Have you seen the promos for the “Shine the Light” contest by American Express and NBC Universal?

The campaign, which invited the public to nominate and vote for the “small business story that most inspires them,” wrapped today with the announcement of the winner: Sacred Wind Communications, a telecommunications outfit based in Albuquerque that is working to wire Navajo lands with telephone and Internet access. The company will receive with $100,000 in grant and marketing support.

“Shine the Light” is a great example of a campaign that was not overtly marketed to women as the target audience, but nonetheless capitalized on a number of marketing principles and tactics that appeal to them:

1. You decide: The entire contest was driven by public input, from nominations to voting for the winner – the principle of putting women in CONTROL in action.

2. iVillage: This women-oriented online entity, which NBC…

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This year the Women in Communications association celebrates 100 years! I’ll be keynoting the conference today in my hometown of Seattle.

One bit of information I’ll be sharing (in the spirit of storytelling) is that my parents first new I was going to do something with communications when I would purposely get lost in grocery stores so I could say my name on the loud speaker to find my parents.

How did you first know you were interested in communications?

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Social Media Consultant, Britt Bravo,  has posted an interview with me about The She Spot.

Check it out:

http://bit.ly/2jiqoF (transcript)

http://bit.ly/5TVBt (podcast)

Recently I came across the AFL-CIO: America’s Union Movement’s Web site. I noticed that they featured a “real” woman,  Joan Borts, on their Web site in a campaign they call: “Heart of the Movement.”  Check it out below. It’s good modeling of what women look for – real people that they can connect with.

Here at Fenton we’ve had the honor of working with New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn (they’ve previous won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on Tiananmen Square) on the movement they’ve sparked around the release of their latest book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity World Wide.

They’ve been covered by Oprah, NBC, the New York Times Magazine dedicated and entire issue to what they called “Women: The Issue of Our Time”. We’ve worked together to created #halfthesky on Twitter and recently launched @halfskytues (we’re dedicating Tuesdays to all things half the sky and working with more than 30 women’s non-profits to flood Twitter with stories of hope, outstanding organizations, ideas on how to get involved, profiles of courage, etc.)

Most recently the campaign launched a button campaign that encourages all those that support the Half the Sky movement…

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