeling from overwhelming someone else.

Whatever your reason, this World Water Day I encourage you to join me and help solve water.

 

*Cone client

 

Jillian Wilson-Martin is a Senior Account Supervisor in Cone Communications’ Cause Branding group.

Tags: Program Water Volunteering

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March 12, 2012 at 1:21 PM by Guest

Most know Nature Valley for its classic Oats N’ Honey granola bars but just as the brand’s product line has continued to evolve, so has its dedication to America’s parks. Last Thursday, Cone Communications helped the granola company launch into the digital space with a new platform called Nature Valley Trail View – designed to expand upon the brand’s commitment to preserving our national parks.

 

 

Nature Valley Trail View, announced on March 7 by the New York Times, encourages outdoor exploration and education through 300-plus miles of immersive national parks content, including interactive guides and panoramic views of trails at three iconic parks: Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains and Yellowstone. The new platform debuted to media and technology influencers on March 11 at the internationally recognized South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive (SXSWi) Conference and Festival Mashable SXSWi House in Austin, Texas.

Nature Valley is a longtime supporter of our country’s outdoor heritage. Through the “Preserve the Parks” program – a partnership between Nature Valley and the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) – the brand encourages Americans to get outside and enjoy our beautiful national parks, while raising funds for their preservation. For more than two years, Cone has worked alongside the General Mills-owned company providing strategic counsel and helping to further develop its partnership with the NPCA to generate awareness for parks’ critical needs. In 2012, funds raised for the NPCA will top $1 million.

 

So, as you’re virtually hiking a trail in Yellowstone National Park during National Parks Week (April 21 – 29), make sure to take a water break on the Nature Valley Facebook page. By visiting the page, nature lovers can help support NPCA restoration projects; for each Facebook “Like” during this time period, Nature Valley will donate $1 to the NPCA, up to $50,000. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the new platform – share them with us on Twitter (@nature_valley) with the hashtag #TrailView.

 

*Cone client

 

Kristin Flynn is an Assistant Account Executive in Cone Communications’ Brand Marketing group.

Tags: nationalparks causebranding philanthropy newmedia

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March 6, 2012 at 8:51 AM by Guest

A common problem I see organizations and agencies run into when developing new campaigns and programs is forgetting that as highly educated and passionate advocates of the chosen issue, product, etc., we cease to be accurate representations of our target population at large. As a result, we may overestimate the importance of/interest in our issue outside of our walls and forget to take a step back and do a reality check on what our target audience is actually willing, able and likely to do.

The Fast Company Co.Exist website recently featured an article called, "A Bandage That Allows You to Save a Life While Patching up Your Cut," which highlights a new bone marrow donation registry kit placed in packaging alongside adhesive bandages. The product, created by Graham Douglas of Droga5 and his advertising and design students at the Miami Ad School in Brooklyn, debuted at TED earlier this week. The kit is a simple, yet elegant, solution to address a huge need, which is encouraging more participants to join the National Marrow Donor Program by collecting a small blood donation when they are already tending to a cut. Douglas's kit is a great example of someone putting themselves in the shoes of the audience they are trying to reach and developing an appeal that is delivered in exactly the right way and at the right time to get to "yes".

 

I would suggest that there are three simple questions that can help us consistently ensure greater success in this regard:

1) What is the specific problem are we trying to solve?

In Douglas's case, the problem was a critical shortage of bone marrow donors because of a lack of awareness of the need and a misunderstanding of what it takes to join the registry. I didn't know a simple blood test is all that is required (nothing as scary as a spinal tap like I imagined), and I'm sure many of you didn't either.

The more concise we can get in defining the problem we are trying to solve, the better. In this case, it wasn't about curing a larger disease or even getting people to donate bone marrow. It was about getting people registered on the donor list. Looking at breast cancer for example, a specific problem wouldn't be, "How do we reduce breast cancer?” or even, "How do we get more women to get their mammograms?” it would be, "How do we get more women to schedule their mammograms?"

2) What is the easiest thing someone could do to help in a meaningful way?

 Providing your contact info and a blood sample is all that is needed to join the National Marrow Donor Program, but it can have a huge impact for individuals on the waiting list and in desperate need of a donor match. Douglas isn't asking people to commit to being a marrow donor or even to prick their own fingers to join the registry. He's just asking them to help by capturing a drop of blood while they are already bleeding and then send it in using the kit right in front of them. The assumption is if someone gets on the marrow donor list, he or she will most likely agree to help someone in need if presented with the opportunity as a match. Going back to our breast cancer example, getting the recommended health screenings and diagnosing cancer early goes a long way in preventing cancer deaths. In addition, once a woman schedules an appointment for a mammogram, she is more likely to show up for it, so just getting more women to schedule appointments could make a big difference in changing behavior.

3) How could we reach our target when the barriers to a "yes" are at their lowest?

Douglas's kit takes strong messaging around the importance of joining the marrow registry, provides easy tools to make the donation and pairs it with a box of bandages to ensure the "ask" occurs at a moment when the barriers to "yes" are the lowest.

