The NPO Creative Review

The Art of Letting Go

 

So neither of the next two examples are from the non-profit world.  But they got me thinking about an important lesson, perhaps reminder, to all of us marketers: we must let go.  This is not shocking new news in the consumer controlled media world.  But there is definitely an art to it.  Because while on the surface it sounds good, we all know the stories of how it can go dangerously awry.

The first thing that got me thinking about this is a video by director Max Joseph and Casey Neistat for Nike's Fuelband, the tagline for which is Make it Count.  As the story goes, Joseph and Neistat and Nike had agreed to a concept.  But before the shoot,  the filmmakers thought, "‘If I could do anything in the world and make it count what would I do?"  Neistat told CNN.   They supposedly (I say supposedly because I have a hard time believing this, but for the sake of this post, let's believe it's true)  jumped on a plane with Nike's money and proceeded to travel around the world, shooting film until their money ran out.

The film was viewed more than one and half million times on YouTube in less than three days, according to Mashable.  And today the view count totals over 7 million. 

The second example is an even riskier experiment in the art of letting go.  VisitSweden has given a different Swedish citizen complete control of its twitter handle @Sweden for a week at a time.  The goal was to showcase Sweden as a tourist destination and the noble ideas was who better to demonstrate Sweden's creativity, openness and progressivism  than then the Swedish citizens themselves.   The campaign truly gave the selected tweeters full reign and freedom to say what ever they liked.   Ummm, so - as you can imagine, some of the spokespeople had some highly questionable tweets.  I'm not going to repeat them, but if you're curious click on this link to this Mashable article, and here's the NYTimes article that describes the project in more detail. Despite the questionable tweets, VisitSweden has stuck with the campaign.  @Sweden currently has over 62K followers.  Just for reference Ford Motor Co. @Ford has over 152K followers.  So I'd say pretty effective following for @sweden.

THOUGHT STARTERS

So we all may not be as brave as VisitSweden.  But where are the places in your social media plan where you could give up a little more control?  And just as importantly where inside your own organization could you loosen the reigns and let people run with their ideas?

 

Refuge / Don't Cover It Up / Contagious Magazine

via www.contagiousmagazine.com

This is an arresting campaign by BBH, London entitled, "how to look your best the morning after." The campaign features YouTube makeup artist star Lauren Luke. It starts out like any one of Lauren's other tutorials. But this one features her tips on a how to cover up a bruise "from a jealous type" and so on. The video abruptly ends with the message "65% of women who experience domestic violence cover it up. Don't cover it up."

Two things that make this so powerful - one, the single minded brillance of the idea: Don't cover it up. And second, the literal demonstration of covering up domestic violence in a such a matter of fact, unsentimental and therefore ironic way.

Thank you to Contagious Magazine for shining a light on this campaign. According to their post, this video has been viewed 102K times! It's part of a larger campaign running on the www.refuge.org.uk/lauren site, twitter and includes an opportunity to donate by text.

Lauren Luke was an amazing fit for Refuge in that she not only has a large following, but has in fact been in a volatile relationship herself.

 

Fundraising on Pinterest

Have you seen any great examples of how to use Pinterest to fundraise?  I'd love to hear or see them. Please leave your comments below!

3 Ways to Fundraise on Pinterest

 I've hunted around Pinterest for some interesting examples of fundraising in action.  Here are 3 ways Non-profits are creatively using Pinterest to raise money.

1) Re-pins in Exchange for Donations

So the first example requires a corporate sponsor of some sort, unless the giving is built into your business offer (think something like TOMs).  This type of campaign simply tells Pinterest users that for every re-pin, the sponsor will donate x amount of money to the given cause.  Couple examples: 

Clothing for Clean Water will donate $.50 to help people get clean water.   And Feed Just One: “Every Re-pin = 1 Meal Donated.”   This campaign extended to all social media shares on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The creative decisions each made are interesting, and serve as important lessons.  I think the Clothing for Clean Water is much more eye catching with its simple graphic treatment.  But the use of the little boy’s sweet face with the food in the back ground has an emotional draw.   Not sure if the T-shirt at the bottom is necessary.  Might have been more impactful just the boy’s face and the copy.  You have to remember that your image is one of many that a person on Pinterest is looking at as they scroll down the home page.  Simple iconic imagery will stand out over more cluttered ones.  A fast read is important. 

This last example is a partnership between Autism Speaks and Lindt, where Lindt will donate a whopping $25 for every #pin4Autism on Pinterest!  Wow!   I think the creative here could been, well...more creative and shareworthy.

