Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Products of caring companies are seen as superior

New research just released shows that corporate social goodwill can elevate a company’s profits by improving consumers’ perceptions of its products, but only when it’s seen as genuine.[Chernev, Alexander and Sean Blair (2015), “Doing Well by Doing Good: The Benevolent Halo of Social Goodwill” Journal of Consumer Research Summary]

New research shows that social goodwill increases the perceived quality of your products

Your products will only be perceived as better when your Social Responsibility Policies are motivated by an authentic values-led strategy, rather than thinly-veiled self-interest and hopeful publicity...

charity: water, a nonprofit that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations, is leading the way when it comes to redefining nonprofit marketing; they are exceptional at inbound marketing, focusing on creating powerful content to inspire people to join their cause. Their marketing has tangible results: in 2012 alone they raised $33 million, and over $8 million of that was raised through their online fundraising platformplatform.

While it might not be possible for other nonprofits to perfectly emulate charity: water´s marketing strategy––in fact, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for them to try given that each nonprofit has a distinct mission, target audience and way of operating––all would benefit from applying even just a few of the lessons we can learn from their incredible marketing. With that in mind, here are nine marketing lessons other nonprofits can take away from charity: water...

Online search is increasingly the vehicle through which many people find out, inform themselves and learn about most things they are interested in.

Although its commercial interests, profit-driven business model, secretive approach, and some of its technology limitations would really not suggest to leave that much power to Google, many of our information decisions are influenced, if not altogether driven by what this search engine suggests back to anyone of our queries.

As a consequence search plays a very critical role in our present society, and it would only seem wise for all that we do not readily accept the idea of relying on an auto-generated list of popular web sites ranked by a set of secret algorithms.

But, the reality is that without really being much aware of it, we have slowly but vastly delegated to Google the task of deciding for us what is most relevant and what is not, over just about any topic we can think of....

UBC studies suggest all those ribbon campaigns might not be that effective in raising cash...

A study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia came to some sobering conclusions.In a series of experiments conducted in the field and the lab, researchers asked participants to show their support for various causes. In one study, one group was given a poppy to commemorate Remembrance Day and asked to put it on immediately. Another group was given a poppy in a sealed envelope to take away with them. A third group, given neither a poppy nor an envelope, acted as a control. Individuals in all three groups were then asked to make a donation to support Canada’s war veterans. (The money raised was, in fact, donated.)

Individuals who had accepted the poppy in a sealed envelope donated significantly more than those in the other two groups....