May 20, 1999 | Read Time: 13 minutes
Groups try to stay ahead of rivals by adopting a marketable identity
After Daniel Aukin became artistic director of New York’s Soho Repertory Theatre last September, a member of
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the board gave him some advice about how to make the theater better-known as a hothouse for provocative plays.
The board member, a former marketing executive at Procter & Gamble, suggested that Soho Rep apply some of the same concepts used to market Pampers and Mr. Clean to the world of avant-garde theater. Analyze what consumers think of everything from the theater’s logo and seating capacity to its image on the New York arts scene, she told Mr. Aukin. Then promote the playhouse in a bold and consistent way that sets it apart from the competition and encourages loyalty among its customers.
Mr. Aukin was skeptical. “It sounded like something you would do if you were trying to sell potato chips,” he says. But after trying out the approach, Mr. Aukin became a believer. “I found it incredibly useful,” he declares.
Soho Rep is far from the only non-profit organization that is embracing what marketers of Coca-Cola and Nikes call “brand identity.” In recent months groups as diverse as United Way of America, the Museum of Science, in Boston, and the U.S. Committee for UNICEF have undertaken so-called branding programs, and the list is growing.
Non-profit groups use the term “branding” to describe many different strategies, but in general it denotes a holistic marketing approach in which a group’s mission and image come together in ways that build allegiance among donors, clients, and the public at large.
The branding idea has become especially popular as organizations seek to get ahead of their rivals in the race for public attention and revenue. Some organizations use the strategy to sharpen their fund-raising and advertising literature. Others employ branding techniques to sell merchandise or forge alliances with for-profit companies.
“Branding is hot because the competition for funds is intensifying,” says Diane Whitty, vice-president for marketing and development at the U.S. Committee for UNICEF and a former sales executive at Avon Products.
Not only can branding bring in dollars and volunteers, proponents say, but it also can help charities gain a greater voice in public-policy deliberations.
“When you have a focused identity and integrated communications, you’re seen as a player at the table,” says Stephen Abbott, a spokesman at Volunteers of America, a 103-year-old social-services charity that will announce a nationwide, $200,000 branding effort next month.
Despite branding’s gathering momentum, many observers are skeptical about the trend. They fear that branding will lead non-profit groups to lose sight of their program goals in the bid for revenue, visibility, and donor loyalty.
“I understand why people are moving in this direction, but I am cautious about it,” says Rebecca Leet, an Arlington, Va., consultant who specializes in non-profit management and marketing issues. “At the same time that I’m hearing people talking about branding, I’m not hearing the word ‘mission’ in that conversation, and that’s what gives me real concern.”
Indeed, branding has the potential to backfire on charities. Donors who sense that they are being wooed with slick slogans or baseless claims could bolt. Employees and volunteers at local affiliates of big national charities could resist buying into a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy.
And if too many charities adopt the branding approach, consumers might become as confused about where to give their money or time as they are about what kind of laundry soap or salad dressing to buy.
Still, advocates say branding is an important evolutionary step in non-profit marketing and promotion as groups try to stand out in a growing welter of competing messages.
“If you don’t brand yourself, focus your message, integrate your message delivery, and use every means at your disposal to get your message out there, you are going to be lost in this message bombardment,” says Mr. Abbott.
Adds Cynthia Round, the Soho Repertory Theatre board member who urged Mr. Aukin to adopt a branding strategy: “Most non-profit institutions are a brand already. The question is whether they are defining, articulating, and managing it to their advantage.”
Boston’s Museum of Science recently undertook a branding program that includes a retooled, kinetic-looking logo and a new marketing slogan: “It’s alive.” Both are designed to create an image of the museum as exciting and constantly changing. The goal is to make the museum — already well known in Boston — an even more familiar name, and to encourage patrons to visit again and again.
The logo and tag line appear not only in ads and museum literature, but also on merchandise that is sold in the museum’s shops. “Often, when we think of non-profits, we don’t think of wanting to perpetuate ourselves commercially,” says Kevin Jamka, the museum’s retail-sales manager. The branding project is a “recognition of that necessity.”
