Author: Kelli Peterson

Last week Bill Gates entered the digital publishing world by establishing the Gates Notes – an online evolution of his now annual January letter sharing his thoughts and learnings on the progress of the issues central to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s interesting and symbolic that the next chapter of his life story would include an “open source” platform for sharing IP on social innovation.

It’s not that he’s such a great writer or that this will yield hints for the release of a revolutionary cause-related software program. But rather he’s put out there an experimental platform for sharing insights that might be absorbed and advanced by others. (more…)

It’s been a number of years since we have seen any initiative lead by a power brand in the arena of corporate social responsibility. This Wednesday, Pepsi launches one of the biggest corporate social responsibility efforts that we’ve seen since the launch of (RED) in 2006 with the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Good CSR takes strategic development and an early glimpse tells us that Pepsi has hit a home run.  Why?  Here’s ten reasons Pepsi looks to have gotten it right.

1. Brilliant name leveraging what Pepsi is and what the initiative suggests (an innovative, short term experiment).  It creates expectations for the new and unthinkable.  It allows for evolution of concept.  It feels lively and substantial all at the same time.
2. Beautifully executed.  The allure of the web site demonstrates this was no Q4 afterthought.  Great colors, great graphics, modern, polished and very navigable.
3. Simple. They’ve managed to take a rather complex process and reduce it to content that makes sense and leaves you without questions.  Make no mistake, this is really hard to do.
4. Momentum builder.  This isn’t a one-time effort.  They have invested US $20 million to support this initiative over the course of 12 months.  This will create visibility for the brand and will generate hype for the process, the brand and the winning organizations, well beyond campaign time.
5. Understated. Pepsi is doing this instead of a Super Bowl ad spend.  Do they fall all over themselves telling you that?  No, they focus on the opportunity.  That’s finesse. Confidence. Leadership.
6. Scope. This isn’t simply focused on an area where you’d expect Pepsi to focus their CSR efforts.  Going beyond water and community issues, the Pepsi Refresh Project paves the way for six different avenues of social impact.  Your issues. Your ideas. Your choice.
7. Smart messaging. Consumers are inherently optimistic and respond to positive messages.  Yet we are living in difficult times and marketers need to be careful.  With “Refresh Everything”, Pepsi manages to communicate a uniquely appropriate brand and product message that aligns with a believable promotional effort that is spot-on relevant.
8. Digital advocacy. Presented online, promoted online, managed online – this campaign will be endlessly sticky with infininte opportunities for leveraging social media.  Participants will be given the tools to promote it.  There is transparent tracking.  This campaign marries the best of social media and entrepreneurial advocacy.
9. Urgency.  It is not one giant long-running campaign.  It is twelve individual months of contests.  There is a stopwatch on the main page that is counting down to launch, to enter, and to vote.  And grant winners will receive their funding in an astounding four weeks from each month’s announcement of winners.  Pepsi means business!
10. Appeal.  This isn’t drippy do-goodersim.  This is about Pepsi as the facilitator of actionable ideas.  This is about the consumer using Pepsi as the platform.  This is relationship building and brand leverage at its best.

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The best inventions make our lives easier. Often so simple in concept as to be beautiful and brilliant, these break-through ideas become an “overnight” success when a confluence of factors intervene to create a perfect storm of benefits to the customer. Is Rentcycle on the verge of such success?

Rentcycle officially launched in October 2009. The brainchild of founder Tim Hyer, their mission is to facilitate the business of renting “stuff”. Recognizing that the process of renting equipment is both painful to customers and highly inefficient to business, Rentcycle developed a model that creates efficiencies through online scheduling, tracking and inventory management. Customers can get info, pricing and check availability of the equipment they want to rent while niche boutique business owners are finally able to create a streamlined rental process that has been up til now, a giant time suck due to the laborious manual processes of every step.  

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