 

2) Selling Tributes on Pinterest*

Opportunity International  is running a lovely campaign for Mother’s Day that I believe they’ve run for  a few years now.  It’s wonderful to see how they’ve been able to elegantly adapt it to new social media platforms as they arise.   The campaign invites donors to purchase a quilt square in honor of their mother or a special woman in their life.  This funds a micro loan to a woman in need.  The patch then becomes a part of a global quilt on the tribute wall on Opportunity International’s website.  From there, donor’s can pin post these quilt squares on their own personal Pinterest boards.  Some of the quilt squares are featured in Opportunity International’s own board called Mother’s Day 2012.  When you purchase the quilt square, you have the choice to log-in using your Facebook account.  So once the purchase is made, it is broadcasted on the donor’s timeline/wall, if the donor has opted into signing in using their Facebook account.  Very clever cross promotion.

 

3) Selling Merchandise on Pinterest*

World Vision ACT:S is a network of 27,000 creative activitsts  commited to creative activism to bring issues to life.  They have a Pinterest board called ACT:S Shirts! that features 5 T-shirts with hip, thought-provoking slogans.  When you purchase one of these T-shirts  30% of the purchase price goes to World Vision. 

31Bits is a company that sells jewelry made by women in Uganda.   They partnered with Not For Sale, an organization creating futures for survivors of human trafficking & communities at risk of modern-day slavery to create a unique line.  31Bits featured this jewelry line on Pinterest.  Part of proceeds from these jewelry purchases will go to Not for Sale.  They don’t say how much.   These beautiful jewelry items are a natural fit for pinterest’s mostly female audience, and I imagine will benefit from a lot of re-pins on Pinterest!

 *Technical Note:  none of these campaigns actually sell anything on pinterest.  A donor clicks on the pin and  is then  automatically linked  to the respective organizations’ website to make the donation or purchase.

 Here are a couple other great links to creative ways to use Pinterest: 

http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680575/the-9-most-creative-uses-of-pinterest

And an article on Huffington Post by Joe Waters on Why & How Causes should Use Pinterest

And lastly, here's an interesting infographic which gives a good overview of Pinterest.

 

Thought Starters:

As I’ve mentioned before, try to have a unique purpose in mind when using Pinterest.  If your boards are well curated, they can tell a story on behalf of your organization!  As a brainstorming technique: Can you turn your fundraising mission into a visual story, creating a classic story arch - beginning, middle and end?   If it helps put it into a rough storyboard format - go ahead make a few rough sketches.   Looking at this storyboard, which images stand out as most memorable, inspiring or share worthy?  Those are the ideas to turn over to your graphics people.  Using Pinterest effectively requires a having a great photographer and graphic designer at your disposal.   

 

Burt's Bees | Music from Nature by Diego Stocco

via www.youtube.com

Here's a fun idea from Burt's Bees that celebrates Earth day in sound. They collaborated with composer Diego Stocco to create an all-natural musical experience!

Thought Starter:
If you could turn your organization's mission into a sound or song, what would it be?

Hunger is Not a Game: How Oxfam Uses Social Media to fight Food Injustice

via thehpalliance.org

So a few posts ago, I talked about the importance of putting interesting holidays or anniversaries at the bottom of your marketing calendar to give you ideas of how to create unique campaigns and add a new occasion for giving to your marketing plan. Here’s an example of how Oxfam brilliantly tapped into a big pop culture phenomenon to raise awareness for its Grow campaign, a program aimed at fighting the underlying causes of global food injustice and hunger.  The really interesting thing about this campaign though is the fact that is fan driven.

Oxfam partnered with the group Imagine Better to launch the Hunger is Not a Game campaign. Imagine Better is a group of popular fiction fans (mostly Harry Potter enthusiasts) turned activists. Imagine Better asked its core fans to print out the badge you see above and wear it to the movie and print out a petition to take with them to have people sign in support of Oxfam’s Grow initiative. They also asked Hunger Games fans at the midnight premiere of the movie to tweet about real life hunger using the hash tag #notagame.

This isn’t the first time, Imagine Better, has mobilized its base on behalf of causes. The Harry Potter Alliance, part of Imagine Better, sent $123,000 to Haiti after the earthquake and has donated more than 88,000 books worldwide.

