Bon Appétit! Your Brand is On the Menu

Changing your career path is a daunting and nerve-racking decision, especially when it’s a drastic functional shift like I made. Former chef turned nonprofit marketing intern, I’ve definitely observed some interesting things along the way…

When I began my internship at the Ad Council in March of 2012, I expected my experiences in the restaurant world to be the polar opposite of any experience I would have at a nonprofit organization focused on marketing and communications. While the industrial similarities are slim, I never anticipated that the problems addressed by the programs and services provided by the Ad Council would translate so universally to the problems and challenges I see restaurants facing every day.

Nearly 50% of all restaurants close their doors within one year of their opening and there are countless explanations for these failures. But, in my experience there are two major challenges causing this failure that are closely related to the challenges that many nonprofits face.

Related Challenge #1: Clash of brand identity. Often times a restaurant will try and be all things to all people. Instead of focusing on a core menu that matches their ideal brand, they offer a wider variety of options and the quality of the end product suffers. These decisions made by top management cause confusion for the staff: brand confusion. If the staff isn’t clear on the desired brand of the restaurant they’re working in, how can the customers be? In my time here, I’ve experienced the Ad Council’s brand development process. From providing effective tools for evaluating how people view your brand today to creating a brand platform that identifies how you want people to view your brand tomorrow, this process seems to be one that many restaurants could benefit from. Because once an organization knows how the outside world views them, it becomes much easier to assess how well you’re doing on delivering the ideal brand. It’s vital that a restaurant knows who it’s trying to be and consistently produces a product and delivers a service aligned with that ideal.

Related Challenge #2: Living the brand. Restaurant owners often don’t invest in getting staff to live the well defined, aspirational brand they see for the business. It’s easy for the owner, the person responsible for the restaurant’s concept to have buy in, but without a joint sense of ownership and belief, it can be difficult to get the rest of the staff to follow suit. Restaurant owners need to make an effort to assure that the brand manifests itself in a consistent manner through every interaction and throughout every corner of the restaurant. I’ve seen an inexperienced hostess or server who is having a bad day, single-handedly ruin a customer’s experience and turn them away from the restaurant forever.

As I think back on my tenure in the restaurant business, I would have loved to know what I know now, having been with the Ad Council for some time. But thoughts of the restaurant industry aside, recognizing the availability of these capacity-building programs for nonprofits, who are working to improve community issues, has been one of the most rewarding parts of my internship. The way the programs encourage collaboration between individuals and departments, and help to come to an overall, consensus-based direction for nonprofits is simply energizing.

So what’s the biggest thing that restaurants and nonprofits have in common? It’s pretty simple. They are both responsible for serving our community. There’s a reason that some restaurants and some nonprofits are more successful in doing that. And in my opinion, it all comes down to brand. Whether you put it there or not, your brand is on your menu of services. Why not take a closer look and make sure it’s the brand you want to be serving to your customers?

Want to get more involved with the Ad Council like I did? Learn how!

-Aaron Lattanzio
Marketing Culinary Specialist

Connect with Aaron on Twitter: @aaronlattanzio
Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn

Living the Brand: When Actions Speak Louder than Words

When you think about the businesses you frequent, whether it’s your grocery store, physician’s office, or favorite watering-hole, are you aware of your surroundings, interactions, and the little details that keep you coming back?  A successful business likely understands the value of creating a positive customer experience through the planning and execution of a well-integrated brand.  The customer experience is much more than just customer service, it’s how the business expertly handles every interaction with their brand in mind.

A C Center, Inc., doing business as AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary, has embarked on a five-year strategic plan with goals that include growing our present HIV positive clientele in the Rochester, Finger Lakes and Southern Tier areas, and positioning ourselves to serve populations new to us.  Our patient-centered approach to care is unique and successful and will be the foundation for new health care delivery programs.  In recent months, we have been working with the Ad Council of Rochester to examine our existing brands and to develop a new and more inclusive branding platform for the future.

An organization can claim to be something, communicate, and advertise it.  However, if there is no ‘buy-in’ from those immediately affected, it’s likely the customer won’t experience the brand in the manner intended.  That’s why in implementing the brand at A C Center, we need to expand the circle of involvement to include a broad range of staff from every department, in addition to,  board members, volunteers, and consumers.  Being as transparent as possible with the process is critical to engage the team and encourage them to embrace change as we move forward with our strategic plan.  They actually see how their role in the organization impacts the brand and the delivery of the brand promise.  It also helps them to readily ‘live the brand’ and easily convey the brand through their words and actions.

