How Fast is Your Cause Marketing Muse?

We call it a flash of genius or sudden inspiration. But does inspiration come fast or slow?

Beethoven’s notebooks demonstrate that he spent months reworking single musical phrases and measures. We have hundreds of Picasso’s interim drawings of ‘Guernica’ and some 50 studies (that's one of them on the left). All of which demonstrate the development of his approach as he painted his anti-fascism masterwork now hanging in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Contrast that with a 50-something friend… very creative… who for more than 25 years has specialized in corporate events. He’s won every award available to people in his field and the appreciation and respect of dozens upon dozens of clients nationwide.

His muse, he says, really does prompt great ideas that come to him in minutes rather than days or months or years. Not all his immediate ideas are great, of course. But after 25 years, he knows the difference between the good ideas and the stinkers.

The challenge and the work for him isn’t in getting the ideas. It’s in committing them to paper and then, ultimately, delivering the finished goods.

For my perspective, my writing gets better the longer I spend polishing it. But do my central ideas ripen with time? Hmm.

The software developers at Facebook and Google take a never-finished approach to their work. Gmail was in beta for years, for instance. Facebook's hackers are always tinkering with the social network.

Likewise the ‘Agile’ methodology of software development is iterative. The emphasis is on getting a product, sometimes even a partially-developed one, in front of customers as soon as possible, then improving it over time based in part on their reactions and suggestions.

But there’s not a really good way for a painting to be iterative. (Although da Vinci fussed around with the Mona Lisa for some 3 years and spent another three years on the Last Supper. Both experiences, it should be noted, frustrated his patrons endlessly.) Picasso’s hundreds of sketches notwithstanding, at some point Guernica was actually finished.

Another kind of art IS iterative, namely animation. Woody had dozens of looks before Pixar landed on the one that we know from the Toy Story movies.

Twain reworked Huckleberry Finn so many times the end product could hardly be recognized from the beginning.

By contrast, because Dickens sold so much of his work in serialized form, he had deadlines that da Vinci could have scarcely imagined. And yet somehow Dickens, whose bicentennial we celebrate in 2012, routinely turned out the most splendid characters, plots, and dialogue this side of Shakespeare; himself a quick and ready writer.

Is it just genius then that spins out these marvels of human imagination? Probably not. Beethoven and Picasso would surely land on anyone’s list of the world’s greatest-ever geniuses.

Is it just writers who can turn out their art because of the deadline pressures of modern publishing? It’s doubtful. Dmitri Mendeleev always maintained that the periodical table of elements came to him one night in a dream.

Given the fleeting nature of dreams, it’s possible that Mendeleev dreamed up the modern periodic table of elements… which predicted three then still-undiscovered elements… in a half-hour or less!

What does all this mean to cause marketers?

However your muse works you have to be prepared to capture inspiration as it comes to you. Mendeleev had a notebook by his bed. Beethoven kept a notebook. da Vinci’s notebooks… now worth millions… inspired them both.

You can think like Agile software developers and seek to continually improve your campaign. The essential nature of TOMS Shoes’ buy one give one (BOGO) effort is basically unchanged. But the company has made numerous iterative changes over the last several years.

Finally, if your muse requires it, you have to be prepared to blow up everything and start over again almost from scratch, like Twain did in his pursuit of the Great American Novel.

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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