Now here’s the interesting wrinkle in this story: Lionsgate got wind of what these fans were up to and asked Oxfam to immediately remove any mention of Hunger is Not a Game from all of their websites because it was “causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts” according to a New York Times article. Oxfam and Imagine Better discussed their options in back and forth emails and decided to stick with the program. One 26 year old “Hunger Games” fan, Holly McCready posted a petition on Change.org saying that Lionsgate should not bully its fans when they are trying to advocate on behalf of the hunger, and she got 1000s of signatures, forcing Lionsgate to backoff.

Additionally, Oxfam is on tour with Coldplay asking fans to tweet #lovefoodhateinjustice. They have more than 5,000 faces on an amazing fan wall, a backstage tour blog and exclusive Coldplay videos from the tour.

Thought Starters
What are some major pop culture moments that will occur in the next year that will be of interest to your core? How might any of these moments tie-in to your message?

Instead of targeting by demographics or attitudes, how can you mobilize people based on fan group affiliation?

The Sharing Experiment

via www.youtube.com

Here is a short, simple but powerful video looking at a problem through the eyes of children. The Sharing Experiment video is an experiment conducted by Action Against Hunger Madrid Spain in 2011. This version has been voiced over in English. A simple premise - Tell two children they are going to have lunch. Deliver only one sandwich. How many will share?

Remarkably all 20 children under the study shared their sandwich. So adults, why do 3.5 million children still die from hunger?

I found out about this video from a ONE.org post on Facebook. I hope to see it get more traction. I was disappointed the link to their website at the end of the video didn't work for me. We'll talk about flawless execution another time!

Thought Starter:
How does looking at a problem through the eyes of a child change or sharpen your communication challenge?

Defining the Role of each Social Media Channel

About Invisible People

The purpose of this vlog is to make the invisible visible. I hope these people and their stories connect with you and don't let go. I hope their conversations with me will start a conversation in your circle of friends.

via www.youtube.com

I'm a big proponent of defining the role and purpose for each and every social media channel you use. Sometimes you may need to copy and paste content from place to place, and there's a good reason for doing so when you're trying to drive awareness for a certain campaign. But I think the brands that are thoughtful about why they place content in each media context will see the best results.  Also, if you notice you are "running dry" trying to come up with content for each media context, perhaps it's because the role of each channel hasn't been well defined yet.  

Invisible People on Youtube has a beautifully written statement about the purpose for their vlog. I've seen a lot of brands simply copy their standard mission statement here. But Invisible People on the other hand has articulated its mission in the context of this specific marketing channel, Youtube.

Invisible Children (not to be confused with Invisible People)  has a unique articulation  for its Tumbler use.  And on their Pinterest page they again say what they're up to in the context of that medium, "Here's your insider to what we're up to and what inspires us."  They then have boards dedicated to "what we're listening to" and "what inspires us,"  a board full of well designed posters with inspirational quotes in addition to "behind the scenes" and "programs and movements."  Each board seems carefully curated.  I notice that they had an "office fashion" board when KONY 2012 launched, but they've since taken it down.  Perhaps it seemed too derivative or frivolous in light of all the criticism they were facing.  

Thought Starter:
Take your top three social media channels. Can you clearly articulate a distinct role for each? How does this distinction now drive the content you place there?

'Share A Coke'

via vimeo.com

 

Love this campaign! Coke had lost its way with youth in Australia. This campaign sought to jump start real conversations by putting 100 of Australia's most popular names on Coke bottles. In another execution, they posted a large electronic billboard in Kings Cross  Sydney that allowed people to text their friend's name to see it up on the billboard in lights. People then could share this moment with friends via Facebook or email.

Just brings a smile to your face watching how excited people get seeing their name on a Coke or up in lights on a billboard.

Thought Starter:
So you may not have a Times Square billboard... but in what ways could you allow people to personalize your branded merchandise with their own name or their friend's name? How can you allow them to see their face or their name "up in lights" somewhere in your marketing?  If you make the new Facebook timeline, not just about you but about your community, you should give you plenty of opportunities!

 

Using Iconic Imagery to Market a Cause

via www.charitywater.org

In my Kony 2012 presentation, I talk about the power of iconic imagery in branding. Charity:water does an amazing job of using great design not only to deliver a wonderful user experience, but to leave a lasting impression.

In this case, they post one iconic photo to their blog each day that beautifully conveys their organizational mission and implicitly a call to action to the viewer.

Thought Starters:
If you could choose an image to sum up your organization's mission, what would it be? What image would be unique to your organization and no one else's?

Challenge yourself to think of places in your marketing communications to replace words with powerful, emotional images.