Still, branding “goes well beyond just image and perceptions,” says Ms. Round. “It’s not just a name or logo. It’s the personal experience of using that service or organization and the delivery of a consistent experience.”
At the Soho Repertory Theatre, patrons and artists expect their experience to be “innovative,” “daring,” “experimental,” and “sometimes extreme” — all words that surfaced in research that Ms. Round produced for the theater.
Mr. Aukin says the research has informed his thinking about how Soho Rep should be marketing itself in New York’s artistic milieu. Already, he has changed the type font on the theater’s business cards and letterhead to a style he describes as “downtown” and “witty.”
The theater’s advertising — stark black-and-white images splashed with a gaudy primary color — reflects Soho Rep’s image of simplicity and audacity rolled into one. And soon the theater’s lobby will be painted in striking hues to “fit in with the brand,” Mr. Aukin says. Before Ms. Round wrote the branding plan, he says, “I probably would have considered very calm colors.”
“So much of branding is about creating consistency,” Mr. Aukin explains, “so that when an audience member or prospective member interacts with the theater — whether they’re seeing a show, waiting in the lobby, seeing a poster on the street, or receiving a post card or letter — there is a consistency and a vision behind those interactions.”
Like Soho Rep, Volunteers of America is seeking to raise its visibility, but its task is significantly more complicated than the one that Mr. Aukin faces.
With 11,000 paid employees and 30,000 volunteers in 43 affiliates nationwide, Volunteers of America offers several hundred separate programs for groups ranging from homeless or elderly people to children and former prisoners.
Despite the organization’s size and scope, however, only 8 per cent of the public has either heard of Volunteers of America or knows what it does, according to the charity’s research. Those who do know about Volunteers of America are likely to think it is active only in their own city or town.
“We realized we needed to raise our national awareness, build and focus our identity, and say who we are,” says Mr. Abbott.
To do that, Volunteers of America has been developing a branding project that it will formally introduce next month. The campaign calls for an integrated marketing strategy that encompasses radio, television, and print messages, a redesigned World-Wide Web site, and a clearer definition of the charity’s mission. The effort comes complete with a slogan: “There are no limits to caring.”
The aim of the branding project is to make sure that volunteers, rank-and-file employees, program heads, and top executives all have a uniform view of the organization’s mission and that they communicate that view consistently to the public, Mr. Abbott says.
The project began last year with an audit of the charity’s internal communications — a “snapshot of our internal beliefs and perceptions,” as Mr. Abbott describes it.
Then Volunteers of America looked to the outside world for reactions. It conducted a poll on public perceptions of the charity, and it presented a series of potential “position statements” to eight focus groups made up mostly of people with no prior contact with the charity. One statement — “Volunteers of America does whatever it takes to help people in need” — was based on words that the charity’s founder, Ballington Booth, had used more than a century ago.
The focus groups were not impressed. Mr. Abbott says they viewed the statement as being “unfocused and haphazard.” Inside the organization, he says, “the statement had a great deal of impact, but we were talking to ourselves. It didn’t resonate with the public, which is where we need to be speaking.”
Besides, he says, many people who heard the phrase wondered, “How can you do everything?”
Volunteers of America officials took the internal audit, opinion poll, and focus-group research to heart. They eventually adopted a statement that describes the charity as a “national non-profit, spiritually based organization providing local human-service programs and opportunities for individual and community involvement.”
Those words will be the basis for what Mr. Abbott calls an “integrated, multimedia campaign.” Included, he says, will be print and broadcast announcements that tell individuals, corporations, foundations, and other groups that they can “help change lives in your community” by becoming involved with Volunteers of America.
The United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York undertook a branding program two years ago that was aimed at revitalizing the organization’s image, attracting more money and a higher proportion of younger donors, and elevating the federation’s profile in its seven-county service area.
“The organization needed to reframe itself and address some of the complicated cultural and environmental changes that we were facing,” says Gail Hyman, who oversaw the federation’s branding program before moving to United Jewish Communities, a newly formed national organization that also is undertaking a branding effort.
