 As-Salaam-Alaikum-Khawatin-Hassanat. Basim As-San welcomes you to lecture number 17 of Marketing for Non-Profites, MKT 628 at the Virtual University of Pakistan. The topic of learning is mood boards. A mood board basically are considered to be a part of the visual identity but I did not choose to talk about this particular aspect as part of the visual identity when I talked about elements like logos, typography, colors and imagery of different kinds like the photographs and graphics and so on and so forth. The reason I'm talking about mood boards as a separate component is that the prerequisite to understand this is an appreciation of the other elements which are just enumerated. The ones that compose the visual identity. So in other words understanding of those lays the ground for being able to prepare a mood board. A mood board basically is a collage or a combination of the different pictorials, photographs or images, graphics, typography, different colors which are illustrative of different features of the organization. So in other words we can say that all those attributes of the organization which can be expressed as adjectives are the ones which are translated into images when we prepare a mood board. The reason we prepare the mood board is because we want everybody within the organization to be on the same page, not only on the same page but also on the same line. They get on to the same line by looking at something which is consistent which everybody can see with the naked eye and the reason I say here is because everybody has a way of perceiving attributes or features that we are known for. If we are known for our hard work, our passion, our efficiency all those things can be illustrated into graphics or images and that's what a mood board does. Being a collection of the different images and photographs, we translate all those adjectives and put those together in a way that they reflect the overall personality of the organization. The basic objective here is to project the personality in a way which is looked upon everybody in a consistent manner. There should be no inconsistency in viewing all those attributes which the organization carries or which the organization is endowed with. So in other words, a mood board basically is kind of a visual roadmap for the identity of the organization which of course reflects the organizational level. The reason we create these is because we do not want the people meaning part of the internal audience of the organization and also those stakeholders who are actively supporting the cause because their support matters a lot toward execution of programs and generation of funds. And therefore none of them can say that they would like to bring about certain changes in the visual identity of the organization because they do not prefer certain colors, they do not prefer certain attributes the way that they have been translated into images when we put together our formal communications and later on when we get into advertising that may that be print advertising or advertising on the web or television on air. We use these mood boards because we have a ready made base of how the personality of the organization looks like. Let me give you an example of the Cancer Hospital, Shaukat Hanum, the way they might have prepared their mood board when they started off. I'm saying might have, I'm not saying they did the way I'm going to talk about it. They might have taken different attributes into consideration because while putting different images together like portraying the pain of the sufferers and also at the same time portraying the image of the passion with which people in the hospital would like to alleviate that suffering and also imagery of the hope and the efficiency related with the state of the art equipment and the presence of highly qualified doctors and other technical staff and so on and so forth. These are the kind of images which they might have put together in order to let everybody within the hospital and the organization know this is the way they would like to build up the personality of the hospital because they believe in these attributes and this is what they are going to work on as a program and they do have the capability and core competencies to take the program forward and develop a positioning which will reflect the personality shown as part of the mood board. So in other words we can say that we really can pinpoint and crystallize the way the theme of communication will reflect the personality and the mood boards therefore happen to be an important element which connects the visual identity with the messaging platform and it also lays the ground for any upcoming communications in future. The word I would like to add here is that you may have to bring about changes or rather you will have to bring about changes from time to time because whenever you think the external environment has changed and has brought about a corresponding change within the internal environment also. If you think that has had a bearing on the personality of the organization or it has repositioned the organization then of course you will have to bring about a change in the mood board otherwise it remains the same and it provides a good basis and effective basis for very consistent communication. Let us now get into the next component of learning which is the messaging platform as part of the identity level of the brand raising. Do not lose sight of the fact that we still are into the identity level which started with the visual identity consisting of logo, colors, typography, images, etc. and then went on to the mood boards which of course I talked as a link between the visual identity and what I am going to talk now. Keeping our emphasis on the elements that I am going to talk about let us start with the name of the organization. What is so significant about the name? Well, there are two schools of thought. The one is that there is not much in the name because a brand basically reflects a very comprehensive strategic process and out of that strategic process the process for brand raising emerges and as a matter of fact both are quite interrelated and intertwined and if we follow all the steps logically and let them flow in a continual fashion we end up with a positioning for the organization which defines the point of differentiation and that point of differentiation basically is the reflection of our resources and capabilities and core competencies and so on and so forth and based on that we have the personality of the organization which is something that along with positioning has to be communicated to all the audiences that we interact with. These audiences are internal audiences and they are external audiences in the shape of activists and volunteers and other stakeholders like community