My name is Boone Bergsma, my Twitter is @BooneBergsma
The problem I see; companies spend over $500,000,000,000 billion dollars a year telling you how to look, what to think, and how to feel. Their marketing campaigns may make you laugh or astonish your eyes, but they do very little to make a difference in your life, and those living in your community.
Around the world about 21,000 people die every day (7,665,000 a year) of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every four seconds. Sadly, it is children who die most often. http://www.poverty.com/
In January 2015, 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the United States. Of that number, 206,286 were people in families, and 358,422 were individuals. About 15 percent of the homeless population — 83,170 — are considered “chronically homeless” individuals. http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/snapshot_of_homelessness
There are approximately 20 to 30 million slaves in the world today. According to the U.S. State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, of which 80% are female and half are children. According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation. https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
So while our brothers and sisters across the globe are dying, homeless, or being sold as slaves, brands are spending billions of dollars to make you feel unsatisfied and crave more. They are talking about how important Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is to them and how much you matter. But in my opinion, if it that was really the truth they would find more sustainable and philanthropic ways of doing business.
Their marketing would be more about how they are making a difference in the lives of customers and supporting the communities they operate in. They would be partnering with organizations that are doing the work in the field they feel is important to having healthy communities, and sharing about those success stories.
I don’t know or have all the answers, but I do know that spending $5,000,000 dollars for a 30 second AD during the Super Bowl to promote anything but a good cause is waste of money. And that if that money would have saved even 1 life it would have been better spent.
Advertising needs to change, it needs to stop making boys and girls feel like they need to be muscled, skinny, and sexy to have friends, it needs to stop making men and women feel like lust and love are the same thing, it needs to stop making people feel inadequate in what they have, and it needs to start investing in improving their lives.
I am part of an experimental incubator that gives startups and entrepreneurs funding in exchange for testing and sharing leanstartup hypotheses.
I THOUGHT that $500 to spend on LinkedIn Ads for a sponsored update to prove that 3 business out of the 20 with whom I would do interviews (3 completed so far) will sign up to learn more about the value proposition of our cause related media by May 1st.
ACTUALLY in total, I have had conversations with 3 who match the segment targeted in this experiment. And during those conversations I learned I was focusing on the wrong thing. I already had a business that sponsored a WTIM campaign and I hadn’t got it to completion yet.
Being a lean entrepreneur was making me make poor decisions based on need. I desperately needed money so I assumed I needed to get more WTIM campaign sponsors, but really what I needed to do was take care of the customer I already had.
Also in doing the interviews I learned that having a completed campaign that I could share the results of and a case study would be a lot better when taking to others about sponsoring a WTIM campaign, than trying to explain the benefits and how it worked.
I received the $100 that was first offered for posting a hypothesis. It lasted in my account long enough for the bank to make their claim on it. And now would like to change my hypothesis to focus on people to take action and vote for a non-profit to get money from the first WTIM campaign.
I believe that $500 will prove that 250 people living in the greater Portland area that have been targeted in Facebook advertising (with whom I will complete and submit 15 interviews) will vote for a charity to receive funding from the first WTIM campaign http://www.wethinkitmatters.com/bridgeworksnwbeta.html within 3 weeks of starting the Facebook campaign. This is my 1st experiment (I had posted one earlier, but have pivoted my hypothesis and need to change it and get the funding).
If you are interested in getting funding for testing your hypothesis and learning from experts in lean startup practices, please contact me and I will help you post to https://trello.com/b/oJiZ8BQU/to-add-a-card-and-get-funded-http-bit-ly-trello-instructions
Let’s get LEAN Together :) but actually I don’t want to lose anymore weight!
P.S. Please VOTE for a Charity to receive Funding from this BETA campaign http://www.wethinkitmatters.com/bridgeworksnwbeta.html
