Archive - January, 2010

Coca-Cola Tries To Live Positively

January 30, 2010 in Advertising, Cause Marketing, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Messages with 0 Comments

Last week, I wrote about Pepsi’s daring decision to sit on the sidelines of this year’s Super Bowl advertising contest in favor of a social media-based cause marketing campaign.

Pepsi’s Refresh Project has been attracting so much media attention that I overlooked Coca-Cola’s own cause campaign, Live Positively.

Coke’s campaign has more modest ambitions. The company will be showcasing two new spots during the Super Bowl, which are also the centerpiece of the cause marketing campaign.

The concept is really quite simple. When Facebook users send a free virtual Coca-Cola gift to their friends through its Live Positively application, Coke gives back in two ways. They donate one dollar to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (up to $250,000). And they give their new “fans” (of which there are now more than 4 million) a sneak peak at their Wieden & Kennedy-created Super Bowl ads.

I give Coke credit for finding a creative way to engage a large audience with its corporate responsibility mantra. While Pepsi’s project appears to be more of a short-term special initiative, the Live Positively message now represents Coke’s overarching sustainability strategy and brand. More than 4 million people and counting are now connected to what could become the company’s permanent good works feed.

Having said that, I was underwhelmed by the ads. Coke has done an incredible job of articulating its “Happiness” brand message through creative visual storytelling. What I wanted for “Live Positively” was something more like this below — real people, real smiles, real pleasure.


And instead, they give us a redemptive tale of Montgomery Burns.

In addition, the campaign’s cause component is too abstract. Coke should have identified a specific project or local initiative to support within The Boys & Girls Clubs of America. I understand there is a long-standing relationship between the two organizations, but general support is just so stale. It doesn’t tell a compelling story of need or urgency.

Pepsi’s campaign is fresher and more groundbreaking. Not only will the company fund specific community building projects, its voting process will be an important teaching tool. People will learn about the vast range of problems that are plaguing communities and be engaged by the creative approaches to solving them.

Local meets global. Education meets engagement. Media meets meaning. Online meets offline. These intersections are the future of cause marketing and Coke needs to catch up.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts

Maya Lin: “Save Two Birds with One Tree”

January 24, 2010 in Advertising, Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 0 Comments

Maya Lin’s “Unchopping a Tree” debuted at COP 15 and it’s teasing a new foundation that is launching on Earth Day 2010, What is Missing? Foundation.

It’s a well crafted piece, but it’s deliberate pacing and solemn tone may hamper its viral potential. The last minute provides visual payoff, though.

The use of social math connecting the fact that “90 acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute” with the time it would take to destroy some of the world’s most beloved urban greenspaces was particularly effective.

I’m looking forward to what comes next from the What is Missing? Foundation.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts

Ticketmaster: Benefiting from Low Expectations

January 24, 2010 in Corporate, Social Messages with 0 Comments

Radiohead is playing a Haiti benefit concert tonight at the Fonda Theatre. All proceeds will be going to Oxfam’s Haiti Relief Fund. The Music Box at The Fonda in Hollywood is an incredibly intimate venue for a band like Radiohead. For true fans, this show is an opportunity of a lifetime.

The band made it clear on their Web site that they are “trying to raise as much money as possible” from the show; and, to that end, the tickets were put up for special auction on Ticketmaster.

At this point, I don’t expect much from Ticketmaster. I certainly wouldn’t confuse it for a company interested in the public benefit. Ticketmaster is universally reviled as a greedy gatekeeper with a business model only a vampire could love.

But a company like Ticketmaster can benefit from these low expectations. Even one small, socially responsible action can begin to rehabilitate a brand.

I am hearing from sources that service charges were, in fact, placed on each purchased ticket.

It would be easy for fans who didn’t take the time to read the “additional auction info” to be angered by this.

But it’s important to note that the auction info clearly states that “all proceeds including ticket fees to benefit Oxfam America – Haiti Earthquake Response Fund”.

It would have been a much bigger gesture of good will for Ticketmaster to waive the customer fees and donate its own corporate funds to Oxfam, but you can’t fault a company that travels as frequently as it does on the low road to take the highest road.

