I’m trying to look past Nicholas Kristoff’s little slam against the communications skills of the nonprofit world — which, of course, I feel is not really fair and accurate considering some of the great marketing going on out there — to focus on the case he presents as a really good example of “rebranding” for a good cause. The New York Times columnist picks up the case of the African wild dog, which technically isn’t a dog but has nonetheless been rebranded as the “Painted Dog” in an effort to draw more attention to its near extinction.
It is an interesting case for the concept of “naming and framing,” as the folks at PPC member Public Agenda might term it. Kristoff notes in his piece that wild dogs…
“…are a species that has become endangered without anyone raising an eyebrow. Until, that is, a globe-trotting adventurer named Greg Rasmussen began working with local villages to rebrand the dogs — and save them from extinction…
Central to Mr. Rasmussen’s effort to save the dogs has been a struggle to rename them, so that they sound exotic rather than feral.
Do-gooders usually have catastrophic marketing skills. Pepsi and Coke invest fortunes to promote their products over their rivals, while humanitarians aren’t nearly as savvy about marketing causes with far higher stakes — famine, disease, mass murder.
Mr. Rasmussen is an exception, and his effort to rebrand the species as “painted dogs” caught on. The name works because the animals’ spotted coats suggest that they ran through an artist’s studio.
Mr. Rasmussen runs the Painted Dog Conservation, a center that offers the animals a refuge from poachers and rehabilitation when they are injured. But most of all, he works with impoverished local villagers so that they feel a stake in preserving painted dogs.
Kristoff says that “If clever marketing and strategic thinking can take reviled varmints such as “wild dogs” and resurrect them (quite justly) as exotic “painted dogs” to be preserved, then no cause is hopeless.” Well, I suppose that’s true. But I wish that he would look around and see the countless other examples of great marketing and issue framing being done by nonprofits and foundations around the world.
About Michael Hamill Remaley
Michael Hamill Remaley is the President of Hamill Remaley Communications. Previously, he was Director of Communications at the Russell Sage Foundation and Prior to that was Vice President and Director of Communications at Public Agenda. He has held a variety of positions at organizations such as The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, TCC Group and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development.