This process includes identifying every customer touchpoint in the organization, evaluating how it measures up to this new brand, and developing recommendations to improve each touchpoint in order to bring people closer to our brand and achieve our strategic goals.

Is our work done?  Hardly!  Having finished the Brand Development Workshop through the Ad Council of Rochester, we are now going through the Customer Touchpoint Workshop with them and developing recommendations for ensuring an excellent customer experience for both our present clientele, and those we hope to welcome in the coming years.

-Stacey Rowe
Branding Believer

Stacey Rowe is the Associate Director of Marketing at AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary. Stacey is unique as she is both a volunteer and a client of the Ad Council of Rochester!

Visit AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary’s Facebook page and follow them on Twitter. Stacey also has personal Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well as an entertaining blog that she updates in her free time.

Play a Song First, Not Your Whole Anthology

People that know me really well know I’m a huge music fan. Many of those same people know I’m also a huge lover of my job. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with how to write a blog post that combines these two loves.  And I finally got it!

The other day I had a conversation that I’ve had many times with clients. It went something like this:

Me: If it was 4:00 in the afternoon, and someone said to you, “I’ve got until about 5:00. Can you help me understand what your organization is all about in that amount of time?,” could you do it?

Client: Absolutely!

Me: Ok, how often does that happen?

Client: Oh. Um…not often. Maybe never.

Okay, that was the abridged version of the conversation, but you get the gist. As a nonprofit employee, or even as a board member, donor or volunteer of a nonprofit, it’d be nice if someone had an hour or two to spend really getting to know the organization and all the great things you’ve got going on, but the reality of it is, that just doesn’t happen. What does happen, I’d say on a fairly regular basis, is someone has a minute or two and asks what you’re all about. Enter: the elevator speech.

Dun dun dun.

It’s not uncommon for nonprofits to need some guidance when it comes to the almighty elevator speech. It’s not an easy process. It requires you to get your thinking clean enough and distilled down enough to accurately describe what you’re all about in very few words. And on top of all that, it has to be compelling enough to get people to want to do something: donate, volunteer, participate in your program…or whatever.

So here’s where my music analogy comes in. Think about a band or artist you’ve heard a random person rave about. If you’re in the mood to experiment with some new music, at some point (if you remember) you’ll casually look them up on Spotify, Pandora, iTunes or whatever else you use for music, and you’ll give them a quick listen. Like most people, if you don’t like what you hear within the first song or two, you’re probably likely to say something like, “Why is that person so crazy about these guys? I don’t get it.” And your listening of that particular band or artist probably ends there.

Now think about if one of your friends has recommended a band or artist to you. Because it’s one of your friends recommending them, you’re usually likely to make an effort to remember to check them out, and might even give them more of a chance than just a song or two. After all, your friend is crazy about them. But if the band/artist still isn’t doing it for you, there’s a pretty slim chance you’re going out to buy their whole album.

Now as a music lover, I must say this: It’s almost certain that at some point, you’re going to miss out on a really good band or artist by only listening to one or two songs. But it happens. And it happens with nonprofits, too. Good causes get passed up by donors, volunteers, people who need their services, etc. All. The. Time. Just like good music gets passed up by music-listeners.

But for someone who is new to your organization, you can’t expect them to sit around and listen to the whole Anthology album right off the bat. You just can’t. (Unless you’re The Black Keys). So make the tough decision, put in the time and play them your best song. Figure out which one song, especially the first 20-30 seconds or so, would reel people in. If they like what they hear, eventually they’ll buy every album you’ve ever made and maybe even sing along.

And now, for my closing argument, I present you with Exhibit A. If you can listen to the first 28 seconds and not want to buy everything they’ve ever done, I commend you. You’re crazy, but I commend you. Because for me, The Black Keys have one of the best elevator speeches I’ve ever heard.

I rest my case.

-Katelin Ryan
Elevator Speech DJ

Reaching Levels Beyond Cause Marketing

The ladies of the Ad Council were lucky enough to travel to Boston in September to attend the Beyond Cause Marketing Summit 2011, part of Boston’s FutureM Week. Cause marketing isn’t getting the job done, so the community of Boston organized this opportunity for people to come together and discuss how to shift our thinking and approach. For all the money and attention raised, not enough is being done to address the challenges society faces today.

The summit began with a “conversation gauntlet”, a series of 1:1 interviews with a number of practitioners and thought leaders, moderated by Brian Reich, Senior Vice President-Editor at Edelman.  One by one, six “victims” spent time in the hot seat and were presented with rapid-fire questions on never before explored ideas. The first victim, Robbie Vitrano, co-founder and brand architect of Naked Pizza and founder of Trumpet Group, brought up an important idea on the basis of brand that is often overlooked by our nonprofit clients, and I’m sure, other for-profit businesses as well.

“Your brand is an inside-out construct. A brand is a business idea that attains cultural influence. Cultural influence says you’re developing relationships within a certain set of objectives and you’re going to apply that process in such a way as to achieve a certain level of impact. Brand as an act of behavior; an act of authenticity; something measured internally as well as externally, is a very powerful idea. That conversation can help move you from a wider place to somewhere that you can actually have some impact. The artifacts that you used to define a brand – a color palette, logo, aesthetics, and style -don’t matter as much as behavior, function, and utility of your brand.”

A lot of nonprofits express to the Ad Council their feeling that a change in their logo or their tagline will lead to a greater understanding of who they are. Or that a sleeker look to their marketing collateral will strengthen their brand. These thoughts are very frequently off-target. What they don’t understand is that a brand is made up of much more, and that it’s not just the physical appearance – brand is an “inside-out construct”. Your brand should live in everything you do – and everything you do supports your mission.

To reach and educate more people through means of strengthening your brand, you must strengthen your behavior and be crystal clear on who you are and what it is that you aim to do. To look at this from a wider point, think of your brand as an act of behavior, as Robbie Vitrano suggested. All artifacts like logo and color palette are secondary to message when it comes to the factors contributing to brand. Brand is really what your constituents perceive about your organization and what you do – it’s how the combination of all your actions are experienced by other people. As Michael Eisner of Disney put it, “A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.” 

Understanding the definition of brand and understanding what your brand means are crucial in the success of your not-for-profit organization or for-profit business. No matter who you are, brand is all-defining.

-Annie Sullivan

“Sometimes Your Apple is an Orange”

In Other Words, Your Target Audience Isn’t Always Your Population of Focus

“Your population of focus isn’t necessarily your target audience” is a statement that crosses our lips on a regular basis at the Ad Council.  A nonprofit that spends any significant amount of time with us will hear that at least once, if not more, especially if we’re working together in a Brand Development Workshop or a Communications Plan.  And, Social Marketing initiatives like, reducing underage drinking, lowering ER (emergency room) usage among Medicaid patients or increasing the adoption of birth control among women (see the article referenced below for details “In Nigeria, Selling Birth Control is an Uphill Battle”), often need to include other groups of people that are not the population of focus.

Sometimes it’s a no-brainer and it’s an apples-to-apples comparison – your target audience is the same as your population of focus like, if you’re promoting a parenting class directly to parents.  But, what if it’s more effective to promote your parenting class among daycare providers because they can reach more parents than your organization; or what if they’re more influential in helping parents decide if your class is worth it?  Then your target audience is no longer your population of focus – parents – it’s daycare providers.

Marketers have understood this difference for a long time.  They’ve understood that the buyers of a product or service are often making purchasing decisions based on the advice and recommendation of those surrounding him or her.  Marketers called them “the influencer(s)” to the decision maker and these individuals quickly became recognized as an equally important group to go after.

Even children, despite their increased buying power as consumers, are marketed to because of their influential power over parents when it comes to cereals, snacks and even cars – advertisers know that parents listen to their kids about what to buy (read more about “Pester Power”).

This recent NPR blog post, “In Nigeria, Selling Men on Birth Control is an Uphill Battle” really warmed my marketing heart because even though there is still a lot of work to be done around improving the adoption of birth control among Nigerian families, there was a strategic shift in the Society for Family Health‘s approach to the issue.

The communication outreach and birth control program re-focused its effort and is now including targeting husbands. After all, husbands have the greatest influence on their wives in Nigerian households when it comes to family planning.  In most cases, even if a wife wants to take birth control she won’t do it without the support from her husband.  This is an excellent example of re-assessing the effectiveness of a program by analyzing other potential target audience segments beyond the population of focus.

In order for nonprofits to identify target audiences beyond the population they’re serving, it’s important to step outside the organization’s mission and the program(s) being delivered – and be objective.

