Picking a project...

This blog will serve as a collection point for my thoughts/ideas/struggles as I prepare a marketing plan for a social-marketing oriented project or initiative. Per our syllabus: The purpose of this blog is to reveal and explore the process you undertook in approaching your marketing plan; other people reading the blog should be able to gain some insights into how best to approach a social marketing case.

In one week I will be submitting a case proposal, so posts this week will focus on my process of scoping out an interesting social-marketing project to focus on. For class purposes, social-marketing has been defined as marketing for positive social change. While I have had many ideas of what to delve into with my project, my ideas generally fall into a few categories:

• CSR at the corporation: My loose definition is that this is generally either a corporation embarking on a CSR project and promoting it for increased awareness/visibility, OR it also can be a corporation partnering with a nonprofit and sharing proceeds. For example: Nike campaigns for carbon neutrality and for improving factory conditions. Yoplait partnering with Komen. Target's Take Charge of Education project (which has donated $273 million since 1997). Ideas along these lines for my project: the Red campaign, Pur (water purification company) and their recent campaign for clean water in developing companies. Starbucks and its various social marketing campaigns such as supporting fair trade.
• NGO or nonprofit cause-related marketing: Campaigns centered more within nonprofits. I am interested in exploring companies further that I have been involved with in the past: American Red Cross, Sue Duncan Foundation, AmeriCorps, a Science Center, and more.
  

Over the next few days I'll be teasing out all of these ideas, and probably more! Stay tuned...