Cause Marketing

December 31, 2011 In Business, Cause Marketing, Community, Consulting, Friends and Colleagues By Tony Winders

2011 year-end update

Readers, Followers, Friends & Colleagues,

A year after launching Winders Consulting Group, the new year is a perfect time to reflect on progress and, more importantly, to thank the clients who made 2011 a banner year. My typical engagements have been as “CMO-for-hire” for marketing technology and Internet companies looking to increase awareness and sales through more effective market positioning strategies and creative, cost-effective and accountable marketing and communication programs.

One personal highlight has been the opportunity to stretch beyond my expertise in digital marketing technology to gain valuable experience in cause marketing, clean tech and social media. The diversity of my work has also afforded me the rare opportunity to experience firsthand several different business models, systems, processes, styles and philosophies, and to both affect and learn from how founders and CEOs deal with a wide range of challenges.

Below is a summary of my recent projects, including links to my volunteer work with Room to Read and the Digital Family Reunion, an annual holiday event I co-host for the technology community in Los Angeles. I plan to feature more tech startups and great marketing campaigns on “Winders on the Web” in the coming months, so please let me know if there are companies you think I should profile.

It would be great to connect and explore how we can collaborate in 2012. Until then, happy new year!

Thank you to these great companies who I have had the sincere pleasure to advise, collaborate with and learn from throughout 2011:

CanaryVoice applications turn collections of voice messages to into digital greetings that can be shared online to celebrate occasions, express opinions and preserve treasured memories.

Causecast delivers technology to engage employees and activate consumers with timely and relevant CSR information and nonprofit donation and volunteer opportunities.

Fanzila is a social media management platform for Facebook and the web, with applications, analytics and CRM features that engage consumers and create valuable marketing opportunities for small businesses and brands.

Rocket Fuel makes digital advertising work better for brands by combining the best of DSPs and networks with advanced response prediction technology.

Fraser Communications is a full-service advertising agency providing integrated solutions for the healthcare, environmental, nutrition, banking and automotive industries.

Digital Family Reunion is an annual holiday networking event for LA’s diverse technology community.

Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children’s literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls.

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December 15, 2011 In Cause Marketing, Community, Culture, Entertainment, Family, Internet, Social Media, Technology By Tony Winders

Voicemail Greetings for the Troops

Over the past several months, I’ve been honored to assist entrepreneur Frank Catalano with product development and marketing for CanaryVoice. One way we are building awareness for this unique way of using voice greetings to celebrate special occasions, is to create public celebrations like the one we announced today. Since Veterans Day, we have been inviting the public to phone in messages to honor the U.S. armed services, and today we launched the first-of-its-kind audio greeting card for the troops, giving them the ability to hear firsthand how much their service is appreciated this holiday season.

Our “Voices of Gratitude” holiday album for the troops is still accepting messages. Anyone can listen, add a message and easily share the album via email, Facebook and the web, all free of charge. To contribute a message, simply call this number: (847) 598-3466 (Mailbox: 2710 and Pin: 9801).

Even if you decide not to leave a message, we would appreciate if you would share the album to your Facebook wall, so others may have the option to listen, contribute or share. The completed “Voices of Gratitude” album will be available on the CanaryVoice site and CDs will be mailed to the public information officers of each branch of the military and to select military support groups, publications, media outlets and blogs. For complete details about the “Voices of Gratitude” campaign, or to create your own voice album, visit www.canaryvoice.com.

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April 15, 2011 In Advertising, Cause Marketing, Community, Conferences, Integrated Marketing, Internet, Philanthropy, Social Media By Tony Winders

ad:tech SF 2011 – Arianna Huffington keynote

I’ve been thinking a lot about cause marketing lately, and based on her recent IMPACT post had fully expected Arianna Huffington to touch on the subject during her keynote address at ad:tech San Francisco. What I didn’t anticipate was to hear so much passion and such a commitment to connecting journalism and online advertising to a higher calling for humanity. 

In an inspiring speech that quoted great poets and thinkers, both dead and alive, Ms. Huffington plainly laid out the case for embracing cause marketing, capitalizing on the power of local media and reminding us all of the importance of disconnecting for our own health and productivity.

Just as Shakespeare kept to the formal constraints of the sonnet, she suggested that today we must find ways to use the tools of social media to tap humanity and the noblest part of ourselves. Echoing Guy Kawasaki’s talk the day prior about moving from engagement to enchantment, she encouraged us not to dwell on those things that are disfunctional and suboptimal in our world, but to focus on the what is being born all around us today that allows us to connect at a deeper level than ever before.

As an example of cause marketing, she cited the Chivas Regal “Live with Chivalry” campaign where the value of nobility is used to sell whisky. If marketing and advertising is a leading indicator of what’s happening in our culture, we need to identify its meaning and tap into this large and profound trend.  We are moving to an era when doing good is not just good for humanity, but also good for the bottom line — where it doesn’t just affect our business, it affects our lives.

Expressing disappointment in the mainstream media, she spoke of how they have let us down by not focusing on solutions and placing too much emphasis on what is not working rather than so many things that are. Whereas mainstream media suffers from ADD by only covering a story for a brief time before abandoning it, in digital we have OCD and the ability to cover stories obsessively until there is a solution.

This is made even more powerful when we engage our communities at a local level. Local, she said, will bring together communities at a time when the media is increasingly more disconnected than ever from our lives. All human existence is local, and that’s where people trust what’s going on around them and feel empowered to get things done.

Taking pride in quoting will.i.am and Shakespeare in the same speech, she referenced a comment he made about how in “the olden days” we consumed news on a couch — today we consume it on a galloping horse. Reinforcing this idea at the local level, she spoke about plans to replicate a popular Greatest Person of the Day feature on the Huffington Post by creating the Greatest Person of the week throughout Patch sites in more then 800 cities. We are longing to connect with each other as human beings at the same time there is a greater explosion of everything life, and that’s why AOL is betting on local.

Finally, she spoke about the need to disconnect from our hyperconnected existence and to unplug and recharge. We can start by simply getting enough sleep and cited “overwhelming medical evidence” about how essential it is for our health and our creativity — likely a tough concept for the always-connected ad:tech crowd.

In closing she cited third century Greek philosopher Plotinus and his teaching about knowledge, wisdom and creativity. And knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science and illumination. The Internet has addressed opinion and science, but not illumination. Many of the leaders running our government, media and financial institutions have very high IQs and access to all of the data and information in the world. What they are missing is illumination, which is ultimately about wisdom.

“My crystal ball sees more explosive wonder, combustible energy to more truth, transparency wisdom, enchantment…and much more digital advertising!”

The entire speech is available online here:

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