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Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting a half-day workshop entitled “Social Media for Cause Marketers” at the 2009 Cause Marketing Forum. We had a full house partake in this fast moving, high energy workshop. I was very pleased with the audience participation and the solid exchange of ideas.
The highlight of the program was the lively breakdown of five case studies, which starts on slide 99. The final one (starting on slide 115) was a behind-the-scenes view of www.pledgetoendhunger.com, which includes various analytics and measurements.
All of the slides I presented are included here. The remaining slides were from the four companies sponsoring the workshop and can be found via www.causemarketingforum.com.
Earlier this week, I was in Dallas, Texas, for the delivery of the fourth Tyson Truck for www.pledgetoendhunger.com. I was glad that my friend, George Dearing, joined me for the delivery to represent his company, Telligent.
Telligent was one of the campaign’s Corporate Champions and played an important role in making sure Texas was one of the top three states in terms of number of people signing the Pledge. As active bloggers and Twitter users, George and Lawrence Liu brought great energy and enthusiasm to the team
While George and I were together, George broke out his Kodak video camera and shot this interview of me. It’s probably the most detailed back story to date of how everything came together. Hope you enjoy it and learn something useful from it.
Thanks to Beth Kanter and David Hessekiel, I have the opportunity to lead a half-day workshop at this year’s Cause Marketing Forum on May 27 in Chicago. The session is entitled “Social Media for Cause Marketers” and will be a lively exploration of best practices, horrible failures, and a demystification of social media and cause marketing.
We have four great sponsors who not only are making the workshop very affordable but also will be sharing their expertise and ideas. Much thanks to Steve Croth from Better the World, Carol Schrader from GiveZooks!, Michael Hoffman from See3 Communications, and Beth Eisenberg from iugo. I’m looking forward to our explorations!
In addition to all this great content, I’m looking forward to giving everyone a very inside look at the recent www.pledgetoendhunger.com campaign. With the help of the my co-architect, Mitch Maxson, we’ll consider the strategy, tactics, results, lessons learned, and other relevant insights. We baked a lot of analytics into our campaign and will share some surprising results with you – this will be our first public presentation of these findings.
If you are anywhere near Chicago that day, it’ll be worth the modest $125 registration. You can register here. Be sure to let me know if you plan to attend! I’d love to hear from you.
Two Things You Need to Learn From This Post:
1. We will see more and more cause marketing campaigns use social media (for better and for worse).
2. The successful ones will put the cause first and the brand a distant second.
Childhood hunger is a very real problem in America.
Throughout the year, one out of six children in America worries about when their next meal will come. That’s more than 12 million children at risk of hunger, reports Share Our Strength, a national organization that works hard to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry.
Today, as the recession deepens and unemployment rises, more American families are facing hunger for the first time. A record 30 million Americans are on food stamps, and food banks face unprecedented demand.
The Pledge to End Hunger web site challenges visitors to help spread the word about childhood hunger in America, find ways to get involved with a food bank in their area, and donate money to Share Our Strength. The site encourages also a deeper dialogue about the issue with a blog focused on this initiative and ways to collaboratively solve the roots of this problem.
Two Things You Need to Know about This Post
1. The era of the oversized check is over.
2. If you follow the five Best Practices of Cause Marketing, you can change the world.
A More Detailed Exploration
Cause marketing has become one of the hottest topics of the year. Major corporations and local businesses alike are finding out that it’s good business to help promote causes. But how can you go about doing it without looking like an opportunist?
Corporate philanthropy and social responsibility are nothing new. It has always been in a company’s best interest to help improve its community and conduct its operations in a way that benefits its stakeholders.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot these simple truths. Somehow, we began to believe all that mattered was taking pictures of oversized checks and going back to business-as-usual.
#1 Thing You Need to Know about This Post
You need a clear plan to help you connect your compelling story to the people who can help you change the world.
A More Detailed Exploration
If you are like most non-profit leaders, you understand that your website can’t just be a digital brochure. Your donors and volunteers expect a lot more out of you when it comes to the online experience you provide the world. What can you do to make it better even in this challenging economy? more
#1 Thing You Need to Know about this Post:
Pedigree has spent a lot of resources to create awareness about the Pedigree Adoption Drive and will need to use its online resources to prove it was a wise decision, not prideful folly.
A More Detailed Exploration
The Super Bowl is a spectacular affair with entertainment for almost everyone, whether or not you care about the game on the field. People were overflowing with anticipation, celebration, indifference, derision, and disappointment throughout the evening. And that was just for the commercials (see the Twitter stream).
Out of all the spots that were aired, I noticed two that were primarily cause marketing initiatives: the NFL and Pedigree. While the NFL has a long history of promoting its community support (e.g. United Way commercials) and gets its air time as part of the broadcast agreement, Pedigree had to pay full retail price. more
#1 Thing You Need to Know about this Post:
The only sustainable way for you to create wealth for yourself is by improving the lives of others. Starbucks understands this and so can you.
A More Detailed Exploration
In case you just missed it in the opening sentence, I have an earth-shattering announcement to make:
The only sustainable way for you to create wealth for yourself is by improving the lives of others.
Despite what you might have heard from others, the only true path to long-term wealth creation comes from the careful balance of private gain and social good. Think about it. You create wealth when a lot of people think what you offer to the world is important enough to them that they pay you money and then keep paying you money over long periods of time. more
The Two Things You Need to Know from This Post:
1. The Armano family showed great compassion for Daniela and her children by rallying the support of their neighbors.
2. We need to continue this conversation in earnest to help reframe our understanding of charity and realign it with the realities of the new era.
The More Detailed Explanation:
With over 1 billion people on the Internet and over 3.3 billion owning mobile phones, we have entered the Interconnected Age. You have a more global view of the world, ideas spread instantaneously, self-organized swarms mobilize out of nowhere, and transformational events happen faster than before. These components of the Interconnected Age are redefining all aspects of your life, including your charitable acts.
A Well Considered Risk
When I decided to write I Gave $10 to David Armano to Help Daniela and Now I Regret It, I realized I was doing something akin to approaching a gasoline-soaked bee hive holding a lit match in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other. Those of us steeped in social media can attest to the hive’s propensity to defend itself against perceived challenges. Add to that the fact that raising money as fast as the Armano family did requires a highly emotional situation (e.g. 9/11, Katrina, and the Tsunami). more
