Newsletter: Is it the End of Amateurism in Cause Marketing? 🤡 ; Nut Company Partners with Nut Nonprofit 🥜 ; Nonprofit Newsjacks Mermaid Movie to Defend Oceans, Trans Youth 🧜🏽♀️
An article in AdAge last week reports that one negative outcome of the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney drama is that personal attacks are a new risk for brand leaders.**
There are three good lessons for causes.
First, it's a good reminder to companies AND causes that they must be clear on brand purpose. It's too risky not to be. Now is not the time to be dabbling in gray areas...
"The negative side is when you start to dabble around and skirt the edges of what you want to be known for, or even straddle both sides, which is what one might accuse AB [Anheuser-Busch] of. For me, personally, when you’re truly authentic and aligned with a brand’s ethos and user base, you end up in much less dangerous territory.”
Second, causes need to get their houses in order because every partnership will now get a second - if not a third, fourth, and fifth - look.
"Marketing expert Jim Stengel said the AB matter in particular is one more example of conflating brand purpose with cause marketing, including the risk of going beyond what a brand’s purpose is. This isn’t going to make companies back away from commitments to DE&I, Stengel said. But, he added, scrutiny on marketing activations and partnerships is likely to increase. 'All that is being looked at more carefully'"
Third, causes should be active on social media, including monitoring employee postings to ensure a consistent brand message. While employees should be lauded for burnishing their brands on social media, there are risks.
"Marketers have long been advised to advance their personal brands, largely through social media, but they’re going to need to re-evaluate how they do that in light of the growing personal attacks....a personal brand is intertwined with the brand and the company.”
What do you think? Will corporate partnerships, mainly cause marketing, be more challenging to plan and execute in the months ahead?
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. A clevahh campaign from a truck rental company helping renters tell their landlords to "Truck off" to high rent increases.
2. It's a soft sell world. (Too bad it's not a soft serve world.🍦😋)
3. Nut company partners with the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation (TCAF) and the puns basically wrote themselves.
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. 3 tips for creating case studies that turn prospects into buyers. #2 is critical: Create a familiar structure. As the article points out, case studies aren't an exercise in creative writing; you need a predictable format. Most case studies are structured like this:
Challenge → Approach → Outcome
All my case studies follow this structure:
Overview → Backstory → Approach → Outcome → Insights
2. How one nonprofit newsjacked the new Little Mermaid 🧜🏽♀️ movie to defend the oceans and trans youth.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Director of Individual & Corporate Giving, Wasatch Community Gardens, Salt Lake City ($60k - $80k)
2. Director of Corporate Giving, St. Mary's Food Bank, Phoenix, AZ ($75k - $85k)
3. Director of Corporate Partnerships, Animal Rescue Foundation, Walnut Creek, CA
4. Manager, Corporate Partnerships & Cause Marketing, Special Olympics Florida, Clermont, FL
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. Interesting read for the scholarly among you. William Faulker was right: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
2. Study: The key to reducing your anxiety and depression are random acts of kindness (aka not being a selfish ass).
3. This new book will teach you how to survive the Black Death, the Sack of Rome, and several other historical catastrophes. I just want to know how to survive when the Wifi goes down.😫