leaders, funders and donors, government agencies and even media and legislators. So communicating with all these audiences really make it extremely important that we concentrate on the strategic process and make our programs rather the execution of our programs extremely effective and once we succeed in doing that we have fulfilled our promise because we have accomplished the mission and if we have done that in a strategic way then there is nothing so great about the name because name automatically will be highlighted because of the features that we have proved or the attributes that we have let the audiences perceive that we really have and we carry like we are passionate because we are God fearing and we are this and we are that. We know very well that it is not just a question of having certain attributes it also is a question rather a bigger question of perceptions of our audiences. If we have certain attributes and audiences think that we do not have those there is something wrong with the communication process or the communication campaign of the organization. Back to the name. There is nothing wrong with the brand having a straightforward and simple kind of a name if we are in a position to do all that that I have discussed and talked about in strategic terms but then the other school of thought says that what is wrong with having a name which is expressive or reflective of certain features or of the positioning of the company or the personality of the company it automatically conjures up with the certain images in the mind of the audience as to who we are, what we are and what we do. Needless to say that we have a mood board with the help of which we develop our communication campaigns and if there is any dissonance between that mood board and what audiences could have in their mind as images in relation to our attributes and all the adjectives that we think we should give to the features that we have then it is a question of putting together a very harmonious kind of communication campaign which relays and portrays the images which we think are the right ones and which are really home in to the mind of different audiences. And of course we talk with different audiences in so many different ways depending upon our communication objectives but back to the name. One option that there is nothing wrong with a simple straightforward name and the other option that we should have a name which is very powerful and which could be inspiring, which could be change oriented for example if we are running a program against smoking we should have a name which may reflect our mission and the mission is to bring about a change in the negative behavior of smokers because this is what we think that their behavior is negative and it has to be transformed into a positive one and therefore a change has to be brought about and we choose a name which is change oriented and by the same token we can have a name which is inspiring if we are carrying out a program in the human services because we can have an inspiring name but here you can go for the argument that we do have organizations operating within this particular area of human services in Pakistan which really have very simple names and straightforward names like EDE the name is not expressive of anything that they do but the name has become synonymous with extremely passionate execution of programs which deal with human services and the same is the case with a couple of other organizations whose name you really can imagine and think of while I talk about the importance of names but just look at the amount of time and money that may have gone into the whole thing that has taken the shape of what this organization is or is all about so while we talk about until the time we have really proved our features and our attributes with the help of the deeds which we perform day in and day out we have the luxury of going for a name if we can think of a name which is expressive of the positioning of the organization and it reflects its personality and what is given here is the fact that we in any case are going to follow the strategic process for brand raising so in other words we are not talking of these two things as mutually exclusive the one does not exclude the other it is not to say that if we follow the strategic process because we do not really have to go for a name which is reflective of the personality in other words which can be inspiring or which can be change oriented and because if we do that we cannot follow the strategic process it is not that because we can have the two things at the same time and if we have the two things at the same time then we can make the name of the organization very powerful because it really expresses what we do and it immediately flashes into the mind of our audiences as to who we are and what we are names can become more powerful with the help of taglines which I am going to talk about now because taglines also can have the same features or the character as I have talked in relation to names in other words taglines could also be inspiring and taglines also could be change oriented so we have a couple of options here we can go for a straightforward name with an inspiring tagline or we can go for an inspiring name with a straightforward tagline and we also have the option of going for an inspiring name and also an inspiring tagline but if we think that amounts to overdoing things then we may have to revert back to the option which is the one thing simple straightforward and the other thing inspiring so a tagline really adds the value to the name of the organization and together they become two very powerful elements of the identity at the level of brand raising I would like to say a word of caution here in relation to acronyms and abbreviations and this is something I pointed out while talking about logos acronyms and abbreviations do not really make good names especially when you are starting a non-profit organization or when you are starting a new program because you really cannot have acronyms and abbreviations engage with our audiences because they do not really have the power to with home into the minds of audiences could afford not being expressive enough of the positioning as well as the personality of the organization and therefore we should start with straightforward and inspiring names there is an argument which goes against acronyms in the same light I talked in relation to logos that the meanings of acronyms are not really understood by our audiences and therefore why could the test their patience to look into the full name and try to understand what the name says and why this acronym has been derived and how it is placed as part of communications hidden there taglines which is the other element already has been talked about in relation to their