Lethal Generosity: Unleashing Your Corporate Superpowers

Editor's Notes

• #2: BethSearch for photos in Flickr that give a visual for lethal or generosity or super powers
• #3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunechaser/142079357/
• #4: Shel Israel first coined the term “Lethal Generosity” in his book Twitterville. He used Molson Canada – a beer company – as the example.
• #5: Molson uses generosity as a key component of its branding and social media strategy. It helps its brand by being generous to many in great need. It’s active branding program invests more in safe transportation on New Year’s Eve than on alcohol-centered events. It’s part its alcohol responsibility program which includes Taxi Guy1-888-TAXIGUY is a nationwide network of 425 taxicab companies linked together through one, easy to remember, toll-free phone number and covering the cost of free public transit on New Year’s eve.http://blog.molson.com/community/2009/12/28/molson-coors-canada-taking-you-home-for-the-holidays-2009-campaign-wrap-up/http://blog.molson.com/community/2009/12/18/hey-toronto-your-fares-on-us-new-years-eve/Ferg, Tonia and I were up and at’em early to announce that Molson Coors Canada will help Torontonians get home safetly on New Year’s Eve once again this year.  Molson Coors will support the TTC’s free New Year’s Eve transit service, celebrating Toronto residents who choose to make the responsible choice and arrive home safely after ringing in the New Year.  The service will be offered from 12:01 a.m. (January 1, 2010) until 4 a.m. It is expected that over 100,000 people will ride the TTC during this time.We are happy to partner with the Toronto Transit Commission, the Liberty Entertainment Group and the other sponsors to help Toronto residents make the responsible choice this New Year’s Eve.  Let TTC be your designated driver this New Year’s Eve.This sponsorship is part of its 2009 Taking You Home for the Holidays campaign, which includes the sponsorship of free transit service on New Year’s Eve in Toronto, Ottawa, and Stratford, ON; Winnipeg, MB; and Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The campaign will also be active in Quebec through its Molson Angels, as well as in St. John’s, NL; Halifax, NS; Moncton, NB; Charlottetown, PE; Edmonton, AB; and Vancouver, BC, with the distribution of over $5,000 in TAXIGUY Dollars – the National Taxicab Currency for Canada.What’s important to us at Molson Coors Canada,  is that our products are consumed in a responsible way by all those who enjoy them. Responsible drinking and celebrating responsible choices is something that is on our agenda 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.Molson Coors Canada is proud to play its part to help people make the responsible choice to get home safely this holiday season, as well as throughout the year.Cheers and Happy Holidays, CaroleB
• #6: Molson’s small social media team, headed by FergDevins @molsonferg has a passion that runs in two directions. He’s the marketing guy who wants to sell beer. He believes in supporting Canadian communities particularly those in who need the most help. They use social media, twitter to initiate community generosity projects. In 2008, Daily Bread Food Bank announced that contributions had been sparse and unless something changed, homeless people would go hungry. Several Twitter social change users started to urge others in the community to do something to change the situation. Almost immediately a small group started to raise money through Twitter. @hohoto. They planned and started promoting a fundraising event. Devins and a colleague, Tonia Hammer, who were well known to the social media community- discovered it and offered to help. The Molson Team spread the word, using Twitter to urge a wider audience to attend and donate. 600 people attended and they raised $25,000 for the foodbank.
• #7: A few weeks later, when budget problems led the Toronto Transit Authority to cancel its New Year’s even free-ride transportation to save money in the budget – Molson launched a campaign to replace the public cutbacks with private sector donations, starting with its own $20K contribution.In a smart move of lethal generosity, Molson publicly invited competitor Labatt Breweries to join the campaign.Generosity is clearly tied to a branding strategy, transparent, real people. The result: People feel good about the company --
• #8: Kami Huyse
• #10: Source for the three parts of the def: http://geofflivingston.com/2010/02/18/authenticity-in-corporate-social-responsibility/Companies should focus on these areas when looking for places to give back.MISSION Giving aligned with the mission of the companyPROBLEM To improve by lessening their impact, carbon footprint, etcSTAKEHOLDERSResponding to the needs of corp ecosystem employees, distributers, partners, customers, etcSocial media continues to impact businesses and nonprofits in unforeseen ways. Perhaps the greatest trend of the moment is the fusion of corporate and philanthropic interests, which in turn is producing growing pains and change. It’s likely that the requirements of online transparency will demand a new era of authenticity in corporate community investment efforts.This trend results from demands for better corporate citizenship and community participation, transparency digressions, and frankly, very public cause marketing and corporate social responsibility programs that have exposed weaknesses in the social media realms. It’s a problem that keeps coming up, and won’t go away. This will force organizations and companies to become much more mindful about how they invest in their communities.
