I don’t have many favorite politicians – check that – I don’t have a one! And, I’d bet most of you don’t have one.

Until maybe now.

Republican candidate for Congress and former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Allen West is someone I’ve been following throughout his race in the Sunshine State!

And you should too.

Allen West, is a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and is running this November as a Republican candidate for the United States Congress in Florida’s District 22.

Watch this video of West in action. No notes – pure passion and conviction – clear message coming from experience – a complete mastery of the power of video and the mastery of the public speech!

When the Republicans and McCain and Co., got outgunned and derailed by the Obama campaign in the last presidential election, there’s no question that one of big contributing factors was that they were far behind in mastering the New World Order of interactive and social media marketing tools.

In the next election/s, you’ll see that everyone will be on the SMM bus. And, it will be somewhat of a level playing field in terms of marketing execution since most everyone will be wearing a pretty nice SMM tool belt and carrying a well equipped toolbox.

Check out West’s Web site and you’ll see its complete with all the appropriate SMM tools however, his talent, integrity, character and clear brand message and performance rules.

Certainly money helps, but in this online, always on world we live in, citizen journalists can help West even out the playing field for his underfunded brand.

Watch out for the Allen West’s of the world (performance based brands with character, integrity and trustworthiness) and remember that tools are cool, but tools don’t rule because anybody can buy them and learn how to use them.

To excel these days, recognize that for today’s informed consumer, what truly matters is a clearly communicated and meaningful brand promise delivered from a trustworthy, proven brand. Guaranteed.

P.S.: I call Lt. Col. Allen West a Marketer’s dream because it’s so easy to promote a brand you believe in. I’ll bet West wins in November – this American Patriot prays and hopes that he does – we need more good people like him in government.

I’ve been a practicing (and far from perfect) Roman Catholic and Christian all my life, and for over 25 years, I’ve been a practicing (also far from perfect) marketing professional.

For the past few months, I’ve been working on a lot of brand positioning exercises and marketing audits as well as attending a weekly bible study. As I’m preparing to enter Holy Week and Easter – my favorite time of the year – my professional and personal life is colliding in an interesting way.

I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ ministry and his time on earth a lot lately. And, I’ve been thinking about him as a brand too. And, when I think of him as a brand, his radical and remarkable message and unique selling proposition is clearly one of unconditional love, tolerance and forgiveness – but, love is his foundational core message. And, he demonstrated his core message of love by living it out loud through his actions and by making the ultimate sacrifice.

I say radical and remarkable because if you closely study The Sermon on the Mount, you’ll see what I mean. C’mon…turning the other cheek is one heck of a radical concept! Even today!

When I try to stand outside of my faith and look at Christianity as a product,  it’s amazing that it has spread throughout the world and has welcomed 2 billion adherents without depending on large scale ad campaigns, social media and the like.

Christianity has spread because one person – Jesus – started it by speaking his message of truth, being authentic, transparent and following a singular focused devout message of pure unconditional love for everyone.

It’s a great lesson for all of us people of the world and marketers too.

Happy Easter to all of you.

P.S.: With all due respect, this post is not meant to be sacrilegious at all, but merely an essay in effective branding/messaging. Also, for those of you interested in religious marketing lessons, I came across this Blog – Church Marketing Sucks – and found it pretty interesting. The site’s goal as stated is to…“frustate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ.” Another interesting post is here, Jesus Is Not a Brand; Why it is dangerous to make evangelism another form of marketing, by Tyler Wigg Stevenson.

Looking forward to great game and loving Pepsi’s decision to pass on Super Bowl ads (waste) and lead with its “Refresh Everything” online marketing project.

Two things I’m sure of about the Super Bowl.

One – someone named Peyton/Payton – will win!

Two – Pepsi’s campaign will be successful for them and similar types of brand initiatives that focus their marketing with a meaning (great book here – Marketing with Meaning) will create more long term brand success than over-priced, short-lived and joke-filled ads.

Pepsi’s “Refresh Everything” offers them a lot of extra ‘arms and legs’ such as adding folks to their database, promoting goodwill inside and outside of their company, community connections, generating great PR, making the US a better place etc.,

Check out the success of PR machine already!

Any brand – big and small – can learn a great deal from Pepsi’s Refresh!

In an earlier post, I reported that it was great to see the Gen Y kids driving the tremendous outpouring of financial support for Haiti relief via texting.

