Archive for the ‘Case Study: Connect’ Category
Forget “Supermom.” Meet the “Real Mom.” That’s the message behind a recent white paper by Advertising Age and ad giant JWT.
According to authors Marissa Miley and Ann Make, today’s younger generation of Real Moms (Gen Xers and millennials) are similar to their have-it-all Super Mom predecessors insofar as they’re just as busy in their roles as “chief operating officer of the home.” The difference is, they’re more realistic about the push-and-pull dynamic of their multi-tasking lives and less beholden to perfection. Call it the New Pragmatism.
While the paper, which is based on a survey of 870 men and women, is ostensibly geared to consumer marketing, it has important insights for cause-driven communicators, too. Take, for example, these findings into What Real Moms Want:
Put family first: In today’s overscheduled world, Real Moms feel responsibility to create family time. Next time you want a mom to give…
Shining a Light on Small Business
Case Study: Connect, Online Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized
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…
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…
Two stories caught our eye this week that reinforce the fact that women make the world go round – and technology can help.
1. Moms are the big spenders when it comes to mobile technology, according to a new report. Mothers are racking up cell phone bills and downloading content on their phone more than anyone else.
Lisa and I wrote about this phenomenon in The She Spot: The women’s market is why companies like T-Mobile build their marketing campaigns around the value of connecting (think “Fave Five” frequent caller plan) instead of focusing on more high-tech features.
The take-way for changemakers? Reaching this important audience, particularly working moms, will increasingly mean shifting content to mobile devices so they can be activists on the go.
2. The Economist’s cover story on how mobile phones are driving emerging markets, prompting economist Jeffrey Sachs to call them “the…
Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine cover story “Are Your Friends Making Your Fat?,” posed some intriguing ideas for social marketing campaigns.
The crux of the social contagion theory: friends and even friends of friends can have an enormous influence over your health habits and other behaviors. So why not, for example, combat obesity by urging people to diet with their close friends?
Easier said than done. But there are promising applications of this theory in the works, according to reporter Clive Thomson, who describes an effort by researchers at the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies to develop a Facebook app for people trying to quit smoking. The app allows them to publicly post how long they’ve gone without smoking and how much money they’ve saved.
By going public, the theory goes, you’ll inspire and influence others to quit smoking, too.
Going public also creates…
A few weeks ago I went to the sixth “Public Space Potluck” hosted by the nonprofit Design Trust for Public Space.
Lisa W. and I often encourage our nonprofit clients to find ways to connect personally with their members and donors. But it’s also a good idea to connect them to each other. Not only is this great built-in word-of-mouth, and it’s also an authentic way to deepen the community that supports your work.
Every few months or so Design Trust holds an informal after-work potluck at a public space in one of the five boroughs. This time it was at Southpoint Park at the very southern tip of Roosevelt Island, just past NYC’s only landmarked ruin, the Smallpox Hospital, designed in 1854.
According to Design Trust’s deputy director Megan Canning, the potlucks were inspired by a board member, who throws an annual summer dinner party on…
About this blog
Lisa Chen and Lisa Witter
are the authors of The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to
Reach Them. They are also both
senior strategists at Fenton Communications, the nation’s largest public
interest communications firm. [