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Choosing Customers: “The night, too, is for sport”

August 22, 2010 in Advertising, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 1 Comment

After reading Seth Godin’s short blog on the subject a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about the extent to which brands choose their customers.

His take was that we can choose the customers we desire, the audiences we want to associate with.

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your pricing, your content, your promotion, your outreach and your product line.

I watched this Puma ad (hat tip @GuidoWongolini) with that lens on. According to Creative Review, the ad was created by Droga5 and directed by Ringan Ledwidge.

Besides being a well crafted, beautifully written, pitch-perfect piece of commercial art, it’s also a case study in social messaging and how to define your audience.

All athletic footwear brands have lines of sneakers retailers refer to as “casual” or “urban footwear.” What makes this campaign interesting is that Puma is the first of the high performance, pure sport athletic brands that thought of creating a new tribe for this product (side)line.

With this campaign, Puma is choosing their customers: the social athletes, the play harders, the revved up revelers.

Welcome to the world, the “after hours athlete.” There was a time in my life when I would have met you on this playing field, would have joined your team, but I go to sleep way too early for your pick up games.

I’m content to admire your endurance — and watch you get some action — from the bleachers.

-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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The Quiet Riot: Lessons From Social Networks

August 20, 2010 in Social Marketing, Social Messages, Social Movements with 2 Comments

Hat tip to Simon Mainwaring for posting this video of Harvard Professor Nicholas Christakis delivering an enlightening lecture to The RSA on the profound power and potentiality that exists (sometimes quietly, just beneath the surface) in all human social networks. Dr. Christakis referred to it as “the quiet riot.”

I was fascinated enough to watch all 43 minutes of the presentation and accompanying Q&A. Watch the whole thing if you have time. If not, here are five top-line takeaways:

  • 1) An important point: social networks tend to “magnify whatever they are seeded with.” And things tend to spread through networks to three degrees of separation – sometimes more, sometimes less, but that’s a general rule of thumb.
  • 2) Connections do really matter and it’s the structure of the network around an individual that’s important. One’s experience in life depends on where they are situated in the structure around them and what is happening in the structure around them.

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GQ Finds A Better Man; Take That, Pearl Jam!

August 5, 2010 in Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Messages, Social Movements, Social Technology with 0 Comments

As it turns out, it is possible to find a better man. Many, in fact.

GQ’s The Gentlemen’s Fund got the better of Eddie Vedder today as it named the five finalists of its annual Better Men Better World Search.

GQ received hundreds of nominations from across the country in its search for men who “dedicate their time and energy for the betterment of society through charitable work, volunteerism, and community involvement.”

You can view a slideshow of all the men who were nominated and meet the five finalists. It’s an impressive list of change-makers.

The winner will be determined by popular vote, and all votes must be in by September 30.

My vote goes to Jimmie Briggs. A former journalist, he started an initiative I admire, The Man Up Campaign, which is  dedicated to bringing men together and putting an end to violence against women in all its forms, from domestic violence to sex trafficking.

So, who’s getting your vote? May the best man win.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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Panera Breaks Bread in St. Louis

June 5, 2010 in Corporate, Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 0 Comments

USA Today’s Bruce Horovitz reported recently on the opening of Panera’s new non-profit cafe in a suburb of St. Louis.

The community-building concept is the brainchild of Ronald Shaich, who stepped down as CEO of the company to pursue this new social entrepreneurial vision and expand it nationally.

Upon entering Saint Louis Bread Company Cares, customers are asked to “take what you need, leave your fair share.” There are no cash registers, just a donation box. The hope is that some of the more affluent customers will contribute more than the suggested price of their order, which would allow the store to meet the needs of customers who don’t have the means to pay full price. Even the guests who are unable to pay are invited to do volunteer work and give back to the store.

I’m pulling for this project. I hope it’s as sustainable and scalable as Shaich’s plans suggest.

I know other restaurants have tried similar “pay what you can” models with varying degrees of success, but I think Shaich’s business acumen and strong purpose motive will be the difference makers.

You can tell Shaich believes deeply in his new mission. He describes the project as the company’s “community work” and as an experiment of “mutual responsibility.”