I’m happy to report that the American Red Cross “Text ‘Haiti’ to 90999″ campaign has raised $24 million to date. See the DMNews story here.

Think about this campaign for a moment. It has achieved some amazing accomplishments – in a short period of time – since this devastating earthquake hit Haiti just last week on January 12th:

• $24 million has been raised via $10 individual donations to help the Haitian people – 1/5th of the amount the American Red Cross has raised to date – breaking all records by a huge  margin.  Reference note: After Hurricane Katrina – a mere 4.5 years ago – the ARC only received $120,000 via texting – and Katrina occurred on American soil!
• The ARC has built a valuable mobile text database for future marketing communications and financial appeal efforts
• The ARC’s core donor base skews older and texting gave the Gen Y folks an easy, quick and convenient channel to offer their support (marketing lesson – treat different people differently)
• The campaign execution of  the ARC and its mobile firm partner mGive was flawless – amazing too – considering the fact that they started to work on the texting campaign the evening of the earthquake
• The viral goodwill spread of the “Text ‘HAITI’ to 90999″ campaign in Social Media channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (100K tweets/retweets)

Today is a special day of remembrance for me because I’ve admired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ever since I was a young boy.

King’s life’s work was to create a formidable movement of change and progress on the issue of civil rights in America – which he most certainly accomplished. In fact, his legacy has expanded to encompass not only the advancement of civil rights, but human rights throughout the world.

Dr. King and others in the Civil Rights Movement taught me a lot about living my Christian faith and American patriotism out loud, and both taught me lessons about marketing a meaningful cause.

First and foremost, their brand message was true, right and good – they operated from a solid foundation of truth and righteousness.

From having a spot-on brand message – equal rights – the Civil Rights movement created support (buy-in) of their cause with personal, touching, motivating and powerful storytelling imagery such as:

• Segregation signs at water fountains, rest rooms, restaurants and hotels
• Elderly women in their Sunday best being turned back from voting
• Rosa Parks sitting in front of a white man on a bus and then being fingerprinted
• White firemen turning high pressure water hoses on the old and young alike
• White policemen leading German Shepherd attack dogs through black crowds
• Innocent black children being escorted by soldiers on their way to school
• Unarmed, peaceful marchers getting viciously beaten by armed police
• Disgusting Ku Klux Klan marches, and burning crosses
• Rampant black church burnings and bombings

There are certainly more, but I’m sure you get the picture.

All of these powerful images of factual accounts and experiences combined, provided a motivating case for drastic and immediate change.

Certainly, many images were created, but more often than not these images were created and spread virally because they were true, authentic and emotional which makes for a far more reaching impact.

The positioning message was a simple one of good vs. evil.

Dr. King persuaded, motivated and modeled the movement after Gandhi’s peaceful marches and protests with dignity and discipline. These non violent marches were impactful, but as impressive…if not more so…was the way in which he communicated his brand’s message of civil and racial injustice.

Two things I’ve always remembered in marketing are:

1. People don’t join causes…people join people with causes and
2. People typically buy first on emotion, then justify with facts

These two marketing maxims certainly apply to the Civil Rights Movement.

Do yourself a HUGE favor and listen carefully to Dr. King’s entire, “I Have a Dream” speech. The “Dream” speech is a masterpiece and it’s amazing how quiet the audience is throughout it too.

Here is a list of 10 Communication Tips from Dr. King that I picked up from his speech (see if you can pick them up and agree with them; and see if you can discover a few more):

1. The perfect imagery setting of speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial
2. The use of simple, small, easy to understand common words
3. The impact of the repetitive nature of select phrases (e.g., “now is the the time,” “we are not satisfied,” “I have a dream,” “let freedom ring,” “free at last”)
4. The effect of name personalization (e.g., my friends, you, me, we etc.)
5. The effect of location personalization (e.g., he lists key towns and cities where many of the members of his audience live)
6. The clarity of his speech – perfect annunciation and diction
7. The passionate nature of his voice – how can you motivate people if you’re not
8. The perfect pacing and changes in speech patterns (e.g., high, low, quick, slow)
9. The use of short phrases and sentences to drive home memorable key points
10. The fact that he used notes sparingly because he spoke from personal experience, believed in his message and thus knew it by heart – teleprompter be damned

Much is made about President O’Bama’s communication skills, but he’s far from being the skilled orator of Dr. King. The president has the Internet, a ton of communication consultants and speechwriters and his infamous TELEPROMPTER (which he uses entirely too much as a crutch). Dr. King had none of the tools that the President has at his disposal, but created such an amazing, impressive long lasting presence.