• #11: Beth Kanterhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_heigan/2104068252/Cause Marketing – direct sales transaction embedded in the campaigns – versus CSR which doesn’tDefinitionsCause marketing refers to a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a "for profit" business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The term is sometimes used more broadly and generally to refer to any type of marketing effort for social and other charitable causes, including in-house marketing efforts by non-profit organizations. Cause marketing differs from corporate giving (philanthropy) as the latter generally involves a specific donation that is tax deductible, while cause marketing is a marketing relationshipCorporate social responsibility (CSR), is a form of corporateself-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit. It also includes philanthropy - Giving Money, Donations, or Time to help a charity or cause.Manycompanies cannot discern the difference between these. Altruism often fails or is not thought out. In reality, most companies think, “Yeah, we’ll give some money to charity,” and let their executives figure out which ones. In the social media world, now they just outsource it to their communities (in both good and bad ways).We must accept this level of understanding and approach CSR/cause marketing in a manner that raises the general level of ethics at play. In either case, social media continues exposing weaknesses in cause marketing, which will force such initiatives to become more CSR-oriented. Moving forward, regardless of purpose, companies need to become much more authentic in their community investments. Authenticity means instead of simply throwing money at a cause or contest, they would directly address their missions, or the problems directly/indirectly created by their business. A third category — family — would be the causes that impact their employees, such as healthcare. generally not based on a donation. By being much more mindful in their cause initiatives, companies become better community citizens. And frankly, their online communities of interest will start demanding it.
• #12: Results, we would not call this lethal generosity.
• #13: KamiCause related marketing play, occasional useNo tie to employee related issuesNo tie to mitigating negative impactsNo Mission, excapt it gives another t-shirt to wash
• #14: Beth Kanter
• #20: Source for the three parts of the def: http://geofflivingston.com/2010/02/18/authenticity-in-corporate-social-responsibility/Companies should focus on these areas when looking for places to give back.MISSION Giving aligned with the mission of the companyPROBLEM To lessen their impact, carbon footprint, etcFAMILY Responding to the needs of employeesSocial media continues to impact businesses and nonprofits in unforeseen ways. Perhaps the greatest trend of the moment is the fusion of corporate and philanthropic interests, which in turn is producing growing pains and change. It’s likely that the requirements of online transparency will demand a new era of authenticity in corporate community investment efforts.This trend results from demands for better corporate citizenship and community participation, transparency digressions, and frankly, very public cause marketing and corporate social responsibility programs that have exposed weaknesses in the social media realms. It’s a problem that keeps coming up, and won’t go away. This will force organizations and companies to become much more mindful about how they invest in their communities.
• #21: Source for the three parts of the def: http://geofflivingston.com/2010/02/18/authenticity-in-corporate-social-responsibility/Companies should focus on these areas when looking for places to give back.MISSION Giving aligned with the mission of the companyPROBLEM To lessen their impact, carbon footprint, etcFAMILY Responding to the needs of employees, distributers, partners, customers, etcSocial media continues to impact businesses and nonprofits in unforeseen ways. Perhaps the greatest trend of the moment is the fusion of corporate and philanthropic interests, which in turn is producing growing pains and change. It’s likely that the requirements of online transparency will demand a new era of authenticity in corporate community investment efforts.This trend results from demands for better corporate citizenship and community participation, transparency digressions, and frankly, very public cause marketing and corporate social responsibility programs that have exposed weaknesses in the social media realms. It’s a problem that keeps coming up, and won’t go away. This will force organizations and companies to become much more mindful about how they invest in their communities.
• #22: Kami Huyse
• #23: Authentic (Connected or In The Loop): An ability to cater to an heightened customer expectation for a company to listen and respond in real time Nimble: Ability to quickly change direction as opportunities arise and a process in place to incrementally release anticipated information. Responsive: The ability to accelerate solutions to customer problems Matrix (Organized): Tightly integrated internal collaboration to bypass antiquated bureaucracy Value Centric (Accountable): Accountability by internal players to both the business objectives of the company and the needs of the stakeholder Super Hero Corporate Culture? What are these? Principles?TrustAuthenticityEmpathy (outside the box – wired to care stuff – sign language visuals)What else does a corporate culture need to have or behave to implement lethal generosity strategy successfully?Authenticity- Trust inspired and inspiring   "All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not quite so equal, people still want to do business with their friends."  - Jeffrey Gitomer, Little Teal Book of Trust   http://geofflivingston.com/2010/02/18/authenticity-in-corporate-social-responsibility/  Extending Outside the Box Companies that deploy lethal generosity tend to extend their internal values to their communities and vendors. 
