According to their website, Benetton’s Unhate Foundation “Seeks to contribute to the creation of a new culture of tolerance, to combat hatred, building on Benetton’s underpinning values”.  The foundation’s website boasts future plans of a Global Unhate Day, and a giant “Unhate Dove” fabricated entirely out of recycled war bullets.

While taking on all of the hatred in the world could certainly do us all a little good and the campaign is sparking conversation around the globe, Benetton’s commitment to making a legitimate impact is a steep goal. Sure, they’re doing an excellent job of creating (both positive and negative) buzz about their brand and potentially even enticing consumers to purchase their exceedingly pricey clothing, but it is safe to say that a bunch of unorthodox ads will likely fall short of creating world peace. Consumers are looking for causes where their contributions may have a real effect on a final outcome. Knowing the amount of press and simple word of mouth viral activity the ads have created in a matter of weeks, it will be interesting to see how Benetton’s campaign to change the world plays out over the next several months.

And the video above fits that description to a T.

A proposed project from a couple of Miami Ad School students, Lisa Zeitlhuber and Katharina Schmitt, would create a plugin for the Google Chrome web browser that turns your spellchecker into a fundraising tool for UNICEF’s educational programs. Every time Chrome’s spellchecker catches you misspelling a word, the correction would be accompanied by an option to “donate your word” (at $0.10 a letter) to the program. Who’s going to be the hero that misspells “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” for the cause?

(Speaking of places where things are regularly misspelled, you did see yesterday’s Twitterphobics Anonymous post, right? If you’re in marketing and are terrified of Twitter, there’s your vaccine.)

On top of everything else we love about this campaign, the “donated” words get aggregated into a graphic that spells out “education” as more contributions are made. Using Driven by Data to spell out the program’s progress? We think that’s f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c.

Once marketers buy into Brand Patronage, there’s an understandable temptation to go after the biggest stars on the biggest stages. From a PR perspective, you’re pretty much guaranteed a big splash if you grab yourself a Lady Gaga or Black Eyed Pea (both will be making appearances in subsequent Brand Patronage coverage). But, remember that Brand Patronage isn’t just about half-assed testimonials from megastars; rather, it’s about forging partnerships where both the brand and the artist can flex their creative muscles in a collaborative effort. For this to work effectively, marketers must be careful about choosing artists (and a medium) that are the right fit for their brand.

That’d explain why you don’t see Macallan scotch working with, say, Katy Perry. In fact, the brand isn’t working with musicians at all. Rather, they’ve created a series called The Macallan Masters of Photography, which enlists some of the sharpest shooters in the field to tell the story of the Macallan production process. The latest installment features a project from Albert Watson, in which he is tasked with highlighting the Spanish sherry oak casks in which Macallan is aged. Fortunately, the brand didn’t add any other stipulations to the project; even Watson remarked, “The freedom and encouragement given to me allowed the creation of a visual journey demanding complete artistic integrity.” Watson settled on a story about a couple traveling from a Spanish forest to Scotland, and the end product (as seen in the video above) certainly evokes luxury, refinement, and distinction.

Of course, highlighting the wood is a pretty straightforward way of bringing the brand into the exhibition. But, there’s also more subtle branding being done through the choice of the medium. Photography is a slow process (in terms of setting up the shot), has a rich heritage, and focuses on minute details when it’s done right. These elements are certainly consistent with the brand attributes that Macallan is trying to cultivate, so their choice of both Watson and the medium of photography are appropriate for the brand. The campaign also supports amateur photographers with a contest, which encourages consumers to submit their own photos to be judged by Watson for a chance to win Nikon equipment. It’s a picture perfect extension to an already-compelling campaign.

But Macallan isn’t the only marketer peering through a viewfinder for inspiration. The Dali Museum, which recently opened in St. Petersburg, Florida, also turned to photography to promote (and help fund) the new attraction, although their campaign presents a stark contrast to the slow refinement of the Macallan project. For one, the Dali execution takes the traditional camera out of the mix, opting instead for a twist on the mega-popular Hipstamatic iPhone app. While the standard version of this app allows iPhone users to add all kinds of analog effects to their photos, the museum’s version (named the GoodPak – shown in the image below) expands these features to include elements of Dali-esque surrealism. They’ve also got their own user-submission contest, judged by – wait for it – John Waters. (C’mon, you know you chuckled at that.) While there are some other goodies included in the GoodPak, the most good comes from that fact that all proceeds from the Pak’s sales will go toward the museum. For more info on the app, head this way.

The Celeb Spotter from Ok Magazine is most definitely not one of those cases.