Applying this to breast cancer, instead of asking women to pledge to get their mammograms or even come to a free local screening, it might be more successful to partner with Microsoft, Google or Apple to have an educational pop-up window show up on a consumer's screen prompting her to schedule a calendar reminder. Or, another idea would be to work with hospitals and primary care providers to proactively schedule mammogram appointments for women with the appropriate risk factors and have a corporate partner cover the co-pay.

By asking ourselves and our clients the three questions above, I'd suggest we could ensure our campaigns and programs consistently move beyond basic education and awareness to highly effective engagement and simple, but impactful, actions.

 

Chris Mann is an Account Director in Cone Communications’ Cause Branding group.

Tags: nonprofit engagement campaign donors

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February 29, 2012 at 5:06 PM by Guest

I was sitting at my kitchen counter having my daily bowl of cereal, as many nine year olds routinely do, when I was first exposed to cause marketing: the General Mills* Box Tops for Education program. As a regimented Honey Nut Cheerios eater (with the occasional variation of Trix, if I was lucky), I was able to enjoy my cereal and help my school at the same time! The more I ate, the more I could help - it was a brilliant campaign for a growing kid and cereal loyalist.

 

Since then, cause marketing has grown in popularity and consequentially, diversified as companies build programs that cater to specific wants and needs of their stakeholders. It helps to keep competitive edge. Provided price and quality are the same, 80 percent of Americans are willing to switch brands if a brand supports a good cause (2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study). Moreover, consumers want the power of voice and of choice – 75 percent of Americans want to offer their ideas and feedback on the company’s cause-related efforts (2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study). With these points in mind, it makes sense to reward consumers with an empowered, active role in helping to guide corporate giving.

 

Box Tops for Education remains strong since its inception in 1996 and has grown to a network of partner companies that offer eBoxTops (those for virtual redemptions) to reward consumer purchases. Other organizations with loyalty programs have been able to adopt and adapt this approach, from hotel companies like Hilton (Cone client) and Marriott, to major banking and credit card companies such as Citibank and American Express. These global giants offer the option to donate reward points to a charitable organization of personal choice (some with databases of over one million organizations). This simple, successful method has even extended into start-ups like DailyFeats, a website that rewards users with points for tracking positive behaviors. It is a relatively simple concept that can be flexed in numerous ways.

 

Here’s why it works…

• For the company:
• Drives repeated business - consumers are encouraged to subscribe to the loyalty program and come back to accumulate the points
• Delivers a measurable impact to talk about - how many organizations were supported, how many dollars were given, how many people utilized the giving mechanism
• Invites consumers to take part in a team effort for change - giving back should be done by both companies and consumers, not solely one or the other
• For the consumer:
• Enables loyalists to “do good” at “no cost”- there aren’t any checks written by the consumer
• Empowers consumers with personal choice - they’ve earned the points and can choose a cause they find compelling
• Grants access at a low threshold - giving can be done in incremental amounts (rather than waiting to accumulate for the “big” rewards at the risk of points expiring)
• Offers a more substantive reward for those who may not feel a strong need for other “fluffy” perks
• For the beneficiary organization:
• Lends visibility without the costs of advertising - loyalty programs are yet another way the public can learn about the organization
• Offers the opportunity to build relationships - the organization can follow-up with continued communications (emails, newsletters, campaigns, etc.)
• Provides a direct benefit - the donation

My breakfast routine has since changed to a daily Greek yogurt, but I have also become a frequent credit card swiper. Companies like Citibank make it easy, engaging and personal for me to continue to support causes I believe in by simply rewarding my continued business. With technology enabling loyalty programs to become even more accessible and easier to use, I’m eager to see where companies go next.

 

*Cone client

 

Rachel Swirsky is an Account Executive in Cone Communications’ Cause Branding group.

Tags: causebranding donation Loyalty Program

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December 30, 2011 at 9:12 AM by Guest

I am an intern at Cone Communications in the Cause Branding discipline, and wanted to share with you a really exciting experience that my Emerson Social Media class had the other night, when Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson treated us all to dinner.

 

 

Emerson College’s Social Media #ESM, is an experimental social media class at Emerson College where we gain hands-on experience to better improve our understanding of new media. What started as a "class experiment" soon made 25 students realize anything is possible via social media. Emerson’s Social Media #ESM class came up with a wild idea: What if we had a local celebrity teach our class about social media? Professor David Gerzof encouraged us to shoot for the stars, so we aimed for NFL All-Star Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson, who has more than 3 million followers on Twitter.

 

@Ochocinco receives an @ reply or tweet, on average, every 3 seconds and our class was determined to break through the noise. Using the Twitter hashtag #ProfOchocinco, the class began tweeting at him to teach our class as a guest Professor. After a month of tweeting him, we finally heard a response. He agreed! The next step of the campaign was to ensure he followed through with his promise. We began tweeting his fiancé, VH1 star Evelyn Lozada. After a week of pushing through the noise, they both agreed!

