“Marketing” -- Blagh! 
by Amy J. Belanger
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 29, 2007



 

Revolutionaries hate the word and everything it stands for. I've seen my friends wrinkle their faces and spit out the "blagh!" like a 9-year-old when I suggested they use it on behalf of a better world.

It's no wonder. Some of the worst evils visited upon the world have been perpetrated by marketers willing to sacrifice people, the planet and everything else sacred to make a buck. Excellent books like Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry have nailed the PR profession to the wall for its willingness to prostitute itself to shameful corporate goals, and its lack of meaningful ethical standards.

What I ask my face-twisting friends is, "If someone lies to you, does that make talking bad?"

The obvious answer is, "no."

The same holds true of public relations, marketing and merchandising tactics.

It isn't the tactic of talking (or running a television ad) that's bad -- it's how Marlboro used it to convince millions of smokers that smoking was safe and cool. And how Chevron used it in their "Islands of Life" promotional campaign that implied offshore drilling rigs were a great place to go fishing.

But just as some of the largest nonprofits are using marketing and publicity tactics to protect wildlife, conserve forests, educate people about health, and other worthy goals, so those of us making change in our communities can apply similar methods to our goals.

I can already hear the big, cumulative, "harumph!" that says, "Yea, like we can afford marketing."

So I prepared this next sentence in advance: "You can, if you use time, energy and imagination in place of big bucks."

In addition to all the grassroots organizing tactics you're already using in your community, I say, take a page from the handbook of the corporations. But take it from the book written by the guy who worked long years inside the corporations, masterminding such campaigns as the Pillsbury Dough Boy, then quit in order to make marketing accessible to the little guy.

In his book, Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Levinson sounds like a revolutionary. He's not, at least not for social causes, but his mantra of using "time, energy and imagination" instead of big bucks to draw people to your company (read: "your cause"), has a place in cause-related organizations.

When Guerrilla Marketing first came out in 1983, I saw it as a good companion to the War Resister's League Organizing Manual we were using then to organize environmental campaigns in my hometown, Pensacola, Florida. Both of these books lacked something the other offered, so I put them together in a kind of "Guerrilla Grassroots" method that I've used my entire career to sling stones at giants like Chevron, Mobil and Champion Paper Company. And those stones have hit their mark.

In 2000, my hometown, Pensacola, Florida, won a more than 5-year-long battle against Chevron and Mobil's offshore drilling plan. Mobil voluntarily departed and Chevron's leases were canceled, thanks mostly to the Guerrilla Marketing/Grassroots Organizing double whammy we employed throughout the state.

So before your face is permanently scrunched up in response to the word, "marketing," go check out Guerrilla Marketing at your local bookstore and see if you don't learn a thing or two that helps you do good things in the world.

Last year, after 20-years using guerrilla marketing for progressive campaigns, I met the author, Jay Levinson, and told him about my cause-related exploits with his ideas. He invited me to write on the subject, and so we're soon to write Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits with his daughter, a fellow social activist, Amy Levinson. I also became a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, which trained me to teach the tactics to other nonprofit leaders and activists. I learned far more than the book revealed, including some of the online outreach techniques used by MoveOn.org.

Although Guerrilla Marketing focuses on generating profits, even nonprofits need income, and every profit-generating tool taught in the course is also an interest/membership/sign-up generation tool if you choose to use it that way.

I've always looked for Trojan Horse opportunities -- ways to get progressive programs inside the castle, a closed mind or a national consciousness without necessarily waving a banner, particularly when waving that banner will get you shut down.

During the campaign against offshore drilling in Florida, I put on a suit and showed up at Chamber of Commerce meetings. Without those meetings, and the backing of the Chambers, tourism associations and other business associations in Florida -- who backed us for economic reasons, not environmental ones -- Chevron and Mobil would be drilling for gas and oil within ten miles of Florida's shores. I also showed up at Food Not Bombs events and helped organize protests and street theater. Indeed, we left no stone unturned, and one or two deftly thrown, to protect our environment, fisheries and economy from a wrongheaded corporate agenda. And one of those stones was Guerrilla Marketing.

Learning how to use the best marketing strategies available is a smart, gutsy and necessary Trojan Horse tactic for making the world a better place. The next Guerrilla Marketing training is in two weeks by teleseminar, and it's worth taking, along with your grassroots organizing seminars. My advice to activists, nonprofit employees, and anyone else trying to get inside the American mind to initiate positive change is to learn marketing, and if you cant' afford a seminar, read a book, and if you can't afford the new edition, get the old one, used. And sign up for my occasional missives about exploiting unlikely sources of knowledge for the greater good at: www.amybelanger.com.

Amy Belanger is a 20-year veteran of social causes, an award-winning journalist, president of Idealist Communications and co-creator of the book, Return the Great Forest. She has worked for and with such world-changers as Ralph Nader, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions (The NewsHour folks), The Green Party, Student Environmental Action Coalition, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, Earth Day Network and Gulf Coast Environmental Defense.

Other Articles by Amy J. Belanager

* An Inconvenient Twist: Turn Out the Lights and Let Corporations Blow CO2 Up Your Rump
* A Floridian Goes to Washington to Spoil a Corrupt System
 

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