Special events are often overlooked by Better-For-You brands as a source for gathering highly qualified interest in their products and services. Yet, when you consider who is attending and participating in these events (be it health & fitness festivals, charity walks, or runs), the audience demographics are quite high, and their mindset very receptive to considering your brand.

__________________________________________________________________________

Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

Special events that cater to people who are motivated by participation in an active lifestyle are fertile ground for Better-For-You brands seeking to build their brand and profits. Why?

1. Positive Brand Affiliation

Ranging from health & fitness festivals to special cause walks and on to more active events like runs, these events attract a special mind-set and higher demographic. And no surprise – these events can attract large numbers, typically upwards of 40-50,000 people, all who are interested in improving and/or maintaining their health.

Interested in personal and community health, these participants are typically fully engaged with the event and sponsors. In recent research conducted by Healthy Living Marketing for clients who were also event sponsors, event participants were very clear in their appreciation of the sponsors, and much more inclined to consider and purchase the sponsor’s products over non-sponsors.

__________________________________________________________________________

Want to learn why Better-For-You brands benefit by including Special Events in their arsenal of community building and relationship marketing? Complete the information below and receive Healthy Living Marketing’s newest white paper Special Events, A Great Opportunity To Build Your Brand Community.

* First Name:

* Last Name:

* Title/Position:

* Your Email:

* Phone:

* Company:

* Company Website:

* Type the numbers.

What Is Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?

New White Paper Available

When utilized effectively, Social Media can be a great tool to not only generate new customers for your Better-For-You brand, but also retain those already well familiar with your business. How? Social Media not only works to humanize your brand in a conversational manner, but also provides a platform where ‘friends’ of your brand can express themselves, including their healthy lifestyle behaviors and preferences. By capturing and mining that data over time, your brand can harvest strong benefits by learning about your customers, and apply that insight to more effectively re-market to your committed ‘friends’ and customers.

__________________________________________________________________________

Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

Consider these three simple strategies –

1. Begin by identifying key healthy lifestyle behaviors & interests – as a goal of most Better-For-You brand marketers is to understand their customers’ key motivations, one of the most effective tools to accomplish this is to incentivize your social media ‘friends’ to voluntarily divulge their key healthy lifestyle behaviors. Remember, the “drip irrigation” concept of direct marketing applies here – collecting insight in to your ‘friends’ healthy lifestyle preferences and behaviors takes time in establishing rapport and trust. Asking for too much information too early can go to derail your efforts all together.

__________________________________________________________________________

Complete the information below and receive Healthy Living Marketing’s newest white paper Better-For-You Brands: Monetize Your  Social Media Activity.

* First Name:

* Last Name:

* Title/Position:

* Your Email:

* Phone:

* Company:

* Company Website:

What Is Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?

* Type the numbers.

It seems that every day there is a new study, headline and advice about issues ranging from disease prevention, the optimum nutritional plan, or the correct fitness technique. While it’s not always clear which of the information to believe, what is clear is that health issues are rarely black and white; they are complex in cause, severity and solution. Therefore, responsible choices about health require trade-offs, measured decision-making, and a realization that there are multiple sides to every story.

Take, for example, obesity: we as Americans are confronted with near-daily coverage in the media. A recent CDC report states that 2.4 more million Americans became obese in the past two years alone. This shocking revelation belies the enormous health issue that obesity has become as well as the need for a sustainable solution. Yet it also begs the question of how this is possible? Is there a reasonable explanation? How have longer commute times and working hours, increasing unemployment and financial concerns, and changing lifestyle values affected obesity? By not rushing to conclusions and by recognizing that obesity is caused by very complex situational and biological factors, a more holistic, effective set of solutions is likely to be pursued.

The same is true with personal health decision-making. Approaches to personal health choices that don’t take into account the trade-offs, of either action or inaction, are less likely to be sustainable and positive in the long run. For some, the sacrifice of going to the gym every morning or eating only natural food to be healthy may be too much of a commitment for their lifestyle, preferences, or even their happiness. The fact is, there are other ways to make healthy choices, and it is up to each individual to investigate and decide what works best for them.