The federation found in market research that only one-third of its donors were under 65 years of age, Ms. Hyman says. The goal of the branding project, she adds, was to make the donor pool “more reflective” of the Jewish population in the New York area, with perhaps half of the donors under 65.
“We wanted to be known as a relevant, current, forward-thinking organization that is attractive on a bunch of different fronts,” she says. “Bottom line, it translates into more people engaged with the federation both as donors and volunteers.”
With help from an outside consultant, the federation set about revamping the image it presents publicly. It created a lengthy “promise statement” that Ms. Hyman says will serve as the “spine” of all communication done by the federation. A key part of the statement is the phrase, “committed to living the values of tzedakah.” Tzedakah is a Hebrew word that denotes the obligation of the Jewish people to care for those in need.
The branding program, Ms. Hyman says, “also led to changes in our logo, the way we treated our name, and how we presented ourselves in visual, audio, and broadcast presentations. Anything from letterhead right through to campaign literature — our direct mail, almost any form of communication — was scrutinized.”
One visible sign of the change: The federation created a series of icons, including the Star of David, that it is portraying in soft flowing watercolors. “The core idea of the graphic treatment is that it translates to contemporary, free-flowing” imagery, Ms. Hyman says. “It suggests the future, that we’re turning our old identity on its head.”
Not only that, says Ms. Hyman, but the merging hues suggest the nature of the Jewish people themselves. “We’re one people, but we come from many different places and we kind of flow together,” she says. “There are many different points of view about Judaism, but we’re held together as a people.”
Paul Kane, a top development officer at the federation, says that the branding campaign is too new to know exactly how it is affecting fund raising. But he says that it probably has helped already. The federation’s capital campaign had brought in $106-million through the first week of this month, $5-million ahead of last year’s pace. Some of this year’s campaign literature came from the branding program, Mr. Kane notes.
Another East Coast organization, the New York Botanical Garden, is studying how it can apply branding techniques to revenue-producing ventures related to its horticultural mission. Those ventures could include the publication of garden books, sales of garden tools and accessories, retailing over the Internet, and licensing agreements with outside companies, says John Rorer, the organization’s chief operating officer.
“We’re operating in an environment in which government support is shrinking,” Mr. Rorer says, noting that city, state, and federal support for the botanical garden has been declining in recent years. “It’s very necessary that we find ways to compensate. This is one avenue.”
Mr. Rorer says branding is “an attempt to define the essence of the organization, what it stands for, and what its authority is.” The garden’s authority includes its 108-year history, its natural amenities, and its long tradition of scientific research and education. The challenge, Mr. Rorer says, is to “convert that authority” into a saleable product line and a marketing program that tells customers and visitors “what to expect in terms of quality, accuracy of information, and reliability.”
The garden has received $50,000 from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, in New York, plus an undisclosed amount from Edward P. Bass, a member of the charity’s board, to develop its revenue-generating branding program.
The money from the foundations was important because the branding effort carries a hefty price. A consultant’s initial feasibility study cost $15,000, and creation of a strategic plan to carry out the branding program will run an additional amount, Mr. Rorer says. To get a retailing operation started, $1.5-million in investment capital will be needed for such things as product development, licensing, inventory, and employee hiring, he says.
Once revenue begins flowing, Mr. Rorer believes, the retailing effort would become “self-sustaining.”
While branding is an alluring option for charities that want to raise their profile or bring in more dollars, it won’t cure a weak or disorganized non-profit organization.
Branding requires a “truthful statement” of what an organization has to offer, says Richard DiPerna, vice-chairman of the Museum of Science, in Boston. “You don’t just make up an image and then pray,” he says.
Charities also face the danger that donors and other members of the public will see branding as nothing more than crass commercialism. “You don’t ever want to appear too slick, too ‘Madison Avenue,’” cautions Ms. Hyman.
Still, charity executives say branding is necessary if their organizations want to compete for donors’ money and time. “If we want to be here 100 years from now, we have to do it,” Mr. Abbott says of Volunteers of America.
Adds Ms. Whitty of UNICEF: “You’re not marketing Oreo cookies. You’re talking about changing lives. If you remain true to your mission, I don’t see the danger.”
