066 – What Makes a Non-Profit Brand Stand Out? Tips from DP Knudten

Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: Branding, fiction or non-fiction? Listen up to what DP has to say and dive in on this episode. Welcome to the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast. I’m your host, David, and in this episode, we’re going to be talking all things branding with David Paul Knudten, but we’re going to call him DP just to eliminate any confusion between David and David.

DP is the chief collaborator at his business, Collaborator Creative, and the creative director of Southeastern Guide Dogs. He’s worked on some of the biggest brands in the business, including Coca-Cola, the Athlete’s Foot, ClosetMaid, and during 10 years at DDB Needham in Chicago, McCann Erickson in Atlanta, and creative shops in Denver, Sarasota, and Madison.

He is the author of NONFICTION BRAND- Discover, Craft, and Communicate the “Completely true/completely you”. There you go. It’s on the screen if you’re watching the video. Brand You Already Are, and co-author of ROTOMA, the ROI of social media, top of mind, and also a fellow podcast host, but not of one… Two podcasts! So if that wasn’t enough, DP, you’re also a keynote speaker in branding, social media, creative, and culture.

So within all of that, I don’t know how you found the time to hop on this episode with me but thank you so much for being here today.

DP Knudten: Well, you always have to make time whenever anyone invites you to have a great conversation. And I certainly am looking forward to this conversation today, David.

By the way, David, you’re the reason I go by DP. And let me share with you that story because that actually goes into branding a little bit. I like to tell people that the number one job of branding – keep in mind, branding does many different jobs, but the number one job of branding is differentiation.

If you think about it, it goes all the way back to cattle in the Old West. Your brown cow looks like my brown cow. How do I know which is yours and which is mine? I brand it. It differentiates my brown cow from your brown cow.

Consequently, David, this David has to differentiate himself, and I actually had to do this because I joined an agency in Chicago, DDB Needham, interestingly enough, and they called me up shortly before I joined them and they said, “What do you want on your business card?” I said, “How about my name? David Knudten”.

And they said, “Yeah, that’s a little bit of a problem because you’re going into a creative group with four other Davids. You’ll be number five. And everybody has a nickname except you, so you might want to choose something else before we pick something for you”. So I didn’t want to be called Sheila. So instead I said, “Well, call me DP because writers, tend to go by their initials. Right? J. K. Rowling or J. R. R. Tolkien. I’ll be DP Knudten”.

David Pisarek: There you go. Yeah. I mean, stop calling me Shirley, right?

DP Knudten: Yeah, exactly. Sheila, Shirley, I don’t answer those, except on the weekends.

David Pisarek: Well, there you go. Yeah, that’s awesome. Growing up, there was always one or two other Davids in class with me, and it’s just “David”, “David’s parent is here to pick them up. Which David?” You need to differentiate for sure.

DP Knudten: Branding is making sure that no one ever says “Which David?” Because you have branded yourself differently than anyone else. And sometimes that comes down to the name itself. So that’s a big part of it.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And my last name is Pisarek. So if I wanted to confuse everybody, I can just call myself DP in this episode as well.

DP Knudten: Differentiation, man. Differentiate yourself. I’m DP Knudten and you are David Pisarek.

David Pisarek: There you go. That works for me. Let’s jump in and chat about some stuff here. So what do you find fulfilling or most fulfilling about working with the Southeastern Guide Dogs?

DP Knudten: Well, the name itself right there, I think says it all. It’s an organization that’s been around for decades now, located in Palmetto, Florida in the USA.

And it started out as a house out in the middle of nowhere with a guy who trained one dog and now has grown to a full bore, call it a mini campus, complete with what you would expect to find at a small university of facilities to train dogs and instruct students who are everything from the traditionally visually impaired for guide dogs to service dogs, specifically trained for any number of things, including, believe it or not, COVID detection.

Yes, we did train a COVID detection dog. But many of our dogs go into things, we call them careers. Many of the dogs go into careers like facility therapy dogs. You’ll find a lot of those at the VA, the Veterans Administration hospitals around the United States.

Some of them go as companion dogs for a program we call Gold Star Kids. These are the kids who’ve had a parent die in the service to the country. And no dog is ever going to replace a parent, but maybe that dog, that highly trained dog that is a fantastic buffer or companion, maybe it can help a little bit.

So we have all those different careers, but they’re all dedicated toward matching fantastically trained dogs of impeccable genetic backgrounds to people who could really use them and benefit from them.

David Pisarek: It’s such an amazing service. And you go to the mall and you see people walking around service dogs or people who are blind that need the assistance, and you don’t really think about where they come from or how they get trained. Just they’re there. And that’s an incredible service that’s being provided.

