Cause to Celebrate
Some PR firms strive to make a difference by promoting causes as well as products.
Give a PR firm an Enron to represent, and that firm quickly has
a PR nightmare on its hands. Assign a breast-cancer research
organization to the same firm, and the PR job becomes a bit
easier.
Whether it has to do with the Enrons and the Martha Stewarts of
the world--and the need to renew public trust in business--or
whether promotional agents simply want to do good, marketing
with a conscience is becoming more the rule than the exception. As
businesses zero in on social issues, including everything from
environmental protection and the peace movement to education and
public health issues, so, too, do PR and advertising firms.
"There's a much deeper awareness that business cannot be
divorced from values," says Shel Horowitz, a Hadley,
Massachusetts, author of several marketing books, including
Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People
First. "[Consumers] are realizing [they] have the
power and the right to demand accountability. Businesses are
realizing it's smart to have good principles."
Maria Rodriguez, 45, knew that from the day she started
Washington, DC-based Vanguard Communications in 1987. She launched
with the sole intent of aligning herself with social concerns, such
as environmental protection and health issues. (Farm Aid is a
client.)
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It's an MO that's proved effective, both from a business
and a personal perspective: "We can feel good at the end of
the day," says Rodriguez, who projects 2005 sales of just over
$4 million. "We never have any second thoughts about what
we're promoting."
That kind of selling can lead to what Michael Martin calls
"effect marketing"--positively affecting a cause through
marketing. "That's the future of marketing, because people
see through crass 'Buy Me! Buy Me! Buy Me!'
[campaigns]," says the 44-year-old founder and president of
MusicMatters, a Minneapolis company created in 1997 to promote
causes by combining pop culture, marketing and social activism.
MusicMatters promoted the One Sweet Whirled international global
warming campaign, created with Dave Matthews Band, Ben &
Jerry's and SaveOurEnvironment.org.
This convergence of grass-roots activism with more advanced
marketing methods is what makes social marketing effective.
"Done right, it can help to increase sales, provide motivation
for consumers to buy and increase brand identity," says
Martin, whose company averages 20 percent growth annually. And as
for the intangible? "Done right, you can generate
change."