Mythology - The Meaning Behind the Marketing

Mission Marketing

One of our passions here at Mythology is to help firms identify their inner "hero" and connect emotionally to their target customer segments. In today's cluttered world, only brands that can break through by attaching themselves to an idea bigger than themselves tend to succeed.

One tactic for aligning your brand with a cause that means more to the consumer than just the functionality of your product/service is "cause marketing." Typically, this is defined as

 ...a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a "for profit" business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The term is sometimes used more broadly and generally to refer to any type of marketing effort for social and other charitable causes, including in-house marketing efforts by non-profit organizations. Cause marketing differs from corporate giving (philanthropy) as the latter generally involves a specific donation that is tax deductible, while cause marketing is a marketing relationship generally not based on a donation.

Breast cancer awareness is one of the most successful cause-related marketing initiatives in history. Who hasn't seen a product wrapped in pink over the past few years? Even NFL teams sell pink hats and jerseys to support breast cancer awareness.

Non-profits dedicated to health and wellness are not the only "mission" to get behind. In some areas of the country, investing in an economic or community development effort can be very powerful. I can't help but wonder if Wal-Mart could have avoided a lot of their "Wal-Mart kills small towns" negative PR if they had a proactive cause marketing initiative around helping rural entrepreneurs.

However, when a cause becomes so big and so pervasive, does it help a marketer to align with it? Or do you get lost in the crowd?

There are of course many causes to align with, and the process for choosing a mission to connect to the brand is a very strategic decision. A few questions you may want to ask yourself:

• Does the cause have a natural connection to your product or service? Many breast cancer awareness partner brands are interested in gaining influence among women consumers, which is a broad category but one that makes sense for them.

• Can your brand be the dominant one associated with the cause? Or will you be lost in a crowd of other supporters?

• Do your employees have a passion for this cause? Generating broad interest and participation among your employees, channel partners, even vendors can generate better ROI and support for the charity.

How will you measure impact? Remember, this is cause marketing, not purely charity. Yes the non-profit or cause will benefit from your participation, but this is about building a brand and ultimately selling more stuff as a result. So how will you know if the effort was ultimately a marketing success or just another good charitable effort?

That last question is a fine line, and one that is important for your organization to understand. Cause marketing should not be managed by a company foundation or giving team; it is marketing, and should be a marketing team-lead effort (with support or partnership from others of course.)

If you're considering a cause or mission-oriented marketing effort, we'd be happy to talk through some more ideas and options.

Get Focused Before Getting Creative

Over the last few months, we've been engaged with clients who felt pressure from senior management, board members, and even investors to "do something" with their marketing. It can be a huge challenge to push back on impatient constituents who see competitors running glitzy ad campaigns.

Add the fact that almost everyone thinks they are an expert on advertising, and you have a tough situation for marketing professionals who know better than to rush something out the door for the sake of "doing something."

The costs of developing a marketing campaign without understanding some fundamental basics are huge. At Mythology, we describe these fundamentals as the Ten Pillars of Meaningful Marketing, and we advise clients with all our might to follow them. It's a rare effective marketing team who can maintain the discipline to take care of first things first.

Without a deep understanding of customer felt and expressed needs, message development can only be guesswork. Without message testing, the guesswork is expensive indeed in the form of lower response rates or awareness levels. Without prioritizing which customer segments are most relevant, marketing messages tend to be too broad and fall flat in a world where each consumer is hit with 3,000 messages a day. Even the purchase of direct mail lists can go way off kilter without answers to basic questions on who you are truly targeting.

So before you cave under the pressure, or get excited by the creative process, take a step back. Review the Ten Pillars and challenge yourself to nail some basic questions before you go down the campaign development path.

We have a simple assessment tool that might help. If you're interested, just drop us a line at [email protected].

Marketers of the Year - What? You're Not on the List?

Ad Age has announced their candidates for "marketers of the year," which, as you can expect as long as the title of their magazine is Ad Age, has several big names who advertise a lot. But there are surprising political and viral marketing leaders as well.

The nominees are:

Apple

Coors

McCain Campaign

Nike

Obama Campaign

Zappos

Take a look at these Ad Age videos. Learning from the masters is a low-cost, effective way to strengthen your own advertising and marketing. In terms of next generation, conversational marketing, pay particular attention to Zappos and Obama. Zappos generates up to 75% of their revenue on repeat business and has focused almost exclusively on delivering a "wow" customer experience vs. investing in traditional advertising. Obama has taken grass roots, viral, word-of-mouth marketing to new levels in the political realm.

Step 1 in Building Customer Loyalty? Build Employee Loyalty

Pillar #4 in our 10 Pillars of Meaningful Marketing(TM) is Alignment. This focuses on the maxim that your brand is the sum of experiences and perceptions your customer base has with and about you. Who influences this the most? Your employees, of course. If they don't "live" the brand, it isn't really your brand.

But in today's world of constant employee churn, especially in customer service-oriented roles, is employee loyalty possible? If so, what builds it? What can influence a part-time employee or short-term employee to care enough to serve a customer in a way that reinforces your brand and builds loyalty among customers?

The folks at Wise Marketerare pitching some expensive but useful researchon this topic. One free bit of insight: 

From the research detailed in The Wise Marketer's report, 'The Loyalty Guide III', it appears that money isn't usually the main driver of staff turnover and dissatisfaction. In fact, money seems to have little influence compared to other factors such as recognition of a job well done. The report goes on to examine the latest trends and best practices in staff loyalty and how directly it impacts customer loyalty, retention, repeat business, and even customer advocacy.

So if it's not money, what builds employee loyalty?

According to the 2008 Management Action programmes (MAP) Quarterly CEO Survey conducted by Vantage Research, money isn't the "end all, be all" when it comes to employee loyalty and retention. Open communication, employee recognition and involving personnel in decision-making are what people value most in a company. The survey found that the top business practice - 'open communication between management and employees' - was mentioned nearly twice as frequently as 'receiving raises'.The survey also found that the three greatest challenges CEOs are facing in business today are revenue growth, hiring talented employees and cost containment. In addition, the people behind a product are about as important as the product itself. Customers are only slightly more loyal to a company's products and services than they are to its employees. And even in tough economic times, price doesn't drive customer loyalty as much as increased service and product quality, and personal customer experiences do.

 Turns out building employee loyalty is not as complex and expensive as you might have thought. But it certainly takes a disciplined, prioritized approach from leadership in your company.