Repower America's Video Wall

As the climate summit began in Copenhagen I received this email from Repower America. While none of the supporting activities are strikingly new, some of them are interesting.

Their communications in and from Copenhagen center around a wall created just for the purpose. It’s worth either watching the video or going directly there. Videos on walls are nothing new; a video wall is new to me. So much for the technology. The content blends contributions from corporate promoters of efforts to halt climate change with the submissions of well-known people in the field and of the general public. That alone is interesting. The corporate activists are interesting; some are acting in terms of their mission, some clearly in self interest, and others were something of a surprise to me. You can mouse-over the wall and see for yourself.
It took effort to get the wall up and provisioned with a credible number of videos in just a month. I’m sure that they did a lot of reach out; here’s how some of it went in the blogosphere.

This is a little different from the usual cause-related marketing in which one corporate sponsor usually plays a leading role, whether or not there are multiple sponsors. I was going to use Komen Race for the cure as a good example; I see they’ve gone beyond a single major sponsor plus many lesser sponsorships. Their sponsorship page is fascinating. It links to a page with 5 questions corporations should ask when considering cause sponsorship. The questions are excellent; they provide a useful framework for non-profits that are considering a major sponsorship push.

I’ll make the point again. Cause-related marketing not only is a heavy user of social media, it is part and parcel of social media strategy. Corporations are searching for ways to relate to and engage customers and potential customers in a way that does not mimic the intrusiveness of traditional media advertising. Cause-related marketing presents one superb solution, aligning the corporation with a worthwhile cause and providing visibility and support for the cause. Everybody wins!