This an exciting social message (progressive, in the best sense of the word) for a rapidly growing (and therefore, increasingly influential) restaurant chain.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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Colonel Sanders Has a Case of Pink Eye

May 29, 2010 in Advertising, Branding, Cause Marketing, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 3 Comments

So much criticism has already been heaped on KFC for its “Buckets for the Cure” cause marketing partnership with Susan G. Komen.

Various accusations of “pinkwashing” have come from cancer researchers, nutritional experts and other cause marketing analysts and there is no need to rehash them all here.

Yet as a communications strategist, I feel compelled to comment on an issue that I haven’t yet seen raised.

From my perspective, what helped the campaign rise to the level of absurdity was the terrible timing of KFC’s corporate communications.

Simply put, I’ve never seen a company’s brand message so poorly planned, managed and sequenced.

At its best, a cause marketing campaign is a story about a group of ordinary characters (a corporation, a charity, often a celebrity) who find their purpose motives aligned in some important way and decide to do something extraordinary together.

However, when it seems like one of the characters shouldn’t be in the story — when they appear out of nowhere or out of sequence — the whole narrative feels forced, inauthentic and inappropriate.

KFC became one of those characters.

Continue Reading…

What Do Drugs, Guns & Kids Have in Common?

March 21, 2010 in Advertising, Cause Marketing, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 1 Comment

Photo credit: Flickr @anksmcskanks

The Body Shop wants you to know that they are all “sold on a street corner near you.”

Last week, The NY Times Media Decoder Blog shined a spotlight on the Body Shop’s campaign against the exploitation of children through sex trafficking, and I was impressed by the retailer’s comprehensive approach to issue advocacy.

In addition to issue research and the aggressive advertising campaign, the Body Shop also sponsored a film screening and panel discussion on the child sex trade.

Seeing their stores as “amazing communications platforms,” the company has trained their salespeople to be able to educate customers about the issue and direct them to their Web site for more info.

A special line of products was also created to empower customers to raise funds for two organizations, the Somaly Mam Foundation and the ECPAT International, a global network of organization working to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.

The Soft Hands Kind Heart Hand Cream urges customers to “lend a hand, or two” to stop the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children and young people.

Sexual exploitation is a tough, unglamorous cause and the Body Shop should be applauded for taking the risk on it.

Social advocacy campaigns are not new territory for the retailer, though. They have been taking on domestic violence as part of their core values for a decade.

The Body Shop is a company that understands the potential positive social impact of its brand.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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An App for Commerce, Causes & Karma

March 10, 2010 in Corporate, Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Messages, Social Technology with 0 Comments

CauseWorld, a free mobile app (iPhone and Android) recently featured — well, everywhere — but notably on the NY Times Bits Blog, lets users earn “karmas” by shopping at participating stores and then allows them to cash in those good vibe points as charitable donations to select non-profit organizations like American Red Cross, Global Giving, Room to Read, Livestrong and the Jane Goodall Institute.

The app smartly enables users to share their CauseWorld activity to their social networks, which provides an incredible promotional boost to all involved — the stores, the corporate sponsors, and especially the non-profit organizations.

Don’t see your favorite cause on their initial list? Send them an email.

I haven’t been able to figure out the allure of Fourquare, even though it has been enthusiastically embraced by (seemingly) everyone I know.

But I could definitely get into CauseWorld. It’s a similar concept with a nice cause-y twist.

I would rather be the Ambassador of a cause than the Mayor of a Starbucks.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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The Importance of Being Well Branded

March 8, 2010 in Social Messages with 1 Comment

I came across this picture on Greg Mankiw’s economics blog where he deemed this “Economics in One Picture“.

I can agree with that. But it also strikes me as a perfect visual proof of why good branding — the kind that forges a deep emotional connection with audiences — is so important.

So, what was Caroline’s mistake? It was this: she made her value proposition (the reward) only about the money.

This is actually a common mistake in marketing.

In business today, cost is practically a level playing field. Unless you have an enormous economies of scale advantage, it’s becoming harder to distinguish a product or service based on cost alone. Your competitor will just play the “Price Is Right” one dollar bidding war.

To make a difference, you have to differentiate. You have to tell a compelling story, surprise people, inspire feeling, stun them visually, create something memorable, engage their hearts and minds, and deliver a meaningful experience.