• #24: Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s book – matrix - by-pass bureaucracyNot having silosCross functional teamOranizationalNetwork Analysis Rob Cross
• #26: Beth Kanter
• #27: BethKanterhttp://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/11/new-twists-or-tweets-on-click-fundraising.htmlVanilla Honey Bee ice cream is crafted to give thanks to the unstung heroes of ice cream production, the honey bees. Honey bees pollinate more than 100 crops of nuts, berries and fruits, many of them used in making some of Häagen-Dazs ice cream’s most treasured flavors.But these petite pollinators are being threatened; over the last two winters more than 1 in 3 bee colonies has died nationwide putting our all-natural food supply and beloved flavors at risk. The Häagen-Dazs brand realizes the importance of these hard workers and is proud to commit to being a part of the solution by continuing the Häagen-Dazs loves Honey Bees™ campaign in 2009. The program focuses on spreading awareness and educating ice cream lovers about the alarming plight of these disappearing pollinators and what can be done to help them.Last year, the Häagen-Dazs brand showed their honey bee appreciation by bringing back a classic limited edition Häagen-Dazs ice cream flavor combination, vanilla and honey. Due to enormous consumer support Häagen-DazsLimited Edition Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream is now a permanent member of the Häagen-Dazs flavor line up.A portion of the proceeds from each container of Vanilla Honey Bee and other bee-built flavors
• #29: More and more we are seeing fundraisers incorporate Retweet This Message or Use This HashTag to leverage donations from a corporate sponsor or to simply spread the fundraising message from friend to friend.  This transition began a year ago as Twitter came into its own as a charitable gift spreader. (See my Twitter Fundraising Timeline.)   We've also seen some versions of Twitter fundraisers not do too well - take for example this follow me Twitter and I'll donate a dollar to a charity or applications that integrated donation engines in Tweets.TwitCause, a service not unlike the popular fundraising application Causes on Facebook, only built on top of Twitter has been implementing some new interesting twists on click fundraising on Twitter.  As a basic service, TwitCause will find a cause to support (partially based on community feedback) and use Twitter to drive awareness for it. They also ask that you donate some money.   Here's an example of a campaign to raise money on TwitCause for honeybee research. The fundraising campaign added some extra buzz, a sponsor, Ice cream maker Häagen-Dazs,  willing to pay for any Twitter user who tweets out the support for the cause.  The sponsorship worked liked this: Häagen-Dazs was offering to donate $1 per tweet for the first 500 people that tweet everyday with the hashtag #HelpHoneyBees. The money was donated to UC Davis research project to further look into Colony Collapse Disorder, as well as help fund the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, which aims to teach people about how to create their own honeybee farms.   I got some of the back story form Julio Vasconcellos, VP for Business Development, for the Experience Project which operates TwitCause.  "I think the #HelpHoneyBeeshashtag campaign was very effective and helpedraise $7k for the honey bee research as well as get Häagen-Dazs some great exposure around the contributions they've been making to the cause (and of course, to their brand)."For those that want the numbers:6,818 tweets sent out during the official week (several more before) by 3,294 unique TwitterersTotal followers reached was slightly over 5MM (these are non-unique followers, basically a sum of all the followers of each of those 3kTwitterers)Total Twitter impressions generated 12.4MM (here an "Twitter impression" is anytime a follower is presented with a tweet - if I have 100 followers and tweet twice, that's 200 "Twitter impressions")Häagen-Dazs donated $7,000 to UC Davis for research into colony collapse disorder which is afflicting honey bee populationsParticipation from some celebrities and notables Vasconcellos predicts that we'll be seeing more and more sponsored tweet programs of all shapes and sizes. There are already a number of active causes on TwitCause.  And some are building their own Twitter Fundraising Drive pages for sponsored Tweet Campaigns.   Here's one to benefit Make A Wish Foundation, each tweet will drive a 5 cent donation from LeapFish to raise $10,000 to send a sick child to Disneyland.  That's 200,000 tweets which compared to these other efforts seems like an ambitious goal.  I hope they make it for Jacob's sake or if not I hope they just donate the money anyway.
• #30: Kami Huyse
• #34: http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/12/charities-cry-foul-on-chase-facebook-charitable-giving-contest.html