So, before you set your sights on another mailing to individual donors (because that’s what you’ve always done), offer another program aimed at serving low income mothers (in hopes to engage more mothers) or create another flyer to post in local community centers, ask yourself these questions:

“Who do we depend on to be successful (in the delivery of our program(s)?”
“Who or what other groups are the greatest influencers to achieving successful outcomes among our population of focus?”
“If we didn’t exist, who else (besides the population we’re serving) would care about the void our organization would leave behind?”

Use whatever data you have or can get your hands on in order to provide you with an accurate picture.  Where are your referrals coming from?  Who else plays a significant role in the life of the people you’re serving?  Who are you receiving donations from and how are they hearing about you?  You may find that WHO you’re talking to needs to change and/or you may identify and prioritize an entirely new group of people but either way, you’ve put the time and effort into thinking more strategically about your organization and your program(s).

One last example, is a local community coalition that redefined its strategy by changing its target audience.  An underage substance abuse prevention coalition in Wyoming County set out to reach all young people with a message about underage drinking.  However, they soon realized that they couldn’t effectively reach all youth and do so in a way that would result in the behavior change that would help them reach their goals: increasing the age of first use (when a youth has their first drink) and decreasing the number of kids who report having a drink within the past 30 days.

With some additional research the Ad Council helped the community coalition define their population of focus more narrowly to be middle school age children.  And, with more research, we helped them identify their target audience… the parents.  Why parents?  Because, among other reasons, research showed that the parents of middle schoolers continue to have the greatest potential of influencing their child about whether or not to drink.

So, sure, sometimes your target audience is your population of focus, but often your target audience is an orange. (If you skipped to the end of this post, go back and re-read – it’ll make sense, I promise.)

-Susan Gilchrist

Cornucopia of Marketing Advice

Create Your Masterful Marketing Plan

Or

“Your Masterful Marketing Plan Create. Yeesssssss.”

Recently, I had the honor of helping to create and finalize a marketing plan for one of the Ad Council’s clients.  I’ve been able to volunteer and do this on a few occasions for them, and between those experiences—and being the author of plans for organizations I’ve worked for—we figured a nice little “how to create a comprehensive marketing plan” would make for a good blog post.

If you’ve ever been involved in creating a plan, or even discussing the creation of one, then you’ll understand just how overwhelming it can be.  So, in order to make this a little more digestible, translatable… and, frankly, enjoyable… I figured I would share some basic ideas with you – and tie them all into “real life” examples.  From Star Wars. 

I promise this blog will be efficient.  No longer than a scrolling story you see prior to each Star Wars movie starting.

Overall, there are five tips to remember as you go through the process of creating a marketing plan:

1. Keep your wits about you.
2. Have your homework done in advance.
3. Make sure your CEO and senior leadership support your work, and that you consistently engage them along the decision-making way.
4. While this IS the time to think high-level and long-term, you also need to be grounded in reality.
5. Once you have your plan completed, the real work begins.

Spoiler Alert: those five steps may be all you need as a guide.  But, read on for more in-depth discussion.

1.  Keep your wits about you.

As you go through the process of creating a comprehensive marketing plan, there will be moments when you probably will feel like you want to scream or throw things at the wall (or at somebody who isn’t playing well in the sandbox during the creation process.)  Try to maintain a Yoda-like calmness.

Example: Remember when Han Solo, while piloting the Millenium Falcon, was being chased down by an Imperial Star Destroyer?  He didn’t freak in front of Princess Leia (or at least he didn’t let on as much) and he pulled off a very clever move.  He attached the Falcon to a blind spot on the Star Destroyer, and once the ship released its garbage, he released the ship and made it look like the Falcon was part of the floating trash.  It was a good move from a solid captain.  Even though Boba Fett was just around the corner.  (There will always be a Boba Fett.)

If you don’t recall that scene, then I know you’ll remember this one.  A prime example of how not to react during stressful moments.  Princess Leia, annoyed at Han Solo’s actions, tries to get a reaction out of him by basically making out with Luke.  Hindsight is 20/20, but wow, this was a poor and rash choice. As you venture out into your marketing plan creation, every time you feel your patience twitching at some situation, think of Leia kissing Luke.  Then think about how every public and strategic action you take could have multiple implications down the line.

 

2. Have your homework done in advance.

Simply put, you can’t plot out all of the strategies needed in a marketing plan if you don’t know about your consumer insights and other critical data points.  Before you launch the creation of a plan, make sure you have them.  Market research—even the simple kind you can launch online yourself—will be really important to help you with checks and balances.  Do a SWOT analysis: know your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  Figure out who your primary target audience is, and your secondary.  You won’t possibly be able to develop key messaging and corresponding tactics or planning without it.