Individual responsibility and action is critical in creating personal solutions. While obesity reports and headlines about health do a lot to bring attention to serious issues, the causes and solutions for health concerns boil down to the individual. The more individuals can customize their decisions based on their own values, the more choices businesses, brands, NGO’s, and government will offer in recognition that a one-size-fits-all approach to health is not valid.

Aligning your brand with a strong social purpose tied to your brand values is a compelling position to leverage for your business health. Call Healthy Living Marketing at (301) 378-0384 as we are ready to help you with this process.

Providing Those Disadvantages and Persecuted With A New Home

Since 1980, when the United States Refugee Act was passed, over 3 million refugees have been resettled to the U.S. from around the world. They are Somalis, Iraqis, Colombians, Burmese, and many others. They now call places like Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta home. What does this say about the country that gave more than 3 million of the world’s most disadvantaged and persecuted people a new home, not because it had to, but because it wanted to? At the very least, it says that socially conscious Americans have the ability to care deeply.

Success Is Determined By The Quality Of Integration

While the U.S. resettlement is a government-funded endeavor, with a set intake quota each year, the process is followed through on a community level. When a refugee family arrives in the U.S., someone is there waiting for them at the airport. Someone is there to show them their new apartment, accompany them to doctors’ appointments, help them apply for jobs. It is individuals, families, and non-profit organizations that support refugee families and form the basis of a receptive and welcoming healthy community. This healthy community spirit, and for such a large-scale government program, has truly been the key to its success over the last 30 years. That success is shown by the fact that the United States resettles more refugees annually than all other countries combined, and of course through the many individual stories of resettled refugees in America.

More than just evidence of caring, the longstanding commitment to refugees in the United States demonstrates a variety of other values and abilities: social responsibility, coordinated and organized resources, and an investment in the future and sustainability of the country. Regardless of what health means to each American personally, these values all are essential to good health on a national level, and are all qualities that I would bet were missing in the countries that refugees fled in the first place.

With all the health concerns facing the country both on a national and personal level – obesity, unemployment, smoking, climate change (the list goes on) – we know, through the example of refugee resettlement, that Americans have the ethical values and abilities to confront the challenges, as well as a will to take action.

Healthy Living Marketing subscribes to a deep commitment to business ethics and social commitment, and urges our partners, vendors and clients to create and follow-through on their own personal commitment to acting responsibly as well. For further insight on how to create and sustain your own organizational ethical “compass”, please contact us at (301) 378-0384.

Chipotle and the Lunch Box Promote Children’s Nutrition

Chipotle is encouraging people to rid their food and inboxes of junk, and has pledged to donate $10,000 to The Lunch Box for every 100,000 “junk” emails it receives, forwarded from people around the world. The Lunch Box, a recently launched non-profit, provides tools for educators, nutritionists and administrators to give children healthier school lunches.

With developed social marketing tools and a presence around the country, Chipotle is well positioned to get the word out about their own efforts to provide locally sourced, sustainably raised food, and to help The Lunch Box with their own efforts in the process. In promoting its own good practices, Chipotle is also promoting concrete action to change children’s nutrition and health. Their example shows how for-profit companies can channel their own marketing needs into supporting sustainable and healthy living practices.

National Effort for Health and Sustainability

The nationwide effort for better and healthier food options is a cause that’s well suited for these collaborations. People are realizing the importance of making food choices that are good for themselves, their families, communities, and the environment. And after all, these same people run companies, and more and more are deciding to incorporate the same consciousness in their food products. Companies are finding that the numerous non-profits advocating for the healthy food cause can be valuable partners in that they are knowledgeable and have a lot to give to companies looking for expertise and authority on the topic.

But the potential for non-profit partnerships is certainly not limited the food service industry. In fact, companies in many different sectors have the opportunity to gain from collaboration with non-profit organizations that specialize in sustainability and health in a wide variety of areas: everything from technology to trade, humanitarian aid to household products.

If you would like to learn more about creative collaboration possibilities that include an enduring and distinctive social purpose for your company, please contact Healthy Living Marketing at (301) 378-0384.