The President and all of us can learn a great deal about tolerance, patriotism and doing the right thing from Dr. King AND we can all learn a great deal about how to be a Marketing Rock Star too!

Happy Birthday and Rest in Peace Dr. King.

If you think young people these days are inconsiderate, selfish, concerned with only themselves and wear their “pants on the ground“…think again.

Soon after the devastating Haiti earthquake hit, @RedCross tweeted: “You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti.”

Kudos to the Red Cross marketing folks for being prepared (excellent online disaster newsroom) and recognizing the fundraising opportunity available to them in this terrible time of crisis.

And, much more kudos to the kids that drove this “texting bus” because they’re the ones credited with leading this Red Cross effort which has raised over $10 million for the cause since this record breaking mobile fundraiser was launched last Tuesday.

This is a great example of using technology to build rather than destroy.

Watch text marketing grow from this effort and put in on your list of things to test for your business too!

P.S.: Here is a list of 8 ways you can help Haiti by texting:

1. Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
2. Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
3. Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
4. Text HAITI to 20222 to donate $10 through the Clinton Foundation
5. Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
6. Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
7. Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International
8. Text RELIEF to 30644 (to connect with Catholic Relief Services who will instruct you how to donate money with your credit card)

…the 9th way to help is to pray.

You may complain every so often about the number of competitors you face, but consider yourself lucky you don’t work in the competitive nonprofit world. I know, with this economy, you sometimes feel you are a nonprofit…but that’s beside the point.

There are over 1,000,000 charities throughout the U.S. – some great and some not so great – and the Salvation Army is one brand that is head and shoulders above the bunch. It was recently ranked as the second strongest non profit power brand behind the YMCA.

The late great father and guru of modern day management Peter Drucker called the Salvation Army the most effective organization in the world.

The Salvation Army doesn’t have a brand problem, you see a Red Kettle and you know where the money is going. Due to the today’s economy, donations are down (as they are with most all non profits) and requests for services such as food and shelter are up.

However, with the expected downturn in end of the year donations, which are often a critical source of revenue for nonprofits, keep your eye on the Salvation Army because these folks rock in what they do and how they do it.

And, here are 15 reasons why the Salvation Army brand is so successful (and a few things Marketers can learn from them in terms of building a quality brand).

1. They do remarkable things – they rebuild and save lives
2. They have integrity – and their mission is a faith-based calling.
3. They’re authentic, honest, sincere, consistent, reliable and transparent
4. They have a consistent brand image served with key brand icons such as their Red Shield logo and Red Kettle (you see a Red Kettle you know where the money is going).
5. They have a great story and tell it over and over again wonderfully well (read Red Kettle Story here).
6. They know what they stand for and who they are (read 11 Articles of Faith) and read their 12 Position Statements here about abortion, alcohol and drugs, economic justice, euthanasia, gambling, homosexuality, human equality, human trafficking, marriage, pornography, religious persecution and suicide. Now, you may not agree with all of their positions, but you cannot argue that they do not know who they are and what they stand for…do you?
7. They’re a proven brand that’s been accountable for over 130 years which has made it one of the world’s largest and most trusted providers of social services
8. Most of their work is done without beating their own chests – their word of mouth buzz is delivered by the grateful people they serve
9. They’re transparent with their fundraising (83 cents of every dollar goes directly to providing services). The Army’s administrative costs are not charged against funds donated.
10. They get results
11. They’re typically the quickest responders to people in need (see Wall Street Journal article – Advantage: God – Why the Salvation Army beats the Red Cross – about the differences in their respective responses during September 11, 2001).
12. They generate multiple streams of revenue via many online and offline methods (e.g., Classic, Virtual and Mobile – Red Kettle Campaign in retail and heavily trafficked areas and online Virtual Red  Kettle Campaigns).
13. Their flat decentralized organizational model (e.g., each U.S. region typically controls its own e-mail campaigns) includes Salvation Army officers, staffers, lay people, volunteers and other committed fans. According to this USA Today article from a few years back, it coordinates nearly 4,000 officers, 113,000 soldiers, 420,000 members, 60,000 employees and 3.5 million volunteers. FYI by contrast, Wal-Mart, the largest private employer, has 2.1 million associates.
14. They have a rabid fan base of marketing partners and such as JCPenney (see online Angel Giving Tree program), Target and Wal-Mart.
15. As their donor base has been getting older, they’ve worked hard to be more modern and relevant and have ventured more heavily into Web 2.0 Marketing with Facebook (500+ groups), Twitter, iPhone apps, online banner ads on AOL, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Yahoo. They try to be everywhere their fans are – especially younger fans – and are into newer edgier tactics such as magic and stunts.