Let’s applaud Ticketmaster for taking a higher road. At least it’s a step in the right direction.

Do you agree?
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts

Google Finds a Good Cause For Its Free Service

January 22, 2010 in Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 0 Comments

Google announced on its blog today that it’s expanding Project CARE to homeless veterans in our nation’s capitol.

Project CARE is a program to provide free Google Voice phone numbers and voicemail accounts to homeless individuals. The Google Voice team has been offering this program in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than two years, and we’re excited to bring Project CARE to a new city.

On Saturday, Google Voice will join dozens of other Washington, D.C. organizations at the Winterhaven Homeless Veterans Stand Down at the D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center to try and make life a little easier for hundreds of veterans in the Washington, D.C. area. We will be handing out Project CARE cards and helping attendees set up unique phone numbers and voicemail accounts, which they can use when applying for jobs or filling out medical forms, or share with family.

I have a Google Voice account and I don’t remember paying for it. The reason being: it’s free. The service is still available only via invitation, but that doesn’t change the fact that this program is a tad flimsy by Google’s philanthropic standards.

I appreciate the blog’s humble tone and matter-of-fact message. And I realize the project is meant to be a modest solution to the problem of disconnected, homeless populations.

But as TechCrunch rightly questioned, why would Google not enhance the program with some first-generation, recycled Android phones?

For a company so obsessed with “innovation and iteration,” I’m surprised that, after two years, the program didn’t evolve this way naturally.

Without access to phones, Project CARE only provides the homeless with one-way communication. To my mind, this runs counter to Google’s whole brand ethos.

In this case, I think Google would have been better off letting this initiative fly under the radar. In this over-share culture, sometimes it’s more strategic just to do something and say nothing.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts

NBC: Scroll Down For Haiti

January 21, 2010 in Advertising, Corporate, Social Messages with 0 Comments

Maybe I’m just angry with NBC about something else.

But a friend of mine recently informed me that during its telecast of the Golden Globes, NBC encouraged viewers to support relief efforts in Haiti…by first going to their own Web site.

Instead of using this high-profile platform (reportedly, 17 million people watched) to promote the web addresses of actual relief organizations that could always use the attention — or even better, promote the Red Cross’s successful text-to-donate campaign — NBC used the opportunity to drive traffic to its own website, which I’m sure turned out to be a nice aid program for its needy corporate advertisers.

Yesterday, the “Donate to Haiti relief” banner was tucked tastefully underneath a Bud Light ad. Today, it’s right below a pitch for TurboTax. I can only imagine the cynical rationale that led to this decision, but I’m sure it had something to do with the number of “eyeballs” and “impressions” that would be delivered if the Haiti info was in close proximity to their sponsor messages.

To make matters worse, the Haiti promo box is way below the top fold of the site. Maybe a better title for NBC’s Haiti relief campaign is Scroll Down for Haiti.

If you’re going to go through the trouble of messaging a cause, you might as well grant it a position on your site equal to its urgency or importance. This is obvious to most, but not to NBC: web real estate represents the value you place on something.

NBC to us: First, scroll down the page. Take it ALL in. Did you notice we’re replaying The Biggest Loser tonight? Good, now drink that deliciously refreshing beer and file your taxes. Oh yeah, don’t forget: Donate to Haiti!

But again, perhaps I’m just being a passive aggressive member of Team Conan?

No, NBC is that shamelessly self-promotional.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts

MLK: “I may not get there with you…”

January 19, 2010 in Social Messages, Social Movements with 0 Comments

This one minute rhetorical gem came at the end of a much longer speech. MLK knew his days were numbered and that, if the threats against his life materialized, the movement he struggled to advance his entire adult life would have to go on without him. Every time I watch this, I’m blown away by the raw force of his delivery, the muscular faith of his message. He’s passionate and focused, but there is also a bit of distance in his eyes. He just communicates so much. He places their freedom movement within the long current of history, but then in this last minute he offers up a far-reaching vision of a “glory” that he knew would come to pass because of their struggle through the “difficult days ahead,” but not necessarily in any of their lifetimes. He was preparing the people in the room, especially the other movement leaders standing on stage behind him, for his impending death. The greatest threat to a social movement is when its success or failure is identified with one person (hear that, Al Gore?). With this speech, MLK was reminding everyone that the movement wasn’t about him.