 

Our Professor and Ochocinco arranged a dinner with the class to talk social media at the Cambridge favorite, All Star Sandwich Bar. The class anxiously awaited a confirmation from Ochocinco until a mere four hours prior to the dinner. Ochocinco arrived promptly at 8:00pm with fiancé Evelyn Lozada. The first half of "class" was a Q & A with Chad about his current social media strategies. He stressed the idea of being transparent with Twitter; as it is a place for him to show his personality "without the ESPN filter." The second half of "class" focused on looking at ways he could improve his social media engagement. We gave tips to better improve his following on different projects such as OCNN and the mobile game Mad Chad 2. He then treated us to sandwiches, fries and IPA pitchers.

 

The "class" garnered media attention nationally, including NECN, CBS News at 11pm, ESPN “Sports Center,” The Boston Globe, Boston Innovation, Boston Metro and many more. Ochocinco even wants to have dinner with the class again in January. It just goes to show that any idea is possible!

 

- Kate Horn is a senior Marketing Communications undergraduate at Emerson College and participated in the Cone Communications' fall internship program.

 

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August 15, 2011 at 10:22 AM by Guest

"Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift is that we might convey to some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous....The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me." - Emerson

 

Marketing guru Seth Godin last week extolled the virtues of "hidden charity." You don't give because you get your name on a building, or receive a special CD or a shopping bag of coupons. You give because the rewards transcend the material and commonplace. You give because it's right and good and noble.

 

Seth didn't say it, but cause marketing is probably polar opposite of "hidden charity." A lot of people would. Most cause marketing reflects the intentions of the creator and is selfish, opportunistic, showy and conventional.

 

While there are many good examples of cause marketing, the bad ones seem to get the attention. The latter is generally a result of bad or misguided values, not poor practices. The cause marketing promotion between Komen for the Cure and Kentucky Fried Chicken wasn't a failure of practices - in this case pink buckets from which 50 cents was donated to Komen - but a byproduct of bad values and even poorer choices.

 

Blaming cause marketing ignores the fact that cause marketing gifts can be real gifts when good intentions drive practices.

 

Instead, we shoot the messenger.

 

 

Cause marketing enables real charity by connecting it with commerce. It doesn't require conviction but it does reflect it. People give for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. Like the collection plates at church when I was a kid, cause marketing is there to enable and to collect, not to measure, evaluate or judge. We should let cause marketing do its job and devote our time to teaching people the real meaning of charity.

 

You may know of a company and cause partnership that flowed through caring to commerce. I know I do.

 

For seven years I worked with Marc Perlman, President & CEO of Ocean State Job Lots, a 100 store discount retailer based in Rhode Island. Marc supported my nonprofit in many ways, some private, some public. Frankly, it really didn't matter which. Regardless of how Marc chose to support us his generosity didn't flow from his "hidden" side on one day and public on the next. It came from his charity.

 

My point is that you'll never find charity in cause marketing, or any other type of giving, for that matter. Messengers aren't their noble (or wicked) lords. They just represent them. Charity can only be found in the giver, and that's where our work in society lies. As Seth points out marketers of causes have a long way to go in convincing people of the core reason to give: being part of something bigger than themselves and serving the public good.

 

Cause marketing can serve a noble and valuable role when character aligns with cause and commerce. Charity stems from why people want to give, not the how and what they give. We should give people just as many opportunities as we can to express and grow their charity and change the world.

 

Joe Waters is the co-author of the newly released Cause Marketing for Dummies. He writes the web's leading cause marketing blog Selfishgiving.com.

Tags: charity, nonprofit, causemarketing, cause,

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June 21, 2011 at 2:14 PM by Guest

I am very excited about the latest results from Deloitte’s Volunteer IMPACT Research Series. These findings reveal important, new data: millennials who frequently participate in workplace volunteer programs are more satisfied on a number of measures than their peers who rarely or never volunteer. They are more likely to feel proud of, and loyal to, their company. Further, they are more likely to be satisfied with their career progression, and they are more likely to think their corporate culture is positive. These are powerful statistics that suggest providing frequent volunteerism opportunities makes business sense.

 

 

At a time when this and other studies reveal that one-third of millennials are considering other job opportunities, Deloitte’s findings offer a strong argument for making volunteerism a business priority. Companies that view their volunteer programs as strategic assets and factor community involvement into their business planning may have a distinct advantage when it comes to engaging this civic-minded generation of workers.

 

Michelle Nunn, CEO of Points of Light Institute and co-founder of HandsOn Network, recently wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which came to similar conclusions.

 

I’m interested to hear what you think, too. Drop me a line at communityinvolvement@deloitte.com to share your thoughts.

 

Evan Hochberg, national leader of Deloitte’s community involvement initiative

 

*Deloitte is a Cone client.

Tags: Millennials Deloitte businesscase research volunteerism

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