If you’re still looking for that perfect Christmas Gift to give, consider giving to the Salvation Army.

Merry Christmas and have a great New Marketing Year!

P.S.: Here’s an inspirational interview on the management philosophy of the Salvation Army’s National Commander Israel Gaither. He’s a heck of a guy – and why not – he’s from Pittsburgh!

I’ve posted several times about the benefits of cause related marketing and the fact that far beyond good business sense, it simply makes good sense to try to leave the world a bit better off because you have lived.

It’s great to support charitable causes that tie-in with your brand and in the communities in which you do business. However, it’s also great to add a two-prong strategy to not only support a local calling, but to answer a higher national calling as well.

A lot of my clients (especially hospitality and restaurant clients) supported veteran based initiatives this past week in honor of Veterans Day on November 11th.  If you thought about doing something similar, but couldn’t pull it together because of a lack of time, money or people power, it’s never too late.

If you’re looking for a great ways “how to” help nationally, consider supporting our hero veterans via the USO (United Service Organizations). I’d bet your clients and team members would embrace this effort too.

The USO lists several ways you can help support our troops such as:

• Gillette’s Operation USO Phone Home® Program
• NECCO’s “Red White and You”
• GivAClick
• MyBoneYard Recycling
• E-Bay Mission Fish
• Car Donations
• United Through Reading® Military Program

A really cool way to easily involve your team members is through Operation USO Care Package where care packages are distributed to deploying service members. Care packages may include snacks, entertainment items, toiletries, sunscreen and other basic bare essential requested by troops. With a donation of $25 you can sponsor a USO care package and include a personal message of support and encouragement. To support Operation USO Care Package, click here.

And, to support the Ft. Hood Community click here.

This could be your Holiday gift to yourselves too!

Here’s a great example how the World Wrestling Entertainment supports our troops and veterans causes.

The WWE approaches their veteran marketing support efforts the right way in that it’s part of their Brand DNA and not just “another program” or “promotion.”

P.S.: You got to love the USO’s tagline – mission statement – “Until Every One Comes Home.” Isn’t that the truth!

P.S.S.: The care package strategy could be a great tool for you to consider too. What about care packages to Children’s Hospital patients, retired homes, VFWs, American Legions, Freshmen in College from your local high school, elderly homes etc.,

One of the best ways to build a brand and do good at the same time is to tie your efforts to a great cause. A great example is Toms Shoes and their “one to one” strategy. It’s simple and perfect. With every pair of shoes you buy from TOMS, they will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. Love it!

It’s a powerful strategy. It created a movement.  And, it’s selling lots of shoes while helping to do a lot of good at the same time.

American Express’ efforts to restore the Statue of Liberty in the early ’80s is largely credited with the official start of the cause marketing movement. Their strategy was simple and clear. Offer a penny for every AMEX card use and a dollar for every new card issued. The result was two-fold. AMEX raised a ton of money for Lady Liberty and scored double digit transaction increases for their brand.

Is cause marketing part of your marketing plan?

What moves you?  What moves your employees? What moves your customers? What movement can tie into your brand achievements and/or your purpose? What good can you do to appeal to a lot of potential customers?

A 2008 Cause Survey from Barkley found that:

• 86% of women and moms say it is important for companies to support a cause
• 69% of moms stated they will try a brand because it supports a cause
• 58% will pay more for a brand that supports a cause she cares about

Great Brands stand for something and stand up for something too.

What do you stand for? What are you willing to stand up for and create a win/win for you and for others?

When you stand for something and stand up for others you have a good chance of being the last brand standing!

P.S.: Here’s a little bit of what we do.

Bravo and May God Bless Them!

It’s amazing how real visuals and a simple clear message presented in a personal and fun way can drive results.

I sure hope this isn’t a one time gig for the Catholic Church.

Just goes to show you that if business as usual isn’t building your business you need to take a different approach.

I’d love to know how it did for business. It’s certainly driving word of mouth buzz

P.S.: But wait there’s more from this new book about the history of infomercials.