power as a combination of names and taglines and therefore does not really warrant too much talk on its basic character with the exception of making the statement all over again that the taglines really add a lot of value to the name they make the name really visible to the audiences because the combination of the two becomes very powerful and very expressive one thing extremely important about taglines is they have to be able to reflect the positioning and the personality of the organization and be mindful of one thing that while I talk about different elements at any level of brand raising these two elements i.e. positioning and personality take very significant place but the simple reason that they are the strategic outcome of the whole process the strategic process of brand raising everything that we do gets translated in terms of positioning and then personality and if we have the right positioning and personality I keep on repeating this particular factor we keep our communications straightforward and consistent free of any vagueness we keep them very clear and that is the objective rather one of the objectives of the good communications that they have to be clear they have to be understood by our audiences in a way that it really stirs their thinking into feeling something just thinking is not good enough until the time audience really starts feeling it and as a result of that feeling the audience gets into the action mode so this is the concept of the contemplation stage graduating into the action stage so the power of the communications is a function of so many different things of which a very clear tagline that reflects the positioning and the personality of the organization is highly important the next element of the messaging platform is the vision and mission statements here I'm not going to talk about what mission is and what vision is all about we are very clear about the starting point of any nonprofit organization which is the vision and it is a reflection of the vision of the founders that we put everything together as part of the process and get to the desired outcome in relation to again I would say positioning and personality so therefore the mission along with the vision statement have to be expressed very clearly and have to take an important place as the part of the overall messaging platform the reason I talked about the mission preceding the vision statement because you will recall I did tell you in one of the components that many organizations like to have their vision and mission the statement ask the one statement until the time they are very selective about being futuristic in terms that they may not relate very well with the mission at hand they generally like to have one statement which is a common statement of both the vision of the organization as well as the mission as long as they build up the positioning and personality get the side of the organization as part of the messaging platform everything is fine with them but then there is a lot more to the vision and the mission statements that becomes part of the messaging platform and same as the case with the values of the organization and I think we have learned quite a bit about the values which basically are the ways people within the organization with the work based on certain sets of their beliefs and the value statement basically being a reflection of the vision and then the mission again takes an important place in the messaging platform wherever we publicize our communications we have to see to it that the vision statement and the mission statement along with the values statement do appear and you might have noticed while walking into the reception of the good organizations they have splashed all these statements at the very entrance because they want the people to be exposed to what they have as their mission and what started the organization as the vision of the founder and what are the values they like to follow and I would like to say again that the messaging platform does not end here there is more to it and the reason I am interjecting here is because in many cases organizations like to confine themselves to these three statements meaning the vision statement the mission statement and the values statement but the fact is that we have to talk about key messages and we have to talk about the boilerplate the elevator pitch and then combine everything together as part of the style guide going back to the statements and then the element of the key messages what is important is that we have to establish those unique strong ideas and points that really make the positioning very strong and again I am talking about positioning because the whole exercise is about making our position strong if our position is strong then everything falls in place in terms of engaging our audiences more on this later but the point here is that there are so many different unique things that we like to talk about and yet we have to be very precise because our mission statement and at the same time our positioning statement have to be rather concise and there is not everything that we can make a part of that and therefore we have to talk about all those points which can be talked about in support of the mission or in support of our positioning we know very well that among so many different strong features because we have to pick one which is simple and unique and which is really going to stir the imagination off our audience and home in there and develop the immediate connection with the audience of our program that is the one that we pick and that is the one which reflects a point of differentiation but then like I said there are other things that we like to talk about and those are the things that we talk as part of the key messages let us go back to the example of the nursing home and take a look at the mission statement as part of the mission in very plain simple words what you are trying to convey is that the residents feel the comfort of their home at the nursing home or if you happen to be even more confident that they want to be a little more pretentious because you may like to talk about a mission which is to make the nursing home even better than their home if that is the case and you choose to be that much edgy if you happen to be really at the cutting edge you may start making those kinds of claims but the fact is that is not something which can be explained as part of the mission statement that only is expressive of what you are about and what is it that you do in a different way but what really are the ways what really are the factors that make you that much special that you are differentiated really goes into the key messages you may like to talk about the sociological side of the nursing home because you have certain staff members who understand