No-L-ita Shock Campaign: Cause Marketing Analysis
As promised in my earlier post on the No-L-ita. No Anorexia. campaign, I was able to get in a quick conversation this week with Katya Andresen (nonprofit marketing expert/blogger and the author of Robin Hood Marketing) to get her thoughts. To remind you – the image in question is disturbing, so I’m not including it here – but you can go to that site to check it out, if you are interested.
Katya started out by asking the question: Is the campaign art or marketing? If it is art, and meant to provoke reaction in the viewer, the campaign achieves some success. If it is meant to be cause marketing, however, it is not successful – and fell into at least two common traps, according to Katya (paraphrased below):
1) There is no clear audience in mind. Who does this image speak to? The fashion world or young women suffering, or who have the potential to suffer, from anorexia? It likely doesn’t speak to many of us marketing types considering it right now. More specifically, it fails even for an audience of anorexic young women, because they are known to have a distorted self-image and wouldn’t see themselves in that photo at all. The image/campaign doesn’t mirror any audience.
2) There is a call-to-action problem. This is rampant in cause marketing. As all good marketers know, you should never settle for getting attention. Being aware and doing something are two very different things. With this image, the marketers have startled people and not told them what to do. The No-L-ita site does nothing more than say who the photographer was and why he’s famous. For example, there is no "click here to donate to anorexia prevention" nor is there any sort of education link, like "click here for more information on helping loved ones get help." Viewers see the image and can do nothing with whatever feelings it evokes. All that anyone can see on the No-L-ita site is products, and no substance about the supposed cause.
Finally, Katya spoke of the common problem of "apocalypse appeal," wherein the message is so overwhelming, the public’s reaction is inertia. Cause marketing needs to help the public believe they can actually do something. One great example currently is the 18seconds.org "switch your lightbulbs" effort. Anyone can go to that site and take an action, and see that it makes a difference in their state’s rankings. (Vermont clearly has to get on the stick, so maybe I can help spread the word.)
For more analysis of nonprofit and cause marketing, check out her blog. Examples we can all learn from (even if we aren’t in the nonprofit realm).
