What can we learn from Tagalongs and Samoas

Guilty as charged.  Today I succumed to the annual disease that hit all parents of small girls with brown vests and patches, the dreaded “I want to help my daughter kick ass and sell the most Girl Scout cookies in her troop” disease.  I apologize to everyone who read by FB status and pledged to buy boxes out of friendship or pity.  You can recind your order if you wish.

  Samoas

Not that she needed help.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  She has already been out canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on doors.  She even recruited two sidekick girl friends who aren’t even scouts to accompany her as she pitched, highlighting this year’s new offering of the Dulce de Leche caramel coated variety.  Yum.

After she showed me her growing  order list and went to sleep I got thinking aside from the addictive nature of the little buggers, was there anything PR folks like me can learn and apply to our trade, especially as we move into the brave 2.0 world.  Here’s what I have come up with.

  • The value of repetition:  If something is successful, do it again and again.  We encourage folks to do annual surveys.  Why?  Because it works.  The media loves to measure things.  They come to expect newsworthy items that change from year to year as much as I love Thin Mints.  The news is there because things rarely stay the same, they either go up and down, or are more or less. 
  • The value of community engagement:  This project is something all the girls work on separately but also together.  They become involved as a group and then engage others like their parents who help and like me get pseudo-competitive about it.  I was even thinking….can I use Twitter to help Sarah sell cookies?  Sick, huh.  But any good campaign has a ripple-effect of involvement.  Ask how can you accomplish this ripple for your company, client or organization.
  • Ad a charitable component:  As part of the campaign, Scouts are asking if you’d like to buy boxes that can be donated to charity either in actual cookies or in money.  My daughter’s troop is offering boxes that can be donated to the local foodbank.
  • Incorporate the new tools:  Yes, you can send a virtual GS cookie on Facebook, find cookie photos on Flickr (credit for the above picture), etc.  These are becoming staples of everything we do and not add-ons for communicators to consider.   They are as essential as a news release or FAQ.

I could go on and talk about how the campaign instills values, teaches about goal setting, etc. but you get the picture.

Again, sorry to those who I may have offended on FB.  BTW for those at work, Sarah is coming in Friday afternoon.  Have your checkbooks ready.

Jon Newman

In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.

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