Are we addicted to Slacktivism?
Does every social media “call to action” need to have a cause?
Cause Marketing
Latest
Podcast
Applying Design Thinking to Healthcare
CEO Joel Sadler about the company’s initial product,an artificial knee joint that is dramatically changing the lives of amputees in developing countries
The Dragonfly Effect
Two veterans of consumer psychology, marketing, and entrepreneurship provide a guide to using social media for social change.
Buzz Control
Social media is a powerful marketing tool. But how do you control your message once it goes viral and is in the hands of the public?
New Media: Hype vs. Real World Success
If you shut out the clamor and look dispassionately at the communication hurdles that confront you, it’s not at all clear that new media is delivering on its promise.
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Catalytic Philanthropy
Despite spending vast amounts of money and helping to create the world’s largest nonprofit sector, philanthropists have fallen far short of solving America’s most pressing problems. What the nation needs is “catalytic philanthropy”—a new approach that is already being practiced by some of the most innovative donors.
The Dragonfly Effect
Two veterans of consumer psychology, marketing, and entrepreneurship provide a guide to using social media for social change.
The Hidden Costs of Cause Marketing
From pink ribbons to Product Red, cause marketing adroitly serves two masters, earning profits for corporations while raising funds for charities. Yet the short-term benefits of cause marketing—also known as consumption philanthropy—belie its long-term costs. These hidden costs include individualizing solutions to collective problems; replacing virtuous action with mindless buying; and hiding how markets create many social problems in the first place. Consumption philanthropy is therefore unsuited to create real social change.
Cultivating the Green Consumer
Consumers say they want to buy ecologically friendly products and reduce their impact on the environment. But when they get to the cash register, their Earth-minded sentiments die on the vine. Although individual quirks underlie some of this hypocrisy, businesses can do a lot more to help would-be green consumers turn their talk into walk.
Antipoverty Apps
mPowering has created an app that awards goods and services to individuals facing extreme poverty when they make beneficial choices.