DP Knudten: Well, that goes back to branding, too. If I said job one of branding is differentiation, job maybe two or three is awareness building.

And for non-profits, awareness is hugely important. The more people who are aware of the services you provide or the people you serve, the better chance you have of converting people to donate, attracting people to apply for your programs and services, etc.

Because let me tell you, in a world where everybody is a brand, even a personal brand, if you’re a non-profit that has not successfully branded yourself and used the tools of branding to make yourselves a recognizable brand, boy, you’re fighting with two hands tied behind your back.

David Pisarek: Let’s jump into that for a sec. Brand, how would you describe what goes into a brand?

DP Knudten: Well, a lot of people think branding is nothing more than the consistent use of typography, colour, and logo. Maybe if you’re really sophisticated, you’ve got a messaging platform, which you only talk about key pillars of what our brand represents and stuff like that. But I believe it’s a whole lot more than that.

I believe it’s everything from the way you answer your phones or your emails to your CEO’s public behaviour because that can tell you everything you need to know about a brand.

I don’t know if the same thing is true in Canada, but periodically here in the United States, almost like clockwork, there’s going to be a story that comes out about a non-profit organization that has been playing fast and loose with their donations, whether it’s that the CEO has a corporate jet or that people are being paid tremendous amounts and yet they don’t produce anything. Or even worse, out of every dollar donated, 90 cents plus goes into the overhead.

If that’s the type of organization you’re running in there, many of them, that’s an absolutely terrible thing. If you’re an organization, however, that takes pride in the fact… I remember looking up one time, what is the most cost-effective non-profit organization in the world. And this is a number of years ago, so things may have changed.

But I looked it up and guess who it was? It was the Norwegian Red Cross. Now, we all know what the Red Cross is. Well, this wasn’t just the Red Cross in general, this was a very specific one coming from a very specific place that, out of every dollar raised, maybe they had 15% in overhead, 85% went to services.

Wow. If that’s part of your brand story, you’re going to get a lot more attention. Witness the fact that any non-profit is absolutely concerned and aware of the organizations that adjudicate or account for the efficacy of any organization like a charity navigator and other online services like that.

If you score well there… And I’ll back up and say, why does that matter to have that little charity navigator badge on your website? Well, because we find a ton of our donors, they look for that first before they go anywhere else. Because why talk to you about donating significant funds if they don’t know those funds are going to be used appropriately? That little brand, and by the way, that charity navigator brand, that’s a brand.

That logo is a brand. It acts and it too has to become a brand that people understand what they stand for and that they’re legitimate and that they are rigorous and they’ve done the due diligence and all that stuff. Once you have a relationship with Charity Navigator as a brand, if you’re a donor, you don’t think about it anymore. It’s going, “No, they’re legit. They’re cool”.

If Charity Navigator gives a site or non-profit a thumbs up, they’ve passed that hurdle. “Let’s go to the next hurdle”, which might be something entirely different. But do you see what happened there? One brand, Charity Navigator, fed the authority of another brand, which is the brand that can legitimately use Charity Navigator’s brand on its website as being a quality organization.

Brands help each other out. And the more brands you have associated with you, the better.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And to that point, it shows not just credibility, but also social proof, right? It’s evidence of the quality, the rigour, the transparency, whatever your core beliefs are, whatever your mission statement is, let that shine through.

Tell that story. Use that in your messaging. And to that point, if you’re part of Charity Navigator, if you’re approved by them, put that logo on your site. Let it feed your credibility.

DP Knudten: Yeah, absolutely. Because you use the keyword, which is proof.

You constantly have to prove, or I would use the word demonstrate because I like my alliteration. I said job one of branding is differentiation. Job two is demonstration.

You need to demonstrate or to use your word, and prove that you are exactly what you say you are. My book is called Nonfiction Brand because I practice a philosophy and practice of branding I call “Non-conviction branding”.

Now, that might imply that there is such a thing as fiction branding to which I say, “Yeah, we’re all surrounded by it every day”. It’s the diet pill that one pill can drop 50 pounds off you in three weeks so you can get in that swimsuit ready for swimsuit season. Yeah, wrong. That’s not true. That’s a false claim that will overpromise and underdeliver.

Branding is about promising appropriately and delivering that level or above with excellence.

So think about that. Not overpromising, not underdelivering, but appropriately promising and then delivering at least that, if not better. If you’re doing that, you have a non-conviction brand based on who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

DP Knudten: And most importantly at all, that really communicates the value of what you bring to the people involved.

David Pisarