How You Self-Educate Will Determine Your Success as a Cause Marketer

How do you, my fellow cause marketers, keep learning?

How you answer the question of self-education determines things like: how successful your cause marketing campaigns are, indeed, how successful you are; your income and your lifespan. Researchers have even shown a correlation between happiness and education.

It’s almost axiomatic that more you know the more you want to know... and as Socrates pointed out, the more you realize how little you actually do know! If education isn't as often humbling as it is enlightening than you're probably not doing it right.

I hope this will be a conversation rather than a monologue or disquisition, so I invite you to comment on what you do to stay on top of your game as a cause marketer.

Business/General Interest

I subscribe to and read a number of business magazines so as to understand current issues, trends, economics and the like, as well as several news magazines. I don’t have a business degree so I feel like this reading has gone a long way in advancing my understanding of how business does and does not work. I also read newspapers and magazine, but mainly online. I especially admire the reporting in the Wall Street Journal and Wired.

Inspiration can strike almost anywhere, so whenever I’m in a waiting room I make a special point of reading magazines I don’t subscribe to or normally read. Sometimes that means women’s magazines, trade publications, hobbyist and special interest magazines, etc. It’s almost a lead-pipe cinch that when I read these kinds of publications I learn something I didn’t know, gain some new insight, or synthesize what I’m reading with something I already know.

When I find something that I believe has lasting value, I scan or save it onto an external hard drive. The same hard drive holds many thousands of examples of cause marketing campaigns.

I read Seth Godin’s and Guy Kawasaki’s blogs and I’ll pop into Techcrunch, and Gawker from time to time. Not because I’m a geek, but because I’m not.

I use an RSS reader and Google Alerts for certain keywords, including cause marketing.

Knowledge of the Wider World

I’ve largely given up on reading fiction. But in its place I’ve become an inveterate history buff, with a special interest in the ancient world… the Sumerians, Egypt, Greece and Rome, early European history, etc. And, of course, American history, too.

I’m a big fan of the coursework produced by The Teaching Company and The Modern Scholar. Both offer taped courses, allowing one to learn on the go. If I’m driving alone, likely as not I’m listening to some of these recordings.

Hundreds of universities in North America and Europe are putting out thousands of hours of lectures and podcasts online. Check iTunes and individual universities for specific subjects.

I’m kind of a sucker for the social science popularizers; Malcolm Gladwell, David Brooks, David Shenk, and others. I'm fascinated by the topic of expertise studies. And, I'll read almost anything on Ben Franklin who was an autodidact almost without peer.

I also keep a notebook with me at all times to help me track ideas and thoughts. Like the saying goes, the only way to have great ideas is to have a lot of ideas. My notebook helps me not only track them all… good and bad… but also weed out the stinkers.

Cause Marketing

There are a handful of professional seminars and conferences that address the issues of cause marketing and offer training. In the United States David Hessekiel’s Cause Marketing Forum has supplanted IEG’s Sponsorship Conference, in part because the IEG treats cause marketing as a subset of sponsorship. In the UK, the granddaddy is Business in the Community's Annual Conference.

There are a few books at Amazon on cause marketing, but the ultimate book on the practice is still to be written. On my bookshelf is Cause-Related Marketing by Sue Adkins, Marketing from the Heart, by Sue Linial, Brand Spirit, by Hamish Pringle, Robin Hood Marketing, by Katya Andresen, Cause Marketing for Nonprofits, and Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding, both by Jocelyn Daw. Also, Cause Marketing for Dummies by Joe Waters and Joanna McDonald.

I actively read a handful of blogs on cause marketing from Katya Andresen, Joe Waters and Cone, Inc., plus others on nonprofit issues.

While you can get online and offline graduate degrees and certificates in various aspects of nonprofit management, still missing is any kind of certificate or other advanced education in cause marketing. In my opinion this glaring deficit needs to be remedied.

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to ...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

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