Content Matters

Boycott Retailers Donating Percentage of Proceeds to Sandy Relief

As I write this dozens (perhaps hundreds) of marketers are kicking around thoughts of new marketing campaigns in which they donate a percentage of their proceeds to relief efforts for those hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy. I have one word for them:

STOP!

I'm sure they are doing this with the best of intentions. And I bet most of them are good people. But this practice, which seems selfless is anything but. In reality, what these companies are doing is saying "Hurricane Sandy - what a horrible event; how can we benefit from it?"  While some are obvious - like American Apparel's (APP) blatant Hurricane Sandy Sale email, others may seem to be doing good on the surface.

Here's Ferragamo's pitch:

In aid to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, a percentage of proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Efforts, Friday, November 2 - Sun, November 4.

In this instance, they don't even state what percentage they're giving. Is it 10%, 1% or .0001%? No way to tell. 

But even if they were giving an explicit percentage - as companies like Courtshop, Barney's New York, Gilt City and Natori are doing, it's still horribly offensive in my opinion. They are out there using the victims of Hurricane Sandy as props in an effort to market their products. And that's simply craven and wrong.

Look - if you're a retailer or other brand and you wish to make a donation to help the victims of Sandy, there's a really easy way to do it. Write a damn check. And if you truly want to tie that to revenue, feel free. You can project what your revenues will be this week or this month - so write a check for some percentage of that. But don't wrap your marketing efforts in Hurricane Sandy. 

And this goes beyond just Hurricane Sandy. As we approach the holidays, Toys R Us and other retailers love to put up boxes to collect Toys for Tots gifts. But what they're really doing is inflating their own sales, by convincing their customers to buy additional gifts at full price. Before their well-deserved bankruptcy, Borders was the master of this, aggressively asking every customer at checkout "do you want to buy a book for a needy child?". "Oh, no" I was tempted to respond; "I like the needy to remain ignorant". Instead I, like many others, was guilted into buying additional books at full price (Borders never chose books off the sale rack for these offers), propping up their weak revenues.

If retailers want to support organizations like Toys for Tots, it's really easy to do. Let your customers buy those gifts at cost, rather than at retail price. That way, we know you're doing this because you mean it, not to inflate your own revenues.

So, join me in commending those companies which are out there writing checks - like Disney (DIS), News Corp (NWS), Target (TGT), Kohls (KSS), Hanes (HBI), Home Depot (HD), Wal-Mart (WMT), Viacom (VIAB), Ross Stores, Wells Fargo (WFC), BofA (BAC), Lowe's (LOW), Chrysler, Ford (F) and others. These companies have given without asking anything in return - and we should support them.

And please also join me in boycotting those companies who are trying to boost their top line by wrapping themselves in the cloth of the victims of Hurricane Sandy. They are shameless and do not deserve our patronage.

Do you know other companies who are generously supporting those impacted by Sandy? Or companies looking to use Sandy as a marketing ploy? Please note them in the comments below. 

What Sidney Harman should do with Newsweek

It’s possible that 91-year old Sidney Harman acquired Newsweek simply as a means of minimizing estate taxes for his family. But assuming he truly wants to turn Newsweek into a viable product in the coming years, what might he do?

Here are three steps he might take to make Newsweek viable.

Leverage the brand

This won’t be easy. Newsweek has very strong brand recognition, but that brand name is an anachronism in the age of real-time news.Perhaps the best thing he can do here is come up with a clever tagline. Maybe something like:

There are 604,800 seconds in every week. Newsweek covers each and every one of them.

Kill the print edition

This one is the most obvious, but will also be very difficult for many inside Newsweek to embrace.
But there is no better way to change the mindset of a newsweekly than to eliminate the weekly editorial and print schedule.

It may seem harsh to kill the print version and the many jobs that will go with it, but if he wants to save the brand, he will need to move swiftly in that direction.

Reconstitute themselves as the curator of choice for politics & policy

Rather than trying to author content on a vast number of topics, what if they instead set out to become the curator of choice for political and policy content? Don't try to comment on the news - instead, provide insights on key policy issues, both domestic and international.

