YouTube Nonprofit Channel

YouTube, the leader in online video sharing, has announced a new way for people to kill time. In a good way, that is. Perhaps best known for costing companies millions of dollars in lost productivity to “educational entertainment,” YouTube will no longer just be the go to hub for the popular funny cat and exploding diet Coke and Mentos videos.

With the launch of the YouTube Nonprofit Program, the online world of video sharing is redefining “educational entertainment.” At the end of September, YouTube announced at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) the new nonprofit program that makes it even easier for supporters, volunteers and donors to connect with their organizations.

Wielding the title “Broadcast Your Cause,” the YouTube Nonprofit Program is a commitment from YouTube to the 2007/2008 CGI to enable nonprofits that register to receive a free nonprofit specific channel where they can customize a home page and upload videos, public service announcements and calls to action. The channel also allows nonprofits the option to drive fundraising using the new (and free) Google Checkout for Nonprofits.

To be fair, I will point out that several hundred nonprofit organizations did utilize YouTube to tell the world about their causes prior to the new nonprofit channel. But most of this content gets lost in the clutter. The new initiative provides a unique platform that opens new doors for nonprofits to reach mass audiences without even glancing at their budgets.

At its launch, there were a dozen nonprofits with a specific YouTube nonprofit channel. About a month later, it doesn’t look like very many nonprofits are jumping at the opportunity. Need some motivation? Currently, YouTube is in the range of 200 million video views per day (with about 200,000 new videos uploaded daily). By the end of 2008, it’s looking pretty likely that YouTube could reach the 1 billion views per day milestone.

We encourage all our clients to seize opportunities like these, and it doesn’t just apply to nonprofits. We’re working on mission-driven marketing campaigns that bridge the gap between nonprofits’ causes and for-profits’ corporate philanthropic initiatives. The world of cause branding is win-win and we’re striving to bring our expertise in mission-driven marketing to companies looking to take advantage of channels like these. Stay tuned.

2007 ANA “Masters of Marketing” Conference

I had the privilege of attending the 97^th annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers a few weeks ago in Phoenix, Arizona. 1,200 gathered to network and listen to some of the most powerful minds in marketing and advertising address the theme “Transforming the Marketing Landscape.” I took away several key messages about this transformation that I think are quite timely and have implications for anyone with marketing responsibilities.

Jim Stengel, global marketing officer for Proctor & Gamble, said building brand advocacy is the key to sustaining loyalty among today’s consumer. Stengel sees brand advocacy as action-oriented marketing. This is in comparison to traditional, but passive, brand awareness efforts. Turning consumers and customers into brand champions, enabling them to be the most vocal and visible advocates for your brand, is also a great way to create emotional connections between consumers and the brands they support. I was especially interested in brand advocacy as it is essentially the product of mission-driven marketing. It’s the heart of the work our firm is doing for many of our for-profit and not-for-profit clients.

Chuck Brymer, president & CEO of DDB, a firm I spent 12 years at, talked about the present challenges of today’s marketer to find ways to change the way people think and the best ways to influence people’s behavior. As we move full speed ahead through the 21^st century, technology has truly transformed the marketing landscape. Nontraditional media has exploded, creating what he calls “swarm behavior.” He related it to how fish in the sea move together even though there is no leader. The key is figuring out how we can influence the swarm.

Brymer added that not everything has changed. We still need to address “the herd:” to create awareness, build brand images and connect emotionally with a passive audience watching TV or reading a magazine. But more and more we will need to learn to work closely with a highly engaged, active swarm. It is not an audience in the traditional form. It is not looking to marketers to be influenced. The real new media, the swarm, is you and me, people talking to one another.

To engage the swarm, we need to move from creating communications to creating communities, increasingly focused on creating relationships with connected groups of people. Tying this back to what Stengel said about building brand advocacy, we need to think about the way we’re reaching out to our brands’ passionate advocates to help spread messages from peer to peer. By mobilizing and influencing the swarm to take action for the brands they support via conviction, collaboration and creativity, today’s marketer can begin to face the biggest challenge of swarm behavior: to get the swarm to move toward you.