The She Spot was featured earlier this week on Frogloop, Care2.com’s nonprofit marketing blog as part of two-part series on marketing causes to women.

The author, Jocelyn Harmon, Director of NonProfit Services at Care2.com, riffs on a radio spot she hears  featuring Smart Cookies, five women who got their finances in gear thanks to American Express:

“Call American Express self-serving.  Call them insincere.  But also call them smart.  By fueling a full-scale marketing campaign with women, for women, Amex is transforming a traditionally male-focused industry – financial services – into an accessible arena for women. And they’re likely to see their profits increase from connecting with one of the biggest consumer markets in the U.S. – women.”

Nonprofits need to learn to do the same, Jocelyn points out, along with some eye-opening stats and best practices from The She Spot and Marti Barletta’s …

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Brooklyn recently kicked off the eighth year of its annual “Take Your Man to The Doctor” health care campaign. Brooklynites were urged to get the men in their life, a third of whom don’t have a personal physician, to make an appointment for an annual check-up.

While the campaign didn’t target women explicitly, it did tap into two truths: One, men generally hate going to the doctor. Two, when it comes to health matters, women are usually the ones driving the train forward, whether it’s for themselves or their loved ones.

In fact, women make more than 80 percent of all health-related decisions. That goes for what kind of cold medicine to buy to determining whether a doctor’s visit in is order. What this means for health-related nonprofit organizations, foundations and social marketing campaigns  is the subject of Fenton’s forthcoming guide: “She Decides: The Secret to Effective Health Campaigns.”…

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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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Last night I went to Pechu Kucha Night at Solar 1.

Sandwiched between the East River and freeway traffic on FDR Drive, I joined a crowd of 100+ people to watch a series of eclectic PowerPoint presentations on a giant outdoor projection screen. The topics ranged from sustainable underwear to Nauru, a tiny island in the South Pacific on the verge of environmental collapse.

According to the Pecha Kucha web site Pecha Kucha Night, now a worldwide phenomenon, was founded in 2003 by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a public forum for young designers to network and share their work. The catch: Presenters are only allowed 20 images, each of which is displayed for 20 seconds.

This presentation format, given before a very broad audience (as much as an NYC audience inclined to see something called ‘Pecha Kucha’ can be), yielded some great best practices:…

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