Net Cotton Content / On Life and Marketing, Creativity and Ethics

Free Money

Here's a poorly kept secret. (Young Isaac has been hired to spread the word through viral marketing.)

Today, at 3 p.m. is PowerPhilanthropy Match Day, courtesy of The Columbus Foundation.

Here are the rules:

Beginning at 3:00 p.m., anyone may visit the Foundation's website to make an online gift to a favorite nonprofit.

The Columbus Foundation will match 50% of all public donations of $1,000 or less made online with a credit card through PowerPhilanthropy, while funds last.

Anyone can give, starting with a $20 minimum.

Kind People Are Waiting To Pounce
Let's pay attention to the "while funds last" part. 

The donors of The Columbus Foundation are providing $175,000 for this match. That's a lot of money. But, the viral campaign has been successful. I expect the money to be gone within 10 minutes.

If you take a moment to register in advance, you might grab some of that $175Gs for your favorite charity. Again, you can give as little as $20.

I'll be there.

Let's crash the server.

The Check is in the Mail (again)

Young Isaac is, for the sixth year in a row, sending out a pile of $8 checks to our friends, asking each friend to forward the check to a favorite charity.

If you are new to this fabulous scheme, here are the answers to the top three questions that will soon come to your mind.

Read on for our public relations counsel, Jayme Soulati's press release...

A "Dear Rich" Letter

According to Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko in their classic The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy, the vast majority of millionaires -- those with true net worth of more than $1,000,000 after debts are paid off -- have become rich not by making money, but by saving it. By this, Stanley and Danko mean that those who become rich overnight (major league baseball players, rock stars) are the vast minority. Most millionaires lived within their means, and wealth snuck up on them.

Along comes Budros, Ruhlin & Roe, financial planners and wealth managers. They're a Young Isaac client for whom we placed the featured advertisement (just click here to be able to read it).

How To Be A Supermodel

I've never written anything I love more than this advertisement. Young Isaac ran this full page in the local business press during the late 1990s.

While it ran only a few times, it's warmly remembered. Folks have requested reprints; some have told me that yellowed copies hang in their office cubicles.

That warms my heart. I like to think that the message is worthy, deserving enough to be re-read.

Click here to download the advertisement for your enjoyment.

"We are the minority that feeds the majority."

Current work done by Young Isaac with our beloved client, The College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) at The Ohio State University is the cover story of the national trade journal, Admissions Marketing Report. While this national recognition has sparked telephone calls to Young Isaac from other colleges and universities (and that's always nice), the actual work has been the greatest delight. The faculty is smart and nurturing, the students are wisely choosing their way in the world, and matching the two is an honor.

Now that the campaign has been implemented, the College is enjoying a record number of visits and the highest ever measured response from direct mail. Our Clarity process for brand message strategy focused our communciations and revealed these motivating aspects:

The College's mission couldn't be more important. As one student put it during our initial Clarity (brand message strategy) session, "We are the minority that feeds the majority." When you hear that, from a student, wise beyond her years, you know you have entered into The Realm Of The Important. Other colleges at Ohio State -- traditional sciences, business, etc. -- attract traditionally gifted high school seniors. But what of the student who wants to pursue the study of our natural world in the most practical of ways: how to feed and clothe people, how to help humanity survive and thrive on the planet? These candidates come from the broadest pool: from rural to suburban. And they have the broadest range of interests and ambitions: from engineering food production to designing a golf course (which has its roots in turf management, an agricultural science). The marketing challenge requires that we connect emotionally and practically with the candidate and his or her family.

For the entire article and a full description of how the campaign works, contact Artie Isaac.

Dangers of ATVs

At Young Isaac, we help trustworthy clients sell important things. Nothing is more important to "sell" (and "buy") than keeping children safe from the senseless risk of death and maiming. This is part of the work of one of our beloved clients, the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Columbus Children's Research Institute at Children's Hospital.

Our effort to educate the public on resisting the temptation of ATVs -- we recently designed their promotional material (click on the image on the right) -- is featured in today's Columbus Dispatch in "Too many kids hurt on ATVs, critics say" by medical reporter Misti Crane.

According to the center's director, Dr. Gary Smith:

Nearly 35,000 children younger than 16 years received emergency treatment during 2001 for ATV-related injuries, which is almost double the number only 8 years ago. We have training, licensing and minimum age requirements for the operation of automobiles, yet in most states there are no comparable requirements for the operation of an ATV. The safe use of an ATV requires at least as much skill, judgment, and developmental maturity as needed to operate an automobile. [This is excerpted from the Center's website.]

Would you stop your child from smoking? What about riding on an ATV? Ask your pediatrician.

To see the rest of our brochure for this good cause, please read on...