the fundamentals of psychology and also sociology at the same time you may also like to highlight the strength of the partnership that you may have gone into as part of the cost marketing program and may like to talk about those restaurants hotels or clubs or hospitals that have made your nursing home as special as it is so whatever contributions you think are special from a standpoint which might become very special and attention seeking to our audience then you should talk about all those as key messages you do not really have to be very verbose as part of the narrative because the objective of communication is to be very concise and precise you also need to keep the one thing in mind that you are talking with different audiences because while they are going through your communications and therefore again you do not say that this statement is meant for your donors and that statement is meant for activists and volunteers and this particular statement is just internally focused for the people working for the organization it is not like that it is a combination of different messages which become interesting for different audiences they become really interesting but then at the same time really meaningful for those targets for whom they are intended like I said there is a paragraph which is meant for donors and there is another one which is meant for activists so on and so forth what are the key messages one might like to talk about if one is part of a hospital well you may like to talk about very highly trained nursing staff and how you train them maybe you are getting international support in terms of training that human resource and in that particular instance you have to talk about that because that will really home in you may also talk about very high level of qualified doctors that you have as part of the human resource or you may also like to talk about a state of the art equipment now here you see that I am giving you many examples for the simple reason for your ability to connect different components here you see that you can connect these key messages with your objectives and you can go back to the mission of the organization and you can further go down the ladder and relate those to the positioning for the organization and when that is the case you will realize how consistent you are in terms of putting together your messaging platform the messaging platform has to be a reflection of consistency because the objective is to take vagueness out of the whole communication process let me draw an analogy here from the commercial sector you might have noticed from different communications organizations talking about their strong points on a very wide spectrum anywhere starting from their engineering excellence to quality assurance and control to having very highly qualified human resources to after sales services let me talk about so many different features it really conjures up a very distinct picture in your mind of that the commercial enterprise as to how they operate and you get convinced most probably what they tell you there is more to it in terms of developing conviction of the audience but here I would like to confine myself to the key messages and the positive role they play toward building up convictions of the target audience if commercial enterprises talk about key messages as part of detailed communications and of course not as part of the mission statement or the positioning or the organization you also as part of the non-profit can talk about certain strong and unique points as key messages and once they become an integral part of your communications they in turn become more effective so on the non-profit side what we people are supposed to be doing is to come up with key messages that are weighty enough and strong enough to make our audiences think, feel and then do something doing is all about taking the action experts say that the good communications should be able to develop a connection with the target audience and promise the reward that the program or the product offers inspire certain action on part of the target audience and stick into the memory of the audience so if you take a close look at the four elements of the function that I have talked about one is the connection the other one is the reward the third one is action and the fourth one is memory you develop a connection because your campaign is very effective and consistent and that connection develops attention on part of the target audience and they get attracted to the program so that is the point of entry or the gateway to the remaining elements of the overall function once you have established that gateway then you promise the reward which basically is an expansion an extension of the concept of benefit reward you have to talk about the reward which the program offers and of course if we go back to this particular component we also talk about the cost that they may have to pay but we have to be very subtle about that it basically is the benefit that we highlight the highlighting of the benefit will inspire the target audience to take the action and once the audience has taken the action the message that we are trying to convey will stick in the memory for a long time to come and given the fact that communications are a repetitive process and we have so many different ways and means to make ourselves visible and there are so many points of interaction and exposure between our organization or for that matter between our communications and all those audiences that we are trying to reach and be exposed to that we really can do this job on a regular basis and we do do it because the communications take place on a daily basis even when you are writing a letter it is part of the communications from the overall communication process because they do see the logo they read the tagline and if there are certain pictorials and images as part of the communication it will flash the picture to which they are used to and the letter that you have written in addition to what is a standard communication meaning you are advertising and whatever you have you see as part of standardized print media or as part of your web back to the four elements of the overall function meaning connectivity and action and reward and the memory experts have coined an acronym which is known as Cram which is C-R-A-M and this is what they call cramming the message into the mind of the audience and the cramming when you look at these alphabets in the order of C-R-A-M you may not find it exactly in the order things the work starting from the entry point of connection but for us to remember it I think the acronym is strong enough and here I would like to reiterate once again that we have to revisit the concept of the benefit reward and if we are really offering a good reward around