Example: Eventually, Palpatine (the Emperor) didn’t really plan correctly or truly understand what motivated his primary target audience, Darth Vader.  If he did, he would have recognized Vader’s habits to a deeper extent. Vader went 100% over to the dark side after he spiraled into despair over the death of his wife and “unborn child.”  You can’t feel those emotions unless you’ve got passion and love for something.  So, no shocker here, when Palpatine tries to fry the grown-up Luke in front of Vader, it backfired.  Exit Palpatine.

3. Make sure your CEO and senior leadership support your work, and that you consistently engage them along the decision-making way.

You’re in marketing for a reason, and you’re good at what you do. But, unless you have consistent buy-in from your leadership, your marketing plan will fold.  Whoever your key stakeholders engaged are, at one point or another you will likely have to implement a few of their ideas or somehow compromise to what they need—and often, you’ll come out with a better product because of it.

Example: If Yoda’s not happy, ain’t no one happy.  Consider the Jedi Council.  Thought leaders, good for checks and balances.  Everyone needs a Yoda, Obi Wan, and Mace Windu supporting them.  Anakin was infuriated that he was allowed to be part of the ol’ JC, but wasn’t considered a true partner and Jedi Master.  So, he went nuts.  On occasion, a larger group consensus can feel like it crushes an idea for your plan.  Don’t let it do that to you.

4. While this IS the time to think high-level and long-term, you also need to be grounded in reality.

It’s exciting putting together a marketing plan.  There’s a lot of thought being put into it that is also aspirational.  You just need to make sure you don’t get carried away with yourself so much that your plan’s actions are no longer tangible or realistic.  If you have a small budget, your tactics need to be high impact for the limited investment you have.  Everything needs to truly be loyal to your overall branding.

Example: How do you now engage younger customers?  It’s the question that many of us face on a daily basis.  Spend your dollars or your tactical time where you know it will count… like coming up with a character called Jar-Jar Binks.  Oh, wait, no…

5. Once you have your plan completed, the real work begins.

I love the feeling of creating a comprehensive marketing plan that has strong buy-in, great components, integrated efforts, realistic aspirations, and is true to brand.  I’ve seen people get euphoric over it.  But here’s the deal, once it’s done, it wasn’t created to be a document that sits there.  No matter how many other unplanned challenges come your way, and no matter how much you realize that the planning was actually the “easy part,” you’ll need to implement it.

Example: Luke lands in the Dagobah System (phew, the land of Yoda where magic will happen) but his ship crashes into some murky bog.  During his Jedi training, Yoda encourages him to use the force to get the ship above water again.  Realizing that it’s actually a lot of work, Luke begins whining and can’t handle it.  Yoda shows him up, and uses the force to get the ship out.

You’ve got to believe.  You are the leader of this fearless plan.  You are the key to making it come to life. Now, get back to work – and get that ship out of the murky bog. Or, should I say – of the murky bog get that ship out.  Herh herh herh.

 

Nancy Zawacki

-Leader of the Star Ship Marketing Plan

………………………………

Nancy Zawacki is the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO). She is also an active and engaged volunteer at the Ad Council. To learn more about the RPO, click here.

Nancy dressed up as Princess Leia for Halloween. Ad Council volunteers are so awesome!

2010 Annual Luncheon: A Caffeinated Success!

Jon Luther, Chief Executive for Dunkin’ Brands gave an exciting keynote address to over 500 marketing, advertising and communications professionals on June 4th at the Hyatt Regency Rochester. Luther discussed the transformation of the Dunkin’ Donuts brand, and the future of the company.

In addition to Luther’s keynote, we were pleased to be able to recognize a number of our volunteers and partner organizations for their service and commitment to helping us serve the Rochester community. Nobody could have said it better than 2010 Lantern Award Winner, Susan Barnes. “America runs on Dunkin’, but the Ad Council runs on volunteers.”

Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate 60 years with the Ad Council of Rochester and Dunkin’ Donuts, and congratulations again to our 2010 Award Winners!

Lantern Award Honorees
Susan Barnes, Center for Governmental Research
Suzanne Seldes, Strong National Museum of Play

W.B. Potter Founder’s Award Honorees
One City Connection Campaign:
City of Rochester
United Way of Greater Rochester
Catalyst, Inc.

Chairman’s Awards
Butler/Till Media Services
Innovative Solutions

Beacon Award
Roberts Communications

Legacy Award
Greg Smith, Jay Advertising