The Third Green Wave

Healthy Living Marketing first learned about United We Can when we worked to support PepsiCo’s sponsorship of the Vancouver Pride Society’s 2009 Pride Parade. Throughout the entire 1.5 mile long parade route, United We Can personnel were stationed to collect and haul away thousands of empty beverage containers left by the reported 600,000 spectators. It was there that we observed the commitment and conviction of United We Can’s Executive Director, Brian Dodd. According to Dodd, “Green sustainable economic development is a path out of poverty. United We Can has been a pioneer in what is now being called the ‘Third Green Wave’, a combination of environmentalism and social equity. For fifteen years, United We Can has been an advocate for marginalized people and the environment, providing people with support, training, and “green collar jobs.” These jobs help lift people out of debilitating poverty and help create community opportunities in a place here in Vancouver commonly referred to as ‘Canada’s poorest postal code’.”

Recycling and Redemption Job Opportunities

Through its social enterprise activities, United We Can has created hundreds of employment opportunities for the less fortunate and disadvantaged by collecting recyclables at local business, apartment complexes, and of course, special events. The organization also offers commercial collection service by truck for large volume customers.

Sustaining Urban Environment

Given its mission to create sustaining urban enterprise that helps care for the environment, United We Can has expanded their services to now include –

- The Bintek Computer Lab that acquires salvaged computer parts and rebuilds system-ready computers that are then sold at an affordable price to low-income residents.

- BikeWorks, a “pedal-power” shop that provides service, sales and instruction to the public who needs bicycle repair at a nominal cost.

- Happy Plants, which sells rescued plants and support services to the Public.

- SOLE Food Inner City Urban Farm, that provides organically-grown food and sustenance to local residents and community kitchens. The farm provides training and employment opportunities to residents from Vancouver’s Downtown East Side to build, plant, maintain and harvest the farm. SOLE is expanding to a second site in the downtown Vancouver area shortly.

Healthy Living Marketing helps leading companies throughout North America shape, communicate and demonstrate their commitment to acting responsibly. For information on how brands can benefit from associations with socially responsible organizations like United We Can, please call (301) 378-0384.

Founded in 2007, Back on My Feet is a nonprofit organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations by engaging them in health and running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem to help rebuild their lives. Back on My Feet does not provide food nor does it provide shelter, but instead provides a community that embraces equality, respect, discipline, teamwork and leadership.

Back on My Feet is much more than just utilizing running as a discipline to follow; it is a comprehensive socially responsible program that offers connections to job training, employment and housing, but these benefits are not free. Program participants, known as ‘Members” earn the opportunity to move forward in the six month to nine month program by maintaining a 90 percent attendance rate at the morning runs three days a week. For many Members, support from the group is key to getting back on their feet.

The organization is the brainchild of Anne Mahlum, 29, a North Dakota native who founded it in Philadelphia. Since then, one thousand Members have gone through the program with nineteen finishing marathons as a demonstration of their commitment to rebuild their lives. Not only has the Philadelphia chapter of Back On My Feet flourished, but there are now active chapters in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Boston. Plans call for a Chicago chapter later this year.

Commitment To A Healthy Community

Back on My Feet started when Mahlum, who studied at American University, was between jobs and would jog by a homeless shelter. She began to develop a rapport with the men outside on the corner. What started as waves and smiles from a distance became more intimate as they developed a comfort level with one another. And one morning a simple idea stopped her in her tracks. With a call to the shelter and support from the community and the media, Philadelphia’s first Homeless Running Club was “up and running”. Says Mahlum, “the first run took place on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 6 am…and now 3 years later, we are operating in 4 cities. It’s pretty amazing. Running is such a beautiful metaphor for life. Life is about choosing different roads and our program teaches the importance of choosing roads filled with opportunity, hope and happiness.”

Mahlum goes on to say “Back on My Feet envisions a community where all members have the support and motivation required to move towards self–sufficiency. Every major city has a homeless problem and while providing food and shelter are very important basic needs, something is missing. We work to rebuild, revive and re-energize individuals. It is only when we have self-respect, self-confidence that we are truly able to move forward. Back on My Feet focuses on helping our members find a road of happiness, hope and opportunity, which includes a stable job and a place to live. This is our goal and we will get there one step at a time.”

