Inspiration from the late Bill Hicks:
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself.
It’s just a little thought; I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they’ll take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can.
Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are: do.
Aaah, no really. There’s no rationalization for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers. Okay? Kill yourself.
Seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good.
Seriously.
—Bill Hicks
Most marketing makes the world worse; it sets out to impede rational decision-making.
In the nonprofit and NGO sector, there are a number of concepts and practices that have acquired __4Good nicknames and hashtags: #Games4Good (a.k.a. Gaming for Good), #Net4Good (keeping children safe online), #SM4Good (Social Media for Good), #Indolence4Good (as-yet unused), and especially: #Tech4Good (Technology for Good).
Implicit in this shorthand is that the thing comes before the “4Good” is generally not used for good; neutral at best, malevolent at worst.
Internet Marketing and Social Media have amplified the ability of marketers to target and influence human behavior with an efficiency that the 4gooders in the world barely appreciate.
Evil4Good (E4G LLC) puts the power of Internet Marketing tools and techniques to good use — literally to good use; to assist with data collection and analysis for rational decision making.
As Bill Hicks might have said, I’m “going for that anti-marketing dollar.”
Think swords into plowshares, if that works for you.
Services
- Non-Profit and NGO Communications: Reputation Management, Thought Leadership Visibility, Internal Communications, Stakeholder Engagement Strategies
- Repurposed Social Media: Survey panels built from social media targeting.
- Repurposed Pay-Per-Click Campaigns: Develop and pretest messaging for target audiences before field testing.
- Marketing Communications: Brand Building, Reputation Management
- Research: Information/Monitoring, Analysis, Data Science, Strategic Advice and Advocacy
- Media Relations: Media Statements/Kits/Press Releases, Storytelling, Writing and Editorial Services, Media Lobbying
[M]arketing, when done right, is not only an incredibly honest endeavor, it is an opportunity for innovation, evolution, advancement and unification. In fact most of our the problems facing us today will be solved through some form of marketing.
All of the same strategies that can be used to sell penis enlargement pills on pornography sites can be applied to higher minded ideals, lead to personal and global development and create communities that transcend traditional demographic boundaries.
Marketing gives an individual or a company the chance to share ideas and solutions to the people who are most interested in them. It can be used to create engagement, collect feedback, test hypotheses and share breakthroughs.
Kirk Faulkner ( March, 2016). I Wish I Could Make a Case For Marketing to Bill Hicks. Medium. Retrieved March , 2019
I’ve been in communications and marketing for much of my career (#NotAllMarketers). In particular, I’ve been doing Internet marketing since 1998, when I launched the first-ever nonprofit e-commerce store with PEOPLink.
Since then I have also worked promoting environmental conservation, on progressive political campaigns, in the cycling industry promoting bikes as everyday transportation, and in the Digital Development (ICT4D) sector promoting tools and techniques for data collection, monitoring and evaluation.
The Evil4Good.org website will launch in 2020.
