I guess there’s two ways of thinking about branding (actually three, taking into account the view of our esteemed colleague, Jeff Brooks, at Future Fundraising Now).

One view is that ‘branding’ is simply shorthand for the emotional relationship a consumer or donor develops with the provider of a product or service or experience. The notion is that the fate of the relationship is largely in the hands of the consumer — it’s their perceptions that matter, and these are more deeply embedded emotionally than rationally. The ‘brand’ simply tries to deliver on the expectations it helps create in a consistent, reinforcing manner.

Another view sees this process as a more manipulative one, with the brand pulling the strings, pushing the hot buttons of the consumer to get a favorable emotional response. Whether this somehow develops into a ‘relationship’ is neither here nor there … there’s always another hot button to push.

In fact, 16 hot buttons, according to this article published on Marketing Profs, titled Five Tips for Effective ‘Emotional Branding’.

Here they are (as credited to marketer Barry Feig in Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy):

1. Desire for control
2. I’m better than you
3. Excitement of discovery
4. Revaluing
5. Family values
6. Desire to belong
7. Fun is its own reward
8. Poverty of time
9. Desire to get the best
10. Self-achievement
11. Sex/love/romance
12. Nurturing response
13. Reinventing oneself
14. Make me smarter
15. Power/dominance/influence
16. Wish fulfillment

Pushed any of those buttons lately in the pursuit of building relationships?!

Are fundraisers are operating on a different planet than Mr Feig?

Recognizing that we’re trying to building relationships around giving, not buying, still, arguably a few of these apply to our work — wish fulfillment, nurturing response, desire to belong, for example.

I suspect that not a few fundraisers — and more copywriters — sit around thinking about ‘which button can I push with this appeal?’ Sound too cynical?

They’re probably better off with that approach than focusing on how many reasons they can use to persuade their donor to give.

Fundraisers are there to empower, not persuade. Don’t you agree?

Tom

P.S. So I strayed a bit from branding per se, but that’s OK, in his writing on the topic, which I commend to you, Jeff tells us worrying about branding is mostly a misguided pursuit for nonprofits anyway. As I read him, a good brand is nice to have, but not necessarily something to devote much energy or resource to. I occasionally quarrel with that. But where I think we do agree is that such ‘brand appeal’ as any nonprofit has, lives in the soul of the donor. And you the fundraiser are simply the comforting conductor on the soul train.