Yes, the iPhone app from this British tabloid taps their star-struck readers to crowdsource the real-time locations of Prince William or Posh Spice or whatever. If you catch a tabloid-topping celeb sipping tea in Chelsea (note: I clearly have no idea what celebrities like to do in the UK), you can add the data point to the collective map and let the hordes come a-runnin’ (are you worried, Zuckerberg?). While we can’t help but respond to this with a beaten-down “ugh,” the marketer in us does need to commend the brand for creating the kind of serendipitous experiences we discussed in a recent post. And in general, Celeb Spotter uses location in the manner we keep advocating: to make their marketing more relevant and meaningful for their consumers. Even if their consumers are superficial, celebrity-obsessed tools that are signaling the decline of civilization.

Alright, we need to get that taste out of our mouths. Surely, there are more important applications of real-time crowdsourced location data? Thankfully, yes. A US soldier named Jonathan Springer has developed an iPhone app called Tactical Nav that applies the Celeb Spotter idea to tracking the Taliban in Afghanistan. When soldiers have information about the locations of their enemies (or other objectives), the app empowers them to add this data to a collaborative map that other soldiers can access.

This same spirit of DIY location has popped up from an equally unexpected source: a Baltimore-based graffiti artist by the name of Gaia who has (geo-) tagged his own (graffiti) tags. His personalized Google map shows the locations of his current street art (as well as locations where his work has been removed), and includes links to Flickr photos of the relevant pieces. For brands that operate in the travel and hospitality space, or for any brand that could legitimately curate a tour of lesser-known locales, there’s lots to learn from this unlikely source.

An example that may be more applicable to our non-combat, graffiti-resistant clients (as well as our Cause with Effect trend) comes from a Northern Californian fire department that created an iPhone app called… well, it’s called “Fire Department.” While the firemen could benefit from a bit of creative inspiration when it comes to names, they’re perfectly fine on their own when it comes to life-saving innovation in the location space. As shown in the video at the top of this post, the app sends alerts to CPR-trained citizens when there’s a need for CPR in a nearby public place. The “nearby” element is crucial, since humans have about 10 minutes to survive after their heart stops beating, so locating a CPR-trained person in the vicinity can literally be a matter of life and death. Ahhh, knowing about this application  makes it so much easier to deal with the Celeb Spotter drivel up top. Hopefully other brands will consider ways to turn real-time location data into apps that really make a difference.

• Our #1 hit of 2010 was our celebration of the innovative marketing efforts of… a car company? An American car company?? Yep, Ford has Facebook all figured out, especially with their live launch of their 2011 Explorer. No other marketer demonstrated such a nuanced approach to engaging with consumers via Facebook. It’s the perfect case study for seamlessly applying all the features that Facebook has to offer, and giving consumers what they actually want from a brand on social media. (It’s also one of the reasons we wholeheartedly agree with Ad Age naming Ford marketer of the year for 2010.)
• Part of the impetus for naming Cause with Effect as a 2011 trend came from watching the shifts in cause marketing over the course of 2010. Pepsi Refresh was clearly the game changer in this category, but we put Levi’s “Ready to Work” campaign under the microscope because it really drove home the depth-over-breadth approach that we expect to become a bigger focus in 2011. Likewise, one of the few bright spots that came out of the Haitian disaster was discovering that enormous sums of charitable money could be generated by aggregating millions of small (mobile) donations. If only this breast cancer awareness gag could have tapped that tactic!
• Anyone could’ve told you that food trucks are poised to upend the restaurant world in 2011, but readers were enthusiastic about our coverage of non-food applications for the food truck fad.
• It’s not everyday that our readers get jazzed about billboards, but these outdoor spectacles changed that perception pretty quickly. Likewise, we think this might be the only time a conversation about sustainable packaging has ever been so damn sexy.

Head this way for Part 2!

Since yesterday’s augmented reality update was such a hit, that seems like the best place to start. You may remember us calling out Ben & Jerry’s in our Smartshot webinar on QR codes. At the time, we argued that the brand’s Target-exclusive flavors had missed an opportunity to provide more information about the charitable component to the shopper marketing program. We’d suggested that a QR code on the lid could have delivered that content effectively, which is true. Of course, bringing those programs to life through 3D augmented reality animations works, too. The video below shows how the brand’s iPhone app interacts with a variety of Ben & Jerry’s containers, and without the need for an AR marker. Consider our criticisms vanquished!