Happy belated birthday MLK…
-Matthew diGirolamo
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Haiti: The High Water Mark for Social Media

January 17, 2010 in Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Messages with 0 Comments

I’m simply overwhelmed by the scale of the catastrophe in Haiti, yet I’m also in awe of the American Red Cross‘s smart use of mobile technology and social media to rally the web and raise funds for their relief work. With a simple call to action message posted on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, the Red Cross raised more than $8 million from text messages in three days.

That’s an extraordinary 800,000 donation texts…in a mere 72 hours.

No relief organization responded as swiftly and made it as easy for people to take immediate action as the Red Cross. They had their text campaign ready within three hours of the breaking news and simultaneously marshaled their “cabinet” of Twitter celebrities to spread the word.

This successful campaign helped the Red Cross project an aura of readiness and preparedness.

They communicated a simple, actionable message. They leveraged simple, actionable technologies. And they validated and circulated the entire campaign socially — through word-of-mouth influencers.

The Red Cross is a direct service organization and so its “real” work takes place on the ground, often in life or death situations. The organization would have a good excuse for being unsophisticated in executing communications campaigns.

In my experience working with nonprofit service providers, communications is sometimes not seen as central to the work of the organization. Of course, it’s  a helpful add-on skillset if the organization can afford it, but it’s not often valued as a core competency.

But that’s what separates the Red Cross from others: the ability to respond to an emergency both in the air with strategic communications and on the ground with strategic services, all in a coordinated fashion.
-Matthew DiGirolamo

Will Refresh Project Fizzle Out for Pepsi?

January 14, 2010 in Advertising, Cause Marketing, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Media with 3 Comments

I am intrigued by Pepsi’s bold decision to take their brand off the largest marketing stage of the year and redirect their $20 million Super Bowl advertising budget to a new national cause campaign. Pepsi has always gone big for the Super Bowl — big on creativity and on celebrity. ABC News reports that Pepsi has spent $142 million in Super Bowl ads in the last decade.

It’s rare for a brand as valuable as Pepsi’s to be this bravely experimental, so clearly there is a lot riding on the Pepsi Refresh Project.

If you didn’t catch the announcement, Pepsi is calling on consumers, businesses and nonprofits to submit good ideas and good causes to be funded through the Pepsi Refresh Project. They will accept up to 1,000 good ideas every month and consumers will then vote for their favorite ideas beginning February 1. Pepsi has partnered with some major players in the cause space, GOOD, DoSomething.org, CityYear and Global Giving.

The campaign holds great promise and, if successful, it could usher in a larger movement away from traditional passive, one-off, event-based advertising and toward these kinds of interactive cause campaigns with local focus, global reach and year-long scope.

Saying all that, I am surprised that Pepsi’s foray into social media and cause marketing had some serious missteps from day one. They launched their Web site before it was ready for game time, which led to database errors when users attempted to submit their “ideas that will have a positive impact.” Their Facebook page was immediately populated not with supportive comments, but with frustrated user complaints. Worse still, some users actually had their confidential information — and intellectual property — compromised by the database errors.

Is Pepsi trying to crowdsource or incite a flash mob?

This all raises the issue of trust. Beyond the undeniable buzz it generates, cause marketing through social media is fundamentally about building a relationship of trust between a brand and its audiences.

While a campaign may certainly have noble intentions and make a social impact, it comes up short if it doesn’t establish a lasting bond of trust during the phases of its execution.

We will see how Pepsi’s early miscues color the credibility of their campaign. The submission process was flawed, but let’s hope the voting process runs as advertised.

While the Pepsi Refresh Project has definitely created brand buzz in these early stages, only time will tell if it will inspire true brand trust.
-Matthew diGirolamo, Cause Catalysts