which the program of any non-profit revolves we can cram the message successfully for the message to be successful there are a few more considerations as part of a good communication package the one is that I already have talked about meaning the diversity of the key messages in terms of our effort to approach different audiences we are trying to reach different audiences as activists as volunteers as community leaders as donors we have to have different messages that have relevance to those audiences and all those messages will cram better and more effectively if we give due consideration to what is it that is to be talked about we try to reach donors for example and this is where we can go back to the example of segmentation we look into the various motivations and finding which level of motivation is most appropriate with the objective of communication that we are trying to achieve we can highlight that and make our communication more consistent we are carrying out a campaign against smoking and we are communicating continually with different audiences just look at the differences when it comes to what we are trying to achieve through our communications for the smoker we are telling him you will rid yourself of the vice and he understands that if we really quit smoking it is a very good feeling for the activist because he has a sense of fulfillment he really worked really hard and brought the smokers around the point that this habit is injurious so the communication essence here is different for the audience which consists of activists just look at the donors the donors really have a feeling of satisfaction and happiness that they have given something and the fact is that the feeling of giving is highly significant in relation to charities philanthropy and the donations for non-profits scientific research has proved a very interesting point shared with you after taking brain scans of a group of people scientists have established that when you give the state of happiness that emerges in your mind leads to certain warm glows just like you see a room getting dirty when you put on the bulb so it is the warm glow that we as marketing people should be after because we should be able to put together our messages we are still talking about key messages don't lose sight of that fact we have to be able to put together our key messages in a way that they lead to happiness in the brains of our audience and if we are successful in doing so all is well with our communications yet another important factor that we must consider and the factor of the matter is as part of communications for non-profits this happens to be even more important than the ones that we talked about this is not to say that one takes precedence over the other they all as a combination of messages create strength but the reason I say this is more important than others because this is very effective if we can use this particular factor very smartly and that is the factor of storytelling it is very simple but the fact is when we start telling stories to our audiences we develop a sense of a shared experience we are sharing that particular experience with the audience at the receiving end we are sharing something that already has happened and we are telling them this is the way the donors came forward toward the cause and this is how activists for the cause and this is how the internal staff committed itself toward executing the program and the ones that you have talked about those messages by substation of certain real life stories that you are creating a platform which is emotional which carries a personal touch and whenever audiences can develop a personal relationship with a set of communications they are apt to adopt what is set in those communications and there is a good reason for that we as humans are from generally and basically conformists we like to see what people are doing we like to follow what we see others as thinking so in other words we take a lot of cues in terms of what others think and what they do by telling stories we develop such cues and the people have a tendency to fall in line in doing something which others are doing or which others have done and what they are doing is what social psychologists call the power of social proof I think it is a beautiful terminology and it tells us how powerful it is if we can tell people listen this is the way other people behave and this is the way the people hold certain values very close to their heart and this is the way they have carried out things in favour of the cause that we are communicating to you and why don't you listen to them I mean that is the message and people will listen that is the power of the social proof here the question is how do we extract good stories as part of a communication process the well stories cannot be fabricated they have to be real time experiences and real life happenings therefore we have to resort to what experts call the two way communication process and there are two different forms of two way communications the one is the traditional way our interactions our audiences whether we like it or not whether we plan it or not which is more appropriate we do get into contact with our audiences at different points of life we get into touch with them in seminars at other places like Gala's and musical evenings the different promotional the programs we can talk about things which they have experienced and they think are important for them and therefore can be and should be shared with us we can pinpoint stories by getting into interaction with our audiences wherever opportunity provides us with the platform this is the essence of the two way communication in real life instances the other option is through the web let's talk about the blogosphere it's a two way traffic we are talking with our audience they are talking with us we are talking about negative things here let's concentrate on the positive advocacy and definitely we will share some very good experiences which they have had with the organization while trying to unearth what really motivates different donors we did unravel very convincing bases of the motivation it goes without saying that motivations have to spring from certain real life good things and stories could be extracted from good experiences which audiences that are feeling motivated have experienced and you can build on those motivations by getting back to those audiences and make the right stuff for your log of the messages as part of the overall log of the communications whether through the web or through real life encounters the point is you have to be able to extract all those experiences of your audiences that have been very positive and rewarding to them because when you talk about those experiences you are in a position to cram the message thanks