Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Associations Need to Market Too

A marketing professional I have admired for some time time, is Mr.Jim Mintz a co-founder of the Centre of Excellence for Marketing in the Public Sector. Jim has been on the leading edge of public sector marketing most of his marketing life.
One common misconception Jim always points out, is that public sector organizations feel they don't need to market. Jim's article below, shows you; if you are an association, that you need to market too.

Assocations Need to Market Too -- by James Mintz
A number of years ago, I was asked to make a presentation to the Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Society of Association Executives on the topic of marketing for Nonprofits with emphasis on Associations. My contact at the CSAE felt that marketing should be a major focus of Associations but was rarely applied to any significant degree.
At that time, I looked at some of the key functions of an Association and make a connection between marketing and these functions.
Here are some of the areas where I felt that marketing is relevant to an Association.
• Defining what product/program/service an association can offer to its clients as well as getting customers/clients to buy or use programs/products/ services i.e. sales strategies
• Revenue generation, including fundraising, alternative revenue strategies through sponsorships and affinity programs and commercial partnerships
• Advocating/lobbying policies to key stakeholders e.g. government
• Training staff to be client friendly
• Executing attitude/behaviour change campaigns e.g. social marketing/public education/outreach
• Executing integrated marketing communications campaigns: direct/database marketing, advertising, promotional activities, on-line/digital marketing, event marketing, exhibiting/trade shows, public relations publicity, education materials, print, videos etc.
• Enhancing the image and branding of an association
• Marketing campaigns to retain existing/find new members/volunteers
• Communications programs to existing membership (newsletters, e-letters etc)

As you can see, many of the principles that were applicable over a decade ago are still very much aligned to today’s nonprofit environment. It is also clear from our recent research that Associations face even greater challenges such as demands for improved service delivery under tight budgetary constraints, the number of new associations resulting in enormous competition for people’s time, attention and dollars and a need to improve communications and services with clients, constituents/stakeholders, volunteers and donors. Thanks to Jim for his comments above.

So you can see, when it comes to marketing your product or service, it really does not matter what industry or public sector environment you are in. At the end of the day the main point is; are you communicating with your audience, are you promoting or developing your brand, are you generating business, ( leads, new members, selling product) and are you moving your organization forward? Too often communicators and marketers believe that they don't need to be marketing all the time. They think they can just put the organization out there and it will be found. As you can see from Jim's article above, that it's important for every organization to consider marketing all the time.

Thanks to Jim Mintz for his comments in this post, Kensel J. Tracy, is a business coach and Senior Partner with the Corporate Coachworkz Inc.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Look at How Kids are Being Forced Fast Food

Published: December 05, 2007

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- McDonald's has found a nifty way to reach kids even as TV ad options toward the demographic shrink: Advertise on report cards.

This is not the first time the school district has run ads on report cards. Before McDonald's, the sponsor was Pizza Hut.

The Golden Arches picked up the $1,600 cost of printing report-card jackets for the 2007-2008 school year in Seminole County, Fla., in exchange for a Happy Meal coupon on the card's cover. With 27,000 elementary school kids taking their report-card jackets home to be signed three or four times a year, that's less than 2 cents per impression.

Children who earn all A's and B's, have two or fewer absences or exhibit good behavior are entitled to a free happy meal at a local McDonald's -- so long as they present their report card.

A 'new low'
Naturally, that's riled some consumer groups. "Lots of companies advertise directly in schools, but I think McDonald's has taken this to an all new low by advertising on report cards," said Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "It bypasses parents and targets children directly, [telling them] that doing well in school should be rewarded by a happy meal."

Regina Klaers, spokeswoman for the school district, said the report cards have contained some form of advertisement for the last decade. Until this year, Pizza Hut sponsored the printing. Ms. Klaers said when the company decided to pull out this year, the district shopped the sponsorship around. She added that only one parent has ever complained about the jackets.

"My daughter worked so hard to get good grades this term and now she believes she is entitled to a prize from McDonald's," Susan Pagan, an Orlando parent, said in a press release distributed by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "And now I'm the bad guy because I had to explain that our family does not eat at fast-food chains."

Michele Simon, author of "Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines our Health and How to Fight Back," said that the school district is "selling kids' health for chump change."

"They should be embarrassed," she said. "If you're going to sell out kids' health you might as well get something good for it."

What's more, Ms. Simon said, the program seems to fly in the face of the fast-feeder's recent rhetoric about healthful eating. "It basically shows when you get down to it, how corporations are doing everything they can to keep their brands in front of kids' eyeballs," she said. "And the insidiousness of this is it's infiltrating an official document from a public school."

Recent health initiative
Last summer, McDonald's joined the Better Business Bureau's Children's Food and Advertising Initiative. Participants, including Kraft Foods, General Mills and Burger King, have agreed to limit advertising to children under 12 and focus on better-for-you options. The reductions were to have been apparent by January 2008. The McDonald's sponsorship will carry through the end of this school year.

Based on recent tweaks, the caloric and fat content of Happy Meals can vary widely. While a meal with a cheeseburger, fries and soda has 660 calories and 25 grams of fat, a white-meat chicken-nugget meal with apple dippers, caramel sauce and milk has 375 calories and 13.5 grams of fat.

William Whitman, spokesman for McDonald's USA, pointed out that children -- and their parents -- have a choice. "McDonald's has a longstanding and rich heritage of supporting education and academic excellence," he said. "McDonald's does not advertise in schools. However, we continue to support education initiatives in the communities we serve."

Ms. Linn said that food rewards for academic performance is still a controversial concept.

Yet it's got a long history. Pizza Hut's "Book It" program, in which elementary and preschool children who meet monthly reading goals are entitled to a free one-topping personal pizza each month, is 22 years old. The elementary program alone has nearly 1 million U.S. classrooms participating.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Is Advertising, Art

A good friend of mine, Nigel Beale and I shared office space for over 6 years. Each day we would find ourselves in great discussions about marketing and advertising as we sipped coffee and looked at the ever changing seasons of the Byward Market in Ottawa.

Nigel is one of the most brilliant minds that I know. At that time, I had an advertising agency and saw myself as somewhat of brilliant marketing person who could do no wrong. I also saw myself as somewhat of a designer, copy writer, salesman and pontificator about all things relating to marketing and advertising. Nigel saw himself as writer and guru in the advertising field. In fact he was turning out some amazing material through a column he was writing for Canada's Marketing Magazine. A brilliant wit and an amazing friend, those days in that cramped little Byward Market loft and the conversations we had over a pint in a Byward Market cafe on hot summer days were some of the best marketing days of our lives. Life seemed simple and the billings were good. We were out to change the world and public policy all at the same time.

The following was written by Nigel and I think it sums up many of the discussions we had. I think you will find it quite refreshing. After all most of us in the marketing and communications field think we know everything there is to know about advertising. Most of our opinions tended to come from osmosis with very little real thought as to the outcome. See what you think. I present Mr. Nigel Beale and his brilliant, Is, Advertising, Art -- note its published without his permission, however I know he will be glad to know its been published somewhere.

Is Advertising Art, by Nigel Beale
Oh Grand and Glorious Southern Guru, I am perplexed. What ails thee, my peabrained little grasshopper? My sleep has been short, my walls have been climbed, my hair has been pulled.

I must know the difference between advertising and high art. Oh Great Creator, please give me the answer.

Stir no longer, little vacuous one. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and yes, advertising can be high art.

But Holiest of the Holy, whilst I acknowledge there is a role for subjectivity in the appreciation of art, and that art and advertising similarly use form, colour and symbol to convey messages, and that both can be aesthetically pleasing and accessible, and that both share the goal of changing behavior and attitudes, and that both often highlight the tension between reality and ideals and can shape aesthetic tastes, does not an adequate answer to my question depend upon a precise definition of the term art?

Are there not different degrees of creativity and originality? Are there not different types of art?

Surely Majestic One, advertising is not "high" art, but rather popular, propagandistic art?

Not so, little inchworm. Art is a function of apprehension, ergo, there is no difference between "high" and "low" art.

But Mighty Aphrodite, do not ads see the world only through a blinkered lens: as products and services, as target markets and audiences? Do they not promote only consumerism and uphold only the status quo? Are not their motives restricted by budgets and deadlines, and by the necessity of pushing product?

How can ads experiment with ideas for their own sake when fettered by this capitalist manacle?

Do ads not craft specific messages for specific audiences at specific times?

Is not their goal to elicit singular responses?

Do they not aim to please, to arrest the intelligence and to allay our fears with easy solutions, and are they not primarily concerned with positive reactions?

And does not the prerequisite of mass appeal demand mediocrity? Does not art allow for a delight in, and the free play of, ideas for their own sake? Truly outstanding art rarely secures immediate popularity, n'est-ce pas Mon Dieu Seigneur?

Does not art encourage many ways of looking at the world?

Is it not often purposefully ambiguous and open to conflicting interpretation?

Surely, oh Towering One, artists do not worship audiences in the way advertisers do?

Do they not intentionally break boundaries, counter the status quo, and question accepted beliefs?

Many spend decades deconstructing society, transcending political, economic and religious systems, do they not?

You listen not, my pint-sized parvenu. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Hence an advertisement, even if it's only one in a million, can be high art.

But Lord of the Rings, is it not the sale that motivates the creation of advertisements?

Does this not put advertising solely in the realm of the shallow and material?

And thusly, are not ads only original in the context of commerce? And furthermore, did not the great Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye suggest that ads are farcical, ironic and trivial (and that their prodigious power rests here precisely because we view them as a joke, without analyzing their bountiful effects)?

In short, Monsieur Le President, are not advertisements viewed primarily with scorn?

And does not true art inspire awe?

And does it not create new ways of looking at the world and increase our depth of understanding about the meaning of life?

And, as such, does it not reside squarely in the realm of the deep and spiritual?

And does not great art burst forth with such stunning originality that it changes the way we see the world and ourselves?

And are great artists, those rare geniuses, not moved by more than the simple desire for coin, and do they not dwell deeply on the profound questions of man's universal condition?

And is not the equating of "high" art with advertising symptomatic of decadent, hollow, bankrupt, violent societies, which value material goods, "happiness" and facile solutions above all else?

And as such, All Knowing One, is this not an equation we should actively oppose?

Get not thy knickers in a knot wee Gordian. Your philosophizing incites me to slumber.

Nigel Beale is an Ottawa, Canada based writer.
Kensel Tracy is a Marketing Coach and pontificator, Friend and confidant of Mr. Beale.

"When it looks like its time to toss in the towel, Get not thy knickers in a knot, wee Gordian.