Retain a few key editors, each of whom will be expected to write 1-2 blog posts each day. Then, using a combination of technology and lower-cost curators, sift through content from other media and blog sites, identifying relevant content and classifying it by topic. The end result will be a series of high quality pages on compelling topics, led by a modest amount of proprietary blog content surrounded by carefully curated web content. Some topics may be evergreen, while others may be cyclical (elections) or event-driven (e.g. WikiLeaks). The content should be multimedia in nature and should aim to provoke and promote discussion.

I would trash the existing Newsweek.com site and come up with a dual strategy for website and mobile.  They should take a look at what Flipboard and Pulse have done on the iPad for inspiration. Everything should be based on easily browsing and sharing content.

That’s what I would do with Newsweek. What would you do?

 

Please Contribute: New Yorkers Without Summer Homes

OK, I borrowed the title concept from a comic (might have been Robert Klein but can't recall) who joked about setting up a foundation for New York Jews who didn't have a beach house. But that's the thought that popped into my head this morning as I read about Unithrive.org in the New York Times.

If you didn't read the article, entitled "I’m Going to Harvard. Will You Sponsor Me?", it describes what seems like a compelling program of peer-to-peer lending to students in need.

I'm a huge fan of peer lending and microlending programs. I've been a consistent supporter of Donor's Choose and am also a fan of Kiva. These programs bring transparency to the donation process and have demonstrated hugely impactful results. And I'm sure that Unithrive may provide similar benefits. But reading the article, you can't help but wonder how out of touch some of these people are.

I'll start with Unithive cofounder Joshua Kushner, quoted in the article as stating "I have friends who would spend 10 hours a week when they are not in class working at a coffee shop or in the dorms,” said Mr. Kushner, 24, referring to time that he considered wasteful. Josh is currently working at Goldman, Sachs and will soon be entering Harvard Business School.

Now, Josh may feel that working in a coffee shop or in the dorms is a waste of time. And I'm sure there are others who might agree. But, I disagree. I spent five nights a week tending bar for most of my college years. And while you can argue that I may not have learned a lot serving beers and shots at O'Heaney's, it tought me how to manage my time and to be accountable for all aspects of my student life.

Nor do I feel much support for Ricky Kuperman, a Harvard sophomore also interviewed in the article.  Ricky, a dancer, said in an interview that he wanted the $2,000 no-interest loan to visit Okinawa, Japan, in 2010 to spend time in the birthplace of karate. “If I don’t get the money, I will have to work longer next summer or during the term,” he said.“It will allow me to stay in shape and make getting cast in films or in dance projects that much more possible.”

These may all be wonderful opportunities, but they come off more than a bit tone-deaf, particularly in the current environment. College isn't necessarily about leading a privileged life where you can focus all your efforts on academics and adventure. College is about preparing for adulthood. It's about learning to live with others. It's about learning to make concessions and to work hard for the things that you want. The college years are also a great time to learn about real life - perhaps working at that coffee shop, Josh's friends might have the chance to meet a single mother who uses that job to put food on the table for her family. Perhaps it provides a dose of reality that Josh is unlikely to get at HBS or at Goldman.

My daughter is still a few years away from being ready for college. And while I don't want her to have to work five nights per week, I do want her to work during college, so that she continues to develop the values which will guide her adult life.

I have friends who had to take time off in the middle of college to earn enough money so they could finish up a year or two later. And I'd be happy to participate in a peer-lending program to help students be able to afford their tuition or rent. But sending a young person on a trip to the birthplace of karate or backpacking across Europe? Sorry, I'll direct my funds to Kiva or DonorsChoose in that case.

(Josh Kushner photo sourced from Gawker)

Help Send Deserving Kids to Camp this Summer

As the economy continues to decline, the nonprofit sector is taking a big hit. State and municipal funds have dried up, foundations are struggling with poor investment returns and many of the big individual donors are worried about keeping their jobs.

Luckily, there are lots of ways that each of us can make a small difference. Social media and micro-donations make the process even easier.

Edelman and a few other organizations in the Chicago area are supporting the Off the Street Club (OTSC), which provides inner city kids with a summer of swimming, horseback riding and cookouts at Camp Mathieu.

So, please take a minute and make a modest donation - even $5 makes a real difference. You can donate using the ChipIn widget below (see, I told you this used social media tools).

Not sure? Visit their Facebook page and watch the brief 2 minute video.

PS - for those who were at the SIIA Twitter panel on Wednesday, this program is part of the Friday $5 Twitter Challenge from Amanda Mooney, the Edelman social media maven I mentioned.