Tag: United States

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Nonprofit communication trends

Curious about how other nonprofits are communicating? Want to see where the trends are? You can download your free copy of the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report now. The trends you’ll find in this report come from an online survey of 1,435 nonprofits. We asked a variety of marketing questions: In what shape is your marketing plan? Which communications tools do you see as very important, somewhat important, and least important to you? Which social media channel are you most likely to add or experiment with? Which types of content do you expect to spend most of your time producing? What are your biggest marketing challenges? How often do you plan to email the typical person on your email list? How often do you plan to send direct mail? What excites you about your work? What scares you about your work? We also break down the data by nonprofit size, mission, and region of the U.S.

Infographic source courtesy Nonprofit Marketing Guide

Nonprofit communication trends for 2013

Nonprofit communication trends for 2013 infographic by juliareich.

 

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Snow in Texas

Snow in Austin, TexasHappy (brrrr…) Valentine’s Day! Since last week, most of the United States has been in the throes of icy winter weather, closing airports and leaving motorists stranded in snow drifts. This typical scene plays out every winter, threatening to upset life and commerce in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York. But one doesn’t often consider Texas a target for blizzards. On February 4, several inches of snow fell on Austin. That weekend, I drove up to Dallas to visit a friend. Icy road conditions forced an added hour to what is usually a three-and-a-half hour commute. Road conditions were fair until crossing the Dallas county line, where ice coated the main interstate. I passed Waco—a sizable city— that managed to treat its roads with sand. What happened, Dallas?

That Sunday the Dallas area (Arlington, actually) hosted the Super Bowl. While I did not attend the game, I was witness to a city of over 6.5 million totally unprepared for big crowds and icky weather. Brought to its knees, the Dallas police department seemed hapless to protect and serve, and many Dallasites grumbled—inconvenienced by the weather, 100,000 out-of-towners, and a paucity of taxi cabs. Public schools closed for days due to buses unequipped to deliver students.

Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, admitted that the “first band caught us a little off-guard.” This week’s snow will likely push the season total into territory not seen since the record-setting storms of the 1970s.

Downtown Austin, Texas, February 4, 2011

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NYC condom wrapper design contest

NYC CondomWith more than 15,000 online votes, Luis Acosta, a 29-year-old graphic designer from Queens, New York, won the NYC condom package design contest. The New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced that Acosta’s design with an “on” power button would adorn six million limited-edition free condoms set for release this year.

“I hope my package design reminds people that they’re in control. We all have the power to protect ourselves from sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS and unplanned pregnancies,” said Acosta.

First introduced by the health department on Valentine’s Day 2007, the NYC condom is the United States’ first municipally branded prophylactic. More than 40 million of the male condoms will be distributed free in city bars, clinics, gyms and other locations. This year is the first for a wrapper design contest.

Dr. Monica Sweeney, the assistant New York City health commissioner, said, “We want everybody to think and talk about condoms all the time.”

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Does AT&T “rip off” artist Christo?

AT&T campaign and "The Gates" by Christo

Months ago I began noticing AT&T’s recent campaign, “Rethink Possible.” I was immediately struck by its similarity to the work of environmental artists Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude. In the tv spot, people are seen draping various American monuments with massive sheets of orange fabric. It bears an undeniable similarity to pieces by the artists, specifically their 2005 installation “The Gates” in New York’s Central Park. (In the image seen above, compare the top image from AT&T’s spot with “The Gates” by Christo). The draped fabric was a metaphor for AT&T’s broad cellular phone “coverage” in the United States. (Click here to view the spot.)

Christo and his lawyer filed a complaint with AT&T, and the company has since added a disclaimer to the end of the commercial stating, “The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have no direct or indirect affiliation or involvement with AT&T.” (One could imagine the two parties arguing over the type size of the disclaimer; it is indeed rather prominent.)

Christo made a splash in the 1980s while I was a youngster living in Miami. Christo’s “Surrounded Islands”—an installation where the artist surrounded eleven islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with giant pieces of floating pink polypropylene—was best viewed by helicopter, and dazzled us for two weeks.

Special thanks to Huffington Post for its assistance with this story.

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Today’s “Shack” is more than radios

print ad for The ShackYou may have seen the phrase, “Our friends call us The Shack℠.” Electronics retailer Radio Shack’s new branding experts—California’s Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners, hired April 2009—added the service mark symbol to their clever phrase as a wink and a nod that you are now in the cool club, in anticipation that “The Shack” will gain traction amongst consumers, employees and investors. Some years ago Radio Shack began updating its image by creating the circle-R logotype, and by dropping the space between “Radio” and “Shack.”

The corporate identity nip and tuck continues as Radio Shack joins an expanding list of shorthand names whose companies either wish to appear friendly, to obscure their original identity or to clear up confusion over the original name. The names Chuck (Charles Schwab—”Talk to Chuck!”), KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken—so much more than fried chicken!), The Hut (Pizza Hut—so much more than pizza!), and The City (Circuit City—so much more than… erm, circuits?) are similarly victims of hipster hucksterism. Burger giant McDonald’s has acquired many friendly-sounding nicknames around the world, such as The Golden Arches, Mickey-D’s (Mackey-D’s in Britain), and Makku or Makudo in Japan, to name but a few. FedEx (Federal Express) and Coke (Coca-Cola) are other successful examples.

Will a name change improve the flagging electronics brand? It did not help Circuit City, which declared bankruptcy January 2009. Founded more than 80 years ago, Radio Shack was known as the place to buy soldering irons, capacitors and cheap car speakers. Today the company’s focus is on capturing a share of the small electronics market–particularly T-Mobile’s phones.

As of this writing Radio Shack Corporation has no future plans to officially change its corporate name but will market “The Shack” in its advertising. However, branding expert Drew Neisser of Renegade cautions, “Radio Shack is in a desperate battle to remain relevant.” Neisser believes making a half-hearted name change may backfire. “The whole thing could come across as forced at best and confusing at worst,” Neisser said.

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Rebranding America

Rebranding AmericaBranding matters. To countries just as much as they do to companies. Just ask former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose mission in 1999, together with the Foreign Policy Centre, was to sell new model Britain to other countries. “The central message is that Britain’s reality has changed dramatically and that its image must be transformed to reflect this.” The “Cool Britannia” campaign was sniggered at by a nation of cynics, but many Americans today believe a powerful cleanser is needed to remove a very deep stain from the tarnished US image. So Paper magazine has summoned the leading lights in advertising and graphic arts to the task of “Rebranding America.” The results of which are available on its online magazine.

Kim Hastreiter, editor of Paper in New York, states, “If America were a company, it would be practically out of business. Our brand has been decimated.” Her magazine asked “creative communicators” to “re-present the United States to the global community.”

It may be merely a punning exercise, but perhaps the idea—that multiculturalism and diversity are not just an irreversible fact but a potentially invaluable asset—may catch fire.