You may also remember us struggling a bit with the “I Like It On…” Facebook meme that, ostensibly, was intended to raise Breast Cancer awareness. Our critique focused on the fact that there wasn’t much of a payoff: no one used the campaign to raise money for research, and the in-on-the-joke approach made it difficult for outsiders to learn more about the issue. Fortunately, a campaign from Abraxis Bioscience (pictured at the top of the post) got the balance right. Abraxis created a site called sharethelittlethings.com, where women were encouraged to post stories about their own (or their loved ones’) breast cancer survival. The submissions (which could be posted to Facebook and Twitter, t00) ranged from encouragement to actionable advice, providing a legitimate emotional and practical impact for visitors. Better yet, Abraxis donated $1 to breast cancer research for every post, ensuring that this effort has a long-term impact, even after the campaign ends. Maybe it’s not quite as fun as the “I Like It On” joke, but at the end of the day, Abraxis’ approach sure seems to a more effective approach to cause marketing.

(Say, that sounds like a trend worth watching in 2011, doesn’t it? We bet that if you follow the Awesome Blog on Twitter, you’d be the first to find out!)

Part of the explanation for the rise of these machines is that they’re especially well suited to today’s consumer, who wants everything on-demand around-the-clock. (Geez, a little demanding, aren’t we?) Since vending machines don’t require an overtime salary, they can fill this need when your doors close. Basically, we’re trying to say that you can get fresh meat from your butcher in the middle of the night, okay?

It also doesn’t hurt that brands get humongous bang for their buc– err, footprint in a tough retailing environment. While traditional shopping malls generate about $330 per square foot, vending machines in malls are estimated to earn up to $10,000 in the same space (and, like everything else at the airport, that number is about four times higher there.)

Advances in technology are certainly helping, too. A prototype from a recent conference showed a vending machine that integrates PayPal accounts, QR codes, a smartphone camera and Twitter to allow consumers to make mobile e-payments for goods. Meanwhile, a Japanese company has created vending machines that use face and body recognition cameras to recommend drinks according to the customer’s profile (gee, I can’t imagine any scenario where this could backfire). And, just to prove the point that you can distribute anything via vending machines, there’s a line of Japanese machines that can now distribute live crabs.

The point isn’t that you need all of those bells and whistles to make the vending machine work; just know that the technology is available to make these machines as flexible as you can imagine. For instance, this vending machine that dispenses gold bars is, admittedly, ridiculous.  But, the fact that it dispenses the gold based on the real-time price of gold is the intriguing part – what kind of data could you integrate into your brand’s vending machine? A particular temperature? A number of tweets that mention the brand? A foursquare check-in at the location?

Some brands are turning the vending machine concept on its head, such as Pepsi’s Dream Machine pictured above. It’s a branded version of the Greenopolis Kiosk, which, in exchange for consumers recycling glass, plastic, and aluminum containers, provides participants with points that can be redeemed for travel, movies, shopping, and more. Pepsi’s version sweetens that pot by also contributing to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) for each item recycled, which is a nice touch.

Finally, you might remember when we shared Coke’s “Happiness Machine,” calling it out as an example of delighting consumers with hidden surprises. It’s interesting to consider that a vending machine is seen as an inherently fun way of making purchases, an insight that wasn’t lost on a new program that is replacing the snacks in high school vending machines with veggies that are dressed up to look like junk food (and it’s working, too!). If you go down this path, don’t miss that insight for your brand; be sure to make the interaction a fun experience.

“I like it on the kitchen chair…”

“I like it on the kitchen stool…”

Man, my Facebook friends like “it” on a lot of furniture.

There’s a decent chance that these inexplicable statements have popped up on your Facebook feed over the course of the week. If you’re a girl, you’re probably snickering because you’re in on the joke. If you’re a guy, you’re probably just confused.

Ok fellas, here’s what’s happening: the “it” is not exactly what you think it is. It’s a handbag, and your female friends are telling you where they like to put “it.” In the process, they’ve conspired to get you all worked up about “it,” knowing that once you started investigating the strange (and titillating) trend, you’d realize that this was all a viral stunt to get guys thinking about Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Whoa, that took an unexpected turn, didn’t it?

Yes, score another one for the ladies. Much like the bra color meme from a few months ago, they’ve managed to pull a fast one on the Facebook boys. It speaks to the viral power of a niche network, in which a shared secret among an intentionally exclusive group has generated an enormous amount of online conversations (as evidenced by the one million Google hits for the phrase). And, clearly, there’s a lesson to be learned here for the potential of viral cause marketing, since the mysterious nature of this conversation has driven participation through the roof. And of course, the payoff for breast cancer awareness has been…

Um, what has the payoff been? That part isn’t as clear.

And we’re not just saying that because this particular author happens to be a guy. (In fact, I happen to think most of the Rethink Breast Cancer work is exceptionally clever, and does drive breast cancer conversations – and donations! – among both men and women.) But, when the person finally makes the connection between “I like it on…” and breast cancer, where is the follow up? Where is a breast cancer nonprofit – or, one of the hundreds of brands on the breast cancer bandwagon – to jump in and, say, donate X cents for every “I like it on…” comment on Facebook? Or, why aren’t any of those one million Google queries pointing to something like, say, a cause-related celebrity video from Funny or Die? Or, why isn’t someone at least trying to aggregate these conversations in an interesting manner?

Without any of those outcomes, this Facebook meme seems like a dead end. It drives an enormous amount of curiosity among men, and creates a massive in-on-the-joke conversation for women. Those seem like two fantastic opportunities to make a legitimate impact in the fight against breast cancer, even if the creator of the meme didn’t have a particular goal other than generating a bit of conversation.

But then again, maybe you think your humble narrator is just jealous that he wasn’t in on the joke? Are we being hypocritical, since this meme did lead us to create a blog post speaking about breast cancer awareness? Are we just being a bunch of buzzkilling crankypants who should just relax and enjoy a fun little Facebook joke? We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this phenomenon in the comments below.

The latter is part of Levi’s “Ready to Work” campaign, which bluntly addresses the current struggles of the American worker. Not exactly a small problem with an easy solution, right? As a whole, the issue is overwhelming; even a significant contribution would likely have little effect on the problem at large. Instead, Levi’s focused on making legitimate, comprehensive improvements to a single community. Following the logic of Hometown Heroism, Levi’s forges an undeniable connection to the residents of Braddock, distinguishing the brand as one that’s willing to act rather than just talk. By building community centers, urban farms, and libraries, the campaign is making tangible, long-term improvements to the region.

Of course, calling attention to a brand’s charitable efforts always runs the risk of making the CSR campaign seem inauthentic. But, “Ready to Work” doesn’t feel that way; even the comments on the Youtube videos are uncharacteristically supportive. Why is this campaign connecting with consumers without coming off as a cheap stunt? We think there are a few explanations.

For one, the campaign is daringly innovative. How many brands would have the courage to take on the daunting task of reviving a depleted community? As articulated in a post from Ed Cotton, this campaign communicates a good foundational idea in an interesting, compelling manner. By collaborating with IFC and the Sundance Channel to document the in a video series, Levi’s ends up telling the story of grassroots community revitalization instead of running around yelling “Hey, look at what a nice company we are! No really, look!”

Moreover, consumers want brands to be more socially responsible, and seem to be more comfortable with marketers publicizing these campaigns as long as the efforts themselves are authentic. Even the most cynical critic has to acknowledge that Levi’s efforts are making a legitimate, measurable difference in Braddock, so publicizing these contributions is accepted (if not encouraged). The central idea of the campaign is more than a hollow marketing ploy; it is coming to life for real people.

And, these real results bring us back to the idea of “small” cause marketing. In our opinion, the third factor that explains the embrace of this campaign is the motivational power of getting something done. As we stated above, reviving post-industrial communities is a gargantuan task, but bringing just one to life is a feasible possibility, as demonstrated by this campaign. Levi’s is forging a blueprint for how this process could work, but also showing that these efforts do work, and are thus worth pursuing in the first place. And that’s why people who have no connection to Braddock specifically can relate to this campaign at large. It’s an example of a brand delivering on a series of small promises, and achieving big results in the process.

Well, almost on cue, Pepsi took a giant step towards redemption. Under the umbrella of their Refresh project, Pepsi earmarked $1.3 million to specifically address the Gulf recovery project, and are currently considering over 250 ideas. This approach is pitch perfect, with the smart folks at PSFK summing it up best:

“Pepsi’s approach feels honest and sincere – it doesn’t try to hype Pepsi’s role in the cleanup, but rather empowers consumers to play that role – the brand simply pledges financial backing to execute the best ideas. Additionally, it’s not overly sentimental (no images of dead birds, or burning turtles) – just an actionable, empowered attitude to help fix a problem.”

That’s exactly right, and brands looking to score an authentic CSR victory should take note. But, in the context of our earlier discussion about the Reputation Economy, there’s another lesson worth noting. We mentioned that reputation is now a long-term process that requires continuous attention, and if done properly, will resonate with consumers on a deep emotional level (even in spite of an occasional misstep). Sure, the Pepsi nutritional blog was a dumb move, but rather than fighting the blog’s critics, Pepsi acknowledged their mistake, took down the ill-advised project, and doubled-down on a cause program that will make a legitimate, impactful difference in the lives of an entire region’s population. Put another way, the way they undid their bad was to do even more good. And that, folks, is why it’s called the Reputation Economy. Your brand is the sum of a mental calculation, a tradeoff between the trust you’ve inspired in your consumers (both directly and indirectly) and the impacts you’re making on the world. Authentic, effective good deeds will go a long way towards tipping the scales in your favor.