Back On My Feet plans to expand to 10 more cities by the end of 2011.

If you would like to learn more about Healthy Living Marketing and social responsibility campaign development, please contact us at (301) 378-0384.

As a responsible brand marketer who has worked on many relationship brands over the past twenty years, the “target” for our marketing efforts was the consumer. This notion was and always has been rooted in successful marketing strategies that sought out people whose natural state of function was to “consume”. Worse yet, they were “targets”, as if they had cross-hairs on their backs and were ready for conquest. While we always acknowledged that these “consumers” were made of many types of personalities, lifestyles, and interests, their single benefit to us as the producer was to “consume” our product. We make, they buy.

It’s like a great hunt is on – track and subdue the Consumer.

Clearly, the notion of consumption as a defining behavioral trait has changed, and I suggest that our references to them (and the ways in which we measure and evaluate) must change as well. Brand marketing success can and should be defined by the ways in which it responsibly serves the Public, and the role it plays in building a better (i.e. healthier) society. To take and take and take is not in the best interests of a socially responsible business, let alone a healthy society. And for that reason, use of the terms “Consumer” and “Target” are forbidden within Healthy Living Marketing. Someone has to take a stand.

Unfortunately, this time-honored approach pits producers of goods and services against the so-called consuming public. The new Conscious Public deserves and expects dialogue and exchange. Referring to a group of people who potentially “consume” products and services is one thing for convenience sake, but the assumption or suggestion that people’s primary role in society is to “consume” seems to be off-base, particularly in this new era of responsible living where the emphasis is on existing resources, saving and conservation.

Now if we could just come up with a better more responsible description – how about ‘people’, or ‘the public’, or ‘interested persons’……?

If you would like to learn more about Healthy Living Marketing and social responsibility campaign development, please contact us at (301) 378-0384.

With care to not over-simplify the problems and causes at hand, ponder the perfect storm of recent developments that are causing people to consider (and reconsider) their own personal responsibility for their own health:

Let’s Move America – led by First Lady Michelle Obama, this new program “promises to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation” by giving parents the support they need, providing healthier food in schools, helping children to be more physically active, and making healthy affordable food available in every part of the country. Needless to say, these are amazingly lofty goals, but for the moment at least, the most successful element to come out of this now three-month old initiative is the resounding voice of recognition that we as a whole society have a real problem. For the public masses, recognizing that there is a problem and keeping it high profile will work to awaken people to their consumptive choices and behavioral habits.

Government Regulation – at both the federal and local level, while some may take issue with the tactics, it’s clear that government is taking action to help curb our out-of-control and unsustainable consumption. From increasing soda and snack taxes, to food traceability legislation and caloric content disclosures in restaurants, government clearly is taking the opportunity to “facilitate” a greater understanding of our food intake and the impact it has upon society. Even larger cities are now in the midst of considering or actually placing zoning restrictions that ban unhealthy food sales in underserved neighborhoods. And don’t forget the efforts to greatly improve school nutrition.

Industry – even the food & beverage industry is getting behind the movement. From salt reduction and elimination of high-fructose corn syrup at the producer level, and with the public’s eye on improved healthfulness of food, improvements are being made.

Local communities – grass root organizations are seizing the opportunity and gaining momentum in the fight for healthier communities. Urban farming and programs like the one in Baltimore that gives greater access to healthy food items are just two examples of many that have sprung up across the country.

With all of this activity (and more) underway, the most important element in the equation is the commitment and discipline required from individuals – be it as a parent or a single person who accepts the call to action and personal responsibility to make improvements in their own lives. In a recent study of American adults conducted by the International Food Information Council, the majority of respondents (80%) are in the process of changing how they eat, and of those, 48% are doing so for improved health and nutrition. Only 13 percent cited the economy as the reason for their change.

Research also shows that Americans increasingly believe that their food and beverage choices can positively impact their health.  With 85% interested in learning more about foods that can provide benefits, the public is ready for actionable advice that addresses a host of issues, from weight management to immune function and how to improve their overall health and well-being.

If you would like to learn more about Healthy Living Marketing and social responsibility campaign development, please contact us at (301) 378-0384.