Interesting tidbit today by Dan Pallotta in HarvardBusiness.org: Why Nonprofits Should Spend Money on Advertising – an article about the discrepancy between advertising expenditures of “gigantic brands” and “gigantic causes“. The article asserts that charities should be advertising alongside corporate brands – we ought to see ads for breast cancer, Darfur, and climate change, right alongside ads for BMW, Netflix, and Oprah.com.
While I agree that there is often a strong case for advertising for charities, I disagree with one fundamental assumption: that charity is equivalent to consumption. Here’s why: nobody would disagree that protecting an acre of rain forest will make THE world a better place, eventually. But that new BMW? That will make MY world a better place, right now.
The message is different: Improve the world, vs. improve your world.
If you remember Maslo’s Hierarchy of Needs, the higher self-actualization needs at the top (morality, creativity, problem solving, etc.) are not acted upon until the lower needs (self-esteem, respect of others, security, food, water, sex, etc.) are met. During a time of economic turmoil, more people are focusing more of their attention on satisfying their lower needs. They’ll respond better to ads for their lower needs than they will for philanthropic outreach. Thus, this time may be precisely the wrong time for charities to advertise.
If your organization had Disney’s advertising budget ($2.4 billion), how would you use it to connect with people on the same level as their Bimmer?
Thoughts?
2 Comments
Some lively commentary over on the original post:
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/pallotta/2009/05/why-nonprofits-should-spend-mo.html
Good thoughts on this. Advertising does have a place for nonprofits, and I think it’s underused. But advertising should always be considered a fundraising/marketing EXPENSE with the idea that getting the message out serves your constituents and will eventually bring in money and volunteers. It should be used as a fundraising TOOL only with great caution and under very specific circumstances.