Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The Trap of Complacency and Denial

Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, but the company’s leadership was so attached to their profitable film business they ignored it. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and emerged a year later a much-diminished enterprise, significantly downsized today with a focus on printing and digital imaging technology. Kevin’s post, Pogo Was Right, reminded […]

Learn More October 21, 2024

Pogo Was Right

Cartoonist Walt Kelly is credited with the line, “We have met the enemy and he is us” uttered by his Pogo opossum character in a 1970 Earth Day poster highlighting human impact on the environment. Ironically, the very brands responsible for societal good are polluting the fundraising rivers with a sea of gimmicky, transactional sameness. […]

Learn More October 18, 2024

Commitment Redux

People in highly committed relationships judge alternatives as less attractive compared with single people. This devaluing of alternatives carries over to brands too. Consumers who strongly prefer a brand evaluate the competing brand more negatively. Higher commitment causes people to focus on how the brand is dissimilar from their preferred brand, low-commitment consumers focus on similarities. […]

Learn More October 16, 2024

No Cap

In October 2017, rappers Future and Young Thug released a collaborative mixtape titled “Super Slimey”, which included the song “No Cap.” My children tell me this has nothing to do grammatical conventions but nevertheless, these rappers were mostly right. Alas, the marketing, fundraising and advertising world didn’t the memo. All cap headlines are very common. […]

Learn More October 11, 2024

Fundraising At or To Your Donor?

This question of ‘at’ or ‘to’ struck me when reading a report from a UK agency that ran ads for a US animal rights advocacy charity. I found the thinking behind the ads and the testing to be wildly superficial and uninteresting and almost certainly leaving lots of money on the table. But, I realize […]

Learn More October 9, 2024

Your Charity Tote Bag Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore

Just imagine the panic among some of our colleagues if that dockworkers’ strike hadn’t been put on hold last Friday. Hundreds of fundraisers and dozens of production houses would be panicking—maybe worse—facing the grim reality of millions and millions of tote bags, address labels, calendars, and seasick stuffed bears bobbing offshore, unable to land. No […]

Learn More October 7, 2024