Cause-Marketing is an often overlooked opportunity for authentic brand engagement backed by deep and rich content creation. One brand, The Hartford, has done a wonderful job showcasing how the right cause, enhanced by the right content and an authentic long-term relationship can make an impact on their brand.
A Core Set of Values
Most brands have a core value or set of values. One of best ways to get that core message across to your audience is by aligning your brand with a cause that people already do or should support. This helps the cause and also shows your audience that you stand behind your core values.
One of the most interesting pieces of how social media works is that it allows people to take action to show their support with just a click — while opening the door to much deeper engagement. By building messaging and online properties and aligning with the right cause you can actually help raise awareness, drive action, and inspire people while strengthening your brand’s online presence.
The Hartford
Achieve Without Limits - The Hartford
The premiere example of this type of storytelling and alignment is The Hartford’s partnership with the Paralympics and the Achieve Without Limits campaign.
Together, they’ve built a robust ecosystem of web properties, produced targeted, high quality content, and rolled out an extremely successful social-media-first distribution strategy. I highly recommend looking through their eBook to see the depth and breadth of their strategy and success. We’ve tried to boil-up their approach into a few key lessons:
Find an authentic fit
A ’cause’ can mean a million different things. It doesn’t have to be something already recognized as a cause. It just has to be something your brand and others can get behind.
But the key element is that there is a connection between your brand and your cause that makes sense. The Hartford was already heavily involved with the core group, “we changed the paradigm of disability insurance by focusing on an individual’s abilities instead of limitations.” But on an even broader level, The Hartford believed all limitations could be overcome, and wanted to tell that story.
What to ask yourself?
Ask yourself what are some of the things that your brand and your products are invested in long term. What do you believe in? What type of belief would inspire people to buy your products and also support a cause? This isn’t callous calculation. It’s considering how to partner in such a way that your involvement with the cause will raise all ships.
Align Campaign messaging with your brand messaging
The Hartford is really tuned into the fact that their unique value as a company and subsequent brand messaging should carry through their media outreach. That’s because they are in touch with who they are and they allow that identity to drive their marketing. This graphic from the eBook shows how vital it is to the whole campaign.
The Brand Essence: The Hartford
This alignment can also be aspirational. Where is your brand now, and where does it want to be? By aiming towards where you want to be, you set up motivation for lifting up the whole partnership.
Inspire
Achieve Without Limits is successful because it is genuinely inspiring. This isn’t merely a matter of throwing their logo on something. One of the cornerstones of the campaign are TV commercials and online video that show incredible achievements of these athletes.
They let the athletes tell their own stories. But they put the effort into producing a platform for the stories that amplifies the amazingly inspiring stories for everyone to hear, resonate with, and share.
What to ask yourself?
What can your engagement do to inspire people? What stories can you tell that people need to hear and will want to share with their friends and family?
Stay focused
The way the entire Achieve Without Limits campaign stays true to its messaging and it’s goals is, in itself, an inspiration. On Facebook, a 30-second ad, or in a PR event, the team is committed to empowering the athletes and their supporters. The message is simple but carried through and filtered through many lenses. But it’s never watered down.
Often, brands are tempted to feel like they need to try and “get their message in.” They veer away from the authentic partnership to try and push for some more marketing-speak. Don’t get sucked into that.
If you have the right partner, you’ve aligned the messaging, and you’ve managed to make something that resonates, you are in great shape. Instead of speaking at your audience, remember you’re building something with them. Stay focused and don’t be afraid and try to exercise excess control.
Think Big
The final piece of putting together the puzzle is to remember to think big. The Hartford was able to make beautiful content and promote a lot of deserving athletes. They had a strong content calendar and an intriguing call to action whereby they would donate money for Facebook Likes. They built a pathway for people to get involved.
It’s a beautiful ramp building the entire brandscape. But what is it building towards?
When I watch these videos and get inspired, I can’t help but think, “Why not go even bigger?” with the content. Take the approach of a documentary like Word Wars and follow these athletes. Go deeper into their stories.
Don’t just think in terms of a limited engagement, dream of how big you could grow the campaign an the idea and work towards it.