Real branding means establishing a love affair with your audiences.

Think about what people do when they lose a beloved family pet. They will post signs all over the neighborhood with the pet’s name accompanied by the most adorable picture they can find. It they’re smart, they’ll also include a few of the pet’s personality traits or physical details that only the family would know or notice.

These humanizing details help “brand” the pet as a cherished member of the family and ensure that people are able to feel the value of the relationship beyond that of the small reward they may be able to offer.

I’m sure Caroline valued her iPod more than the $50 would indicate. She probably even loved it. But she didn’t communicate the special personal connection that only she has with that device.

She didn’t give people an opportunity to account for its human value and someone took advantage of her mistake.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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BMW Adding “Some Humanity” to Its Brand

February 15, 2010 in Advertising, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 1 Comment

Writing about BMW’s new “Joy” campaign in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Alex Kellogg picked up on a trend in how cars, particularly luxury vehicles, are being sold right now.

Car makers are eschewing messages focused on power, performance and status in favor of ones emphasizing safety, value and humanity.

With Americans tightening their belts, BMW AG is parking “the ultimate driving machine” in the garage, at least for a while. The auto maker for years has promoted the power and performance of its cars using that slogan, one of the longest-running and most well-known in the auto industry. But now the company is switching gears. On Friday, it was launching an advertising campaign that focuses on the joy the company says comes from owning its vehicles and suggests BMWs are safe for mothers and children. One print ad uses the tagline “Joy is Maternal”—a departure from past promotions that touted horsepower, handling and acceleration.

Jack Pitney, vice president of marketing for BMW North America, summed it up best: “We hope to really add some humanity to our brand” and “show the diversity” of buyers.

While Kellogg suggests that BMW is shifting its message to appeal to “Americans tightening their belts” during this recession, I would attribute it to a broader and more powerful marketing trend taking hold in this country: winning over women.

While women still earn less than men, they now control 83 cents of every dollar spent by American families. Women also represent half of the U.S. workforce for the first time in the nation’s history, and they have been impacted far less by the current recession. See: The He-cession.

83% is serious buying power and marketers are still figuring out how to navigate this sea change.

When BMW says it would like to “add humanity” and “show diversity” in the most expensive marketing campaign in its history, you can sort of read between the lines.

This is not just recession style re-branding. “Joy is Maternal” is too dramatic a shift to explain it that way.

BMW is trying to broaden its appeal to — and make an emotional connection with — the one half of humanity that has been traditionally left out of its macho, tech-centric Ultimate Driving Machine brand vision.

Marketers follow the money. And I predict that many tech companies will soon be driving in the same direction.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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The Search for Google’s Heart is Over

February 12, 2010 in Advertising, Corporate, Social Messages with 0 Comments

On any given day of the week, I have Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Voice and Google Docs all opened up in separate tabs within my Google Chrome browser. That browser opens up to Google Search.

I use these Google products every day because they are enormously helpful tools. They are smart, simple, straightforward and well-designed widgets.

While most brands would kill to have just a couple of strong consumer touchpoints, Google is blessed with dozens of popular branded products used every day by millions of people.

But are these billions of interactions leaving a strong emotional impression on people? Are they creating a chord-striking narrative?

Most of the time, I use Google technology without even thinking about it. I have no deep feeling about these products.

My guess is that is true for most people. And I think that is a problem for Google, especially given the gains being made by Bing: a search engine with a personality manufactured by a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

Left to its own devices, sometimes even a good user experience of technology can come off as somewhat chilly and spiritless. That’s why warmer meanings needs to be layered over the cold mechanics.

But the left-brained engineer types that run Google have never made a deliberate effort to connect with its consumers on an emotional level and communicate a resonant back story for the company and its products.

Which is why the communications strategist in me was overjoyed to watch Google’s Super Bowl ad, “Parisian Love.” It accomplished exactly what it needed to: it finally humanized Google. The ad was everything its products and services have become known for — smart, simple and well-engineered — but it was also emotionally intelligent.

The strongest brands marry the mind with matters of the heart, and that is precisely what this ad does.

Google is inviting its users to see their daily interactions with the company’s technologies as part of their own personal journey.

People are being asked to think and feel about Search in a new way — as a meaningful, life-long experience.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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