RENEGADE THINKING from the CEO of Renegade, the social media & marketing consultancy that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service."
Drew's Articles
Marketing as Service
Marketing for Good
Social Media

Teaching Social Business at San Jose State (with IBM)

01/13/12

Ben Franklin’s line, “well done is better than well said,” gets at the very heart of Marketing as Service.  If you want to truly engage your target to the point that they have a genuine desire to do business with you then you have to do something–it can’t be just talk.  A great example of doing something is IBM’s recently announced collaboration with San Jose State University with a program they call The Great Mind Challenge.  This program brings together students, teachers, IBM’ers (as mentors) and local companies that seems to be a win/win/win/win for all involved.

As part of my background research for a story on this program (see FastCompany.com), I interviewed Larry Gee, the SJSU instructor working with IBM to teach “social business” to a select group of undergrads.  I think you’ll find what Gee has to say about this business/academic collaboration quite interesting.

DN: Can you give me a little background on this program from SJSU’s perspective?
SJSU,  College of Business, has always brought innovation to the classroom so students can learn, apply, and differentiate themselves in the business world.   SJSU and IBM has a long relationship over the years.  It is only natural that ideas are bounced back and forth between us;  how we can make a difference when preparing the next generation of leaders.  Bringing social business into the classroom was one of those ideas that fit the innovation framework.

DN: Why did SJSU decide to collaborate with IBM on this project?
SJSU, College of Business,  decided to collaborate with IBM on this project because Social Business is a critical skill that students need to have to be competitive in the market place.   Social Business is a transferable skill across multiple disciplines ie business, bio-sciences, engineering, humanity & arts, etc.  Students worked on a real business problem, real time, to learn and apply social business tools and processes.

DN: Do you have collaborations with other large corporations?
Yes, we have collaborated with other large corporations such as Cisco, Google, Microsoft to name a few.

DN: If you were talking to another educator at a different university who was considering a similar collaboration, what advice would you give them?
My advice:  1) Identify key social business partner asap.  This is critical because a real life component is needed to reinforce key concept and process.  2)  Plan quickly with a clear course work and administration buy-in roadmap for execution in 60 days.  3)  Execute plan and have class up and running by next term.

DN: How are you evaluating the success of this program?
Students must be able to understand and apply social business tools/process to a real life problem.  The program success is measured on how well students learn, grasp, apply, and demonstrate how social business can be used in a business environment to increase competitive advantage or improve business process cycle time.

DN: How have students responded?
Students response has been great because they have already been exposed and used social media, Facebook, blogs, bookmarks, wiki, to name a few,  basic components of social business, at a very young age.   What is new then?  They are able to build a social business environment using various social media tools they already know and use, but this time, in a business setting.

DN: Can you speak to the advantages of having IBM experts mentor your students?
Certainly.  Having a subject matter experts available to talk, demonstrate, and relate to actual projects are key.   One can read articles and talk about them in class.  But when you are given access to the latest  materials and platform to create a social business environment then this is collaboration at its highest.  Mentor is only a few clicks away to kick around ideas and bring those ideas to reality.  This is where academia  and business intersect.

DN: Is there a risk with a program like this that it will be perceived more as a marketing ploy for IBM than a more company-neutral business course?
I don’t believe the program is a major marketing ploy but rather a  business neutral course because majority of tools and contents used were not IBM but rather current tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Bookmark, wiki, etc.  GBS, IBM Business Partner, provided the real life problem for students to do a deep dive into their social business space.

Leave a Comment
Marketing as Service
Marketing for Good

Q&A w Nina Miller, Gibson Foundation, Best Gig in the World!

01/12/12

GuitarTown, one of the coolest examples of Marketing as Service I’ve yet to come across, was the brainchild of Nina Miller, now the president of the Gibson Foundation. I had the pleasure of catching up with Nina late last year at the headquarters of Gibson Guitars in Nashville (pretty cool, right?). My interview with Nina follows and though it is long, if you were ever wondering how your company could do well by doing good, it is well worth reading in its entirety.

DN: Tell me where the idea for GuitarTown came from.
Soon after I moved to Nashville, I saw these little catfish sculptures around town as a public arts program, and I thought, what do catfish have to do with Nashville? So I put together a proposal. And, thanks to the vision and support of our CEO, we were able to start the GuitarTown program – it launched here in Nashville in late 2003.

DN: Why did you think this would work in Nashville?
Because Nashville is such a great music community, obviously, but there are many other aspects to this town, and I thought it would be great to be able to pull the businesses, visual artists and musicians together for a philanthropic cause; so that the 10-foot-tall sculptures would be artistically designed by visual artists, partnered with a business or corporate sponsor and then signed by a celebrity – eventually to be auctioned off for charity.

DN: How do the guitars get sold and where does the money go?
After the auction gala, the funds raised are divided among a variety of non-profit organizations in the host city, so it would stay in the community where it was happening. We’ve raised over $2 million dollars for charity and, of course, it’s great branding for Gibson and Gibson Foundation. 100% of the funds that come into Gibson Foundation from sources outside of Gibson go back out to charity, none of it goes to administrative, or fundraising, that’s all covered by corporate. We’re very fortunate. Many non-profits take up to 20%, for their admin fees so we’re very fortunate not to have to do that, and we try to support a variety of different kinds of organizations in each city.

DN: What other cities have hosted GuitarTown?
Nashville GuitarTown was the first, and then we did Austin, London, Miami, Orlando, and a smaller project, not of 10-foot-tall guitars but of regular size artistically designed ones, that was called Cleveland Rocks. Now we’re doing GuitarTown Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and that auction is on Dec. 3rd, 2011.

DN: So let’s break it down into a few components; so there’s the creation portion of it, where you have how many guitars? It varies from city to city. Usually it will be no more than 50, typically 25-50, because you can’t really have an auction, a big auction, with fewer products than that. In Nashville we did a “call for artists.” We had a panel that juried all the applications — over 150 applications, and narrowed it to the final 35-40, , but we also included some regular sized guitars, so some people who were unable to design a 10-foot-tall guitar were able to participate as well.

DN: Being associated with Gibson is a cool thing, that’s got to help.
Yes, it opens a lot of doors.

DN: So you’ve got the first phase, which is identifying the artists and announcing the program, what’s next?
Announcing the program, identifying the visual artists, and we were getting video, following a couple of the artists through the process, because it’s very interesting. You can’t do this in a day. I’ve decorated normal size guitars; it takes a good, long while just to do that. To do a 10-foot-tall guitar and to do it well, I would imagine could easily take several months, so these visual artists are doing this, really, for free. We give them a small stipend; we provide opportunities through various arts stores in the area for them to get their supplies, we encourage them to get sponsors for their project as well, because it can be costly.

DN: Is there resistance at all from the cities to say, “well wait, this is Gibson, they should be paying us for this exposure.”
We’ve never run in to anything even remotely like that. We have been welcomed with open arms for beautifying the cities and bringing positive attention.

DN: So it’s a win/win for them?
Right, and although it could be labeled as cause marketing, because it is branding with 100% of the proceeds going to charitable causes; it remains at its core a very charitable project. If we bring in $500,000, or whatever comes in, all of that will go to the designated charities.

DN: So there a display period and then an auction?
Yes. They are strategically placed around the city, or where the city has committed space. Here in Nashville I worked with Public Works to try and determine where we could place them, and we worked with one of the art schools to help keep them in good repair. They also have to be anchored down with heavy sand, and these are not small things, and so, yeah, you work with the different departments of the city. I first asked for permission from the Mayor’s office, and then I kind of figured out from there where to go with it, who to talk to and who to meet with.

DN: What’s the planning cycle for one of these?
For Nashville, I started planning either late 2003 or early 2004, I’d have to go back and look to be certain, but the first thing I did after I got various approvals, was to cold call sponsors, people and businesses I thought would be willing to sponsor the art work and to have it in front of their building. Loews Vanderbilt was the first to say yes, I remember that. And after that it was really easy. And I had help. The Country Music Hall of Fame, BMI and ASCAP were all helping with meeting and event space, we had a committee, that included people from the city as well as the art and music community. A good group of about 10 people to oversee it. We wanted it to be a community effort. And I think it really was. Each city has handled it a little differently, but that was our prototype.

DN: A lot of companies do something cool and then they walk away from it, and say, “what’s the next thing we can do?” What made you stick with this one?
Well, part of it is because the Foundation is in place and we do have this vehicle to promote charitable giving. That’s a big part of it. It’s also great PR and visibility for our iconic brand and it brings much needed attention to several charitable causes in each city.

DN: What caused you to keep going?
I think it was just the program’s success. Other cities came to us and said, “Can you do it here?” I still have people emailing me, even just last week saying, “would you consider here?”

DN: How much does one of these guitars end up going for?
It really depends. When you have one signed by Paul McCartney, and one signed by Dolly Parton, they can go for quite a lot. It depends on the art and the artist – and, of course, the buyer.

DN: So PR is one of the primary ways of measuring success?
Right. I was overseeing the events for Gibson when this started, and then I took off for a year, but stayed involved because I was very dedicated to this program. The person that took it over at that time was our head of PR and she did very well with it as well. So, there is the PR aspect, and the Foundation – the philanthropic aspect. That is very important to all of us here, that’s the key thing for me.

DN: So if a like minded company was thinking of embarking on a program that had a same idea but it was different and appropriate for them, what advice would you give them, in terms of making something like this happen?
Well I can tell you that when I wanted to make this happen I contacted someone in Chicago, I think, and asked for any guidelines that they had so that I could at least have a place to start. There are obviously some rules that we have in place about the artwork: nothing profane, nothing sexual, political or religious, no branding other than our headstock. We’re doing it to create art and raise funds for charitable causes.

I would also recommend finding an image that is meaningful to your city. Music is meaningful to many cities, and in Nashville, LA, Austin and London, it’s a big part of the culture. And find something that connects to the people’s passion. You want to get to the heartstrings of people, make them feel like they’re involved and part of something fun and meaningful.

DN: Music is so universal that you can go to so many different charities and do things like that. I would think that you would focus mainly on music education.
Most people think that and it’s certainly part of our mission, but our CEO, and the Gibson Foundation was his vision, is very philanthropic. He really wanted this to focus on children, globally, to provide opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist without the support Gibson Foundation provides. He feels that there is a responsibility on a corporate level give back, and he doesn’t just talk it, he walks it. He’s been very, very supportive. And Dave Berryman, the co-owner and President of the Gibson, oversees the Foundation, they’re both very, involved and very supportive of this.

DN: Tell me a bit more about the PR coverage you’ve received for GuitarTown.
It always gets coverage in every city when it’s happening. Typically a visual artist will be filmed while they’re in the process of creating the sculpture. When the celebrities come out to sign the guitars, that’s another opportunity, and there’s generally a lot of coverage of that on television, in print, on the web, everywhere. And then there’s the gala, and the gala always gets coverage because that’s a big deal.

Sometimes we’ve done red carpet for celebrities, sometimes we just throw the party. It’s all good. And everyone who comes is in great spirits, because they’re there part of something fun and know that when they’re giving, it’s going to charity.

DN: Do you find yourself, when you tell people what you do for a living, that they go, “oh my god that’s the coolest job I’ve ever heard of”?
Every job I’ve had at Gibson, I’ve had that. And here’s the funny thing, every job I’ve had here I’ve actually said, “this is the best gig in the world.” When I started with Events, I had the best gig in the world. When I was head of Entertainment Relations, I was like, “Oh this is heaven.” When I started with the Foundation, I knew it was the best. But I have thought every gig I’ve had here was the best.

DN: That’s amazing. So tell me why it makes it the best, because that just became my headline, The Best Gig in the World. What makes it the best?
You get to do good, you get to be part of something that’s making a major impact in the world, and it’s done in a company as great as Gibson. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Leave a Comment
Marketing as Service
Marketing for Good
Social Media

“Either Write Things Worth Reading or Do Things Worth the Writing”

01/11/12

One of my favorite bits of wisdom from my favorite founding father, Ben Franklin, is:

If you wou’d not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.

I believe the folks at IBM are doing a lot of things “worth the writing,” which is why I seem to be writing about them all the time.  That and the fact that they treat me like a journalist by providing access to interesting people within their organization.  One such person is Michael Riegel, VP of Academics & Startups, who provided his insights on a just announced “social business” curriculum they are coordinating with San Jose State University.  As part of something IBM calls The Great Mind Challenge, I believe this is an enlightened example of how companies can do well by doing good.

DN: Please give me a brief description of The Great Mind Challenge?
In 2012′s The Great Mind Challenge, students investigate the emerging sphere of social business using the real-world example of an IBM Business Partner. Working in teams over a period of two months, students conduct a social business assessment of the partner organization, and then build a prototype social business solution based on their recommendations. Students receive education, tuition and mentoring from social business thought leaders, authors, top executives in the social business and of course IBM social business experts. Top-performing teams during the Challenge receive prizes and the potential for internships. The social business skills program with San Jose State University was the first time this challenge was offered in the US. However, globally, over the past several years, The Great Mind Challenge has attracted over 100,000 students and hasn’t only focused on social business skills, IBM is also mentoring students in key areas of technology and engineering including analytics, programming and software development.

DN: What is the primary goal of the collaboration between IBM and SJSU?
IBM and SJSU are collaborating to help students develop market-ready, social business skills. To be successful in today’s business environment, students need to be able to demonstrate that they can turn their personal, social networking savvy skills along with the things they have learned in the classroom, into real-world business solutions. The Great Mind Challenge presents students with an opportunity to develop their collaboration and problem-solving skills while working on exciting, real-world business projects. Students who participate in the Challenge have the opportunity to be recognized for their ideas and talents, while also working to make our planet smarter through the use of social business technology.

DN: Why San Jose State? Does its location in Silicon Valley play some role?
There is a long-standing relationship between IBM and SJSU. Beyond this exceptional relationship, there is so much innovation around social business taking place in the Silicon Valley area. For example, IBM Almaden Research Center, where many of IBM’s social business researchers and consultants are pushing the envelope and helping organizations develop the necessary skills for social business adoption, while breaking down the traditional barriers that might stunt adoption success. With this in mind, SJSU was seen as a logical fit for the pilot of this social business skills challenge.

DN: What was the planning cycle for the collaboration between IBM and SJSU? When did the initial planning start and how has it evolved over time?
Planning for the project with SJSU started in Spring 2011. IBM worked through the summer recess with faculty at SJSU to develop various parts of the social business skills program, including the education (curriculum) and measurement. During the course of the program we fine-tuned the delivery of educational webinars and online feedback sessions with students. As we move into 2012, and expand the social business skills program to include universities across the country, we will continue to modify various aspects of the program to ensure students get as much from this program as they possibly can.

DN: What are the metrics for success for the new IBM/SJSU program from IBM’s perspective?
First and foremost is the delivery of market-facing social business skills. When a student tells us they were able to progress through the interview stages and finally get a job in part because of the social business skills they learnt through The Great Mind Challenge, we take this as validation for this program and IBM’s vision of a Smarter Planet engendered by social business. We also look at the number of students who successfully complete the program and were happy to see that 100% of the SJSU students made it through to the finish line.

DN: The SJSU program involves a number of participants including SJSU faculty/students, IBM employee experts as mentors and business partners as real-life test cases. Can you speak to the challenges of coordinating all these players as well as the benefits of having so many different levels of participation?
We knew at the outset that we wanted the focus for this social business skills challenge to be as rich as possible. Bringing in IBM business partners helps tell a broader story and provides students with the opportunity to explore social business from different angles, different organizations and different business needs. IBM worked closely with SJSU faculty and students to ensure that the training was appropriate and not too “vendor-centric” as to strip it of its application throughout the market. Somewhat fittingly, we don’t feel a program of this scope would have been possible without having social networking tools available, whether it was collaborating on the design of educational materials, or handling project management across businesses and faculty. That’s where IBM’s market leading social business technology created real value for the students.

DN: Since the program includes training on IBM software and promulgates a major IBM initiative (i.e. social business), is there a risk that it might be perceived as one big marketing campaign? Or asked differently, is there a fine line between doing good for the community and doing too much good for the brand?
IBM’s social business vision has a broad scope that goes beyond pure technical adoption. This is one of the messages we are trying to get across with this challenge – social networking can fundamentally change the way businesses operate and create value, but it’s not just about adopting the technology. An organization must create a business culture that fosters transparency, sharing, and trust from its leadership down to those employees out in the field. Throughout the challenge with SJSU, we also encouraged students to explore and consider a variety of social networks inside and outside the firewall. They learned that a social business isn’t just a company with a Facebook page or Twitter presence, it’s about taking advantage of social internally, melding these social networking concepts into traditional business processes to fundamentally change how we do work and create business value. Yes, we did show the students how tools like IBM Connections can be used for social networking within the firewall, but for the continued success of the program, IBM was and is focused on developing and building social business skills that are not exclusive to any one product or technology.

Final note: stay tuned for my related article about “doing well by doing good” and interview with Larry Gee, the professor at San Jose State University who is responsible for teaching the “social business” curriculum discussed above.  And as always, if you found this post of interest, feel free to subscribe to this blog.

Leave a Comment
Drew's Articles
Marketing for Good
Social Media

How to Bring CSR and Social Media Together for Good

12/8/11

I had the pleasure of meeting Elisabeth Charles at The CMO Club Summit in LA this October.  As CMO of Petco she has orchestrated a number of innovative marketing programs to actively engage pet owners.  Learning that Elisabeth was on the board of HABRI, the Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative, I thought she would be a great person to discuss how companies can do well be doing good and extended these activities through social media.  Turns out, this time, I was barking up the right tree.

DN: Do you think being recognized as a good corporate citizen is increasingly important to a brand like yours? Why?
Good corporate citizenship is very important to Petco – it’s built into the fabric of our entire business. Everything we do is guided by our vision for Healthier Pets.  Happier People.  Better World.

We established our non-profit organization, the Petco Foundation, in 1999 and have since raised more than $80 million in support of some 7,500 local animal welfare partners across the country. Each year, we also help save the lives of more than 250,000 animals through adoption events in our stores.  Through the Petco Foundation, we also support spay and neuter efforts, animal-assisted therapy programs and humane education. Working hand-in-hand with the Foundation, our Petco and Unleashed by Petco stores serve as the first and largest national pet food bank in the country. Designated collection bins located in each of our stores allow customers to donate pet food that directly benefits pet parents in need in their local community.

As a company, we’re also increasingly adopting more sustainable business practices. We strongly believe that if it’s good for the planet, it’s good for pets and people, too.  Earlier this year, Petco became one of the only non-grocery store retailers to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an Energy Star Leader for reducing our energy consumption by more than 10 percent across our entire business. Additionally, our Planet Petco line of products offers pet parents the ability to choose high-quality, more sustainable products that utilize recycled and reclaimed materials and renewable resources. These are just a few examples of what we do as a company today. It’s an ongoing process and we’re always striving to do more in this important area of corporate social responsibility.

DN: Is there a fine line between “doing good” as a company and talking about it so much that is seems insincere?
You absolutely have to be sincere and authentic in what you are doing and saying, and you must also be fully committed, rather than doing something only half way. A company’s goodwill efforts should be far more than just a marketing campaign. For Petco, all of our “do-gooding” is centered around what we believe is the right thing to do. The programs we create and support reflect our company’s values and the passion our associates have for people and pets.

DN: Is there a particular Petco goodwill/charitable program that you are particularly proud of?
There are many charitable programs that we get involved in, so it is hard to name just one.  A newer program that really took off this year was our National Pet Food Bank program and our National Pet Food Drive. Just in the program’s second year, this year’s drive ran for two weeks (late October-mid November) in all of our Petco and Unleashed by Petco stores. During the national drive, we encourage customers to pick up an extra bag or can of pet food during their shopping trip, or bring unopened food from home, and donate it via the collection bins in our stores. Also for the second year, Hill’s Science Diet supported our efforts by matching 100,000 pounds of donated food during the drive. In just two weeks, we collected nearly 350,000 pounds of pet food – a more than 60 percent increase over last year – to help financially strapped pet parents feed their pets during the holiday season. The Petco Foundation Pet Food Bank is a year-round program, but it’s very exciting to see how generous our customers are during the national drive leading into the holiday season.

DN: I noticed you personally are working with an organization called HABRI.  Can you talk what and why you are doing this?
Petco is excited and proud to be a founding sponsor of HABRI, the Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative. Other founding sponsors are the American Pet Products Association and Pfizer Animal Health.  We got involved because we passionately believe that pets enrich our lives and we want to help generate formal, widespread scientific recognition of the positive role pets play in our lives.  HABRI’s mission is to support research, education and other charitable activities that validate the positive impact the human-animal bond can have on the integrated health of families and communities, by consolidating, organizing and sharing existing scientific research into the human-animal bond in partnership with Purdue University.

DN: Goodwill activities seem to translate well into social media.  Have you found this to be case and/or how do you see good will programs evolving next year?
Absolutely.  We actively use social media (especially Facebook) to engage our fan base, which is now nearing 600,000 likes, to support our charitable causes.  In general, we find that goodwill posts and campaigns featuring authentic stories perform very well in social media.  Positive campaigns with an altruistic call to action perform remarkably better (up to 100 percent more feedback) in user interaction on social properties than promotional campaigns or transactional posts. Human interest stories and, of course, anything to do with pets, are the second most shared and clicked upon posts/tweets/videos.

In October, we hosted our first ever National Adoption Reunion Weekend. Fans online were asked to submit stories about how their adopted pets had changed their lives and were given the opportunity to raise funds for the Petco Foundation through Foursquare check-ins. The social portion of the campaign performed very well, driving the most organic Twitter growth and retweets for a campaign we  have seen to date, the most views on a non-commercial video on YouTube, more than 57,000 photos uploaded on Flickr and more than 3,000 likes across three blog posts. Needless to say, we were very pleased with the results.

DN: I’m a big fan of Pedigree’s “dogs rule” campaign and their pet adoption program.  Have you partnered on “good will” programs with any of the brands that you carry and if so, what are the advantages of this approach?
Every month, we host a National Adoption Weekend when adoption events are held in all of our stores across the country. Each monthly weekend event is sponsored by one of our vendor partners.  We’ve also joined forces with several of our vendor partners for in-store fundraisers to support mutual charitable interests, including Blue Buffalo for Pet Cancer Awareness and Natural Balance for National Guide Dog Month.   I think programs like this are a huge win-win when we are able to work together to help improve the lives of pets and pet parents, and when we all know the funds raised are going to important work that we mutually care about.

Leave a Comment
Drew's Articles
Marketing for Good

‘Tis the Season to Do Well by Doing Good

12/2/11

‘Tis the season that people and brands start to think about doing a little good for others.  Lynley Sides, CEO of a philanthropically-oriented start-up called The Glue Network, has a plan to help brands do well by doing good all year round. She makes a compelling case for CSR programs noting that, “People are nearly twice as likely to buy or recommend a product if it’s affiliated with a cause they care about.” Here’s my interview with Lynley.  I think she is on to something really good!

DN: What are your goals for The Glue Network?
The Glue Network is the first to elegantly combine giving with digital media to deliver bottom line results for companies (greater return on marketing spend or greater return on company giving) and to be a catalyst for good in the world. Our two primary goals are:

  • Deliver business results for companies. Today, corporate giving groups are under tremendous pressure to deliver business results beyond goodwill — we deliver that.  Marketing groups are seeking authentic (non-gimmicky) ways of engaging with their consumers and stakeholders that not only deliver more clicks but deeper relationships and a positive image — we deliver that.  Small companies are especially challenged to accomplish these things due to limited resources — the Glue automated platform delivers the same results for a company / program of any size.
  • Be a catalyst for good:  Success with #1 means companies will spend more this way — more results for them + more good for the world.  Also, as individuals are engaged in giving at younger ages, they give more over the course of their lives and influence more giving from others.  Through the individuals a company engages with their Glue program, we encourage future good (giving, volunteering, social entrepreneurship).

DN: Do you think a lot of brands are looking to do well by doing good right now given the challenging economy?
Yes, this is absolutely a hot topic for business right now because there are 2 competing factors at work.  Despite the challenging economy, companies (not just big ones) face higher expectations from consumers/stakeholders for social responsibility and the lowest levels of satisfaction in history.  But also (as supported by a recent study by The Conference Board), as these economic pressures persist, what doesn’t improve the bottom line is in the end not sustainable.  So, if companies don’t figure out how to give back and have that giving drive value beyond goodwill or a golden halo, it will cease to be justifiable — which would be a missed opportunity for business and a massive loss for the world.

Companies that aren’t feeling the pain of this challenge are either the few that are far ahead of the curve, with social responsibility deeply engrained in their businesses in ways that create value, or have not yet faced this reality because they continue to look at marketing and giving separately.

DN: There are so many ways for brands to “do good,” why should they align with The Glue Network?
Glue does more than they can do otherwise and we make it far easier for them.  People are nearly twice as likely to buy or recommend a product if it’s affiliated with a cause they care about.  However, when a company makes a charitable gift, the nonprofit may fit with their brand and help a good cause — but necessarily, it’s not the one most of that brand’s customers would have chosen.  To drive greater business value, companies need to create cause-based experiences that allow consumer choice and provide rich, social experiences.  Voting campaigns by brands like Pepsi, Chase, Gap, Target and more take a step toward this but could do more to deliver engaging experiences and tie the experience back to direct direct business results.  And they aren’t feasible for smaller companies to pull off.

Glue’s automated, closed loop platform enables cause-based social marketing programs of any size that create deep engagement, multi-point brand/cause associations, high sharing rates and a closed loop brands can use to drive new customers and rich data.  This is a unique and powerful combination.

DN: What makes you confident that the “goodwill” generated by TGN will translate into ‘good’ revenue?
Companies don’t need Glue to create goodwill.  But when individuals are given rich options and the power to choose (not just vote but choose), they become personally attached to their choice and to the company that enabled them to make it — and more inspired to share the experience with their friends and support the company in the future.  That’s not just our opinion.  Our user data blows away industry average rates for sharing and clicks — meaning we’re inspiring the users (the company’s customers), giving the company access to those customers’ friends and colleagues (highly attractive targets), and enabling them to directly drive new customers and revenue from that base PLUS develop new customer data which all companies know to have value.

The Glue platform is flexible enough to fulfill numerous business objectives spanning customers, partners, and employees.  But for any audience, a Glue program delivers significantly higher business value for the cost than comparable traditional digital media, loyalty, or giving programs.

DN: What kind of commitment are you looking for from brands?
Very little.  We’re committed to making robust Social Cause Marketing feasible and justifiable (through business results) for every company.  We’re like a Salesforce.com <http://Salesforce.com>  (sophisticated CRM for all) or Eventbrite (anyone can be an event organizer) — this December, businesses from small local startups to one of the largest tech companies are creating greater value from the same holiday gift spending through Glue.  For brands that want to create larger programs with a more integrated, branded experience, we can do that too.

This ease and flexibility is made possible by the robust platform we’ve developed with an extensive back-end that enables campaign and non-profit project management.

DN: What can companies do quickly to harness the spirit of the holidays to increase customer loyalty and attract new customers while doing good?
Companies of all sizes spend on gifts and branded merchandise (a $17 billion industry), many of which wind up in landfills and few of which the recipient finds meaningful or worthy of telling people about.  Instead of mugs or gift baskets, give a Glue gift which has meaning for the recipient, does good in the world, and generates free PR for the business in the form of social media recommendations — for the same cost and minimal effort. Contact info@thegluenetwork.com

Final note:  Lynley Sides is CEO of The Glue Network and has spent her career bringing groundbreaking new products to market. She’s passionate about digital media, social ventures, running, skiing and the fight for global human freedom. You can follow her @LynleySides.

Leave a Comment
Marketing for Good
Musings

Empty Nest; Full To-Do List

08/26/11

As my wife and I brace for empty nesthood, we’ve been discussing to do’s that we’ve put off to-date.  Before that list gets too long, I decided to add a campaign for Charity Water.  As you may recall from some of my posts last year, Charity Water is a remarkable organization that helps bring fresh water to those who don’t have it. My last campaign raised $2500 for the Bayaka people of central Africa.  Now the mission is to raise money for drilling equipment, equipment that is expensive but will help speed up the process.  Always up for a good challenge, I doubled the goal, hoping to raise $5000, which in the end will fund fresh water for 250 people for a year!

The only thing I ask of you, dear reader, is that you watch the video below.  It’s amazing, inspiring and moving. Go ahead. I dare you to watch this and not get involved…

The 2011 September Campaign. Our 5-year-anniversary video from charity: water on Vimeo.

.

So that’s the pitch.  Ready to join me?  Just click here.  Or here.  Or here.  It’s a truly impressive organization. After I set up my new campaign, Scott Harrison the founder of Charity Water sent me this personal note:

  • Drew: Just wanted to drop you a personal thank you for starting a september campaign this year. I‘ve been to Ethiopia 16 times in the last couple years, and can personally vouch for our incredible partners there.  So excited to work together to bring them a new drilling rig to help more people–Scott

Not too many CEO’s send out personal thank you notes these days but then again, not too many CEO’s take their business as personally as Scott.  Thanks for the inspiration Scott and good luck!

Leave a Comment
Older Posts »
View in: Mobile | Standard

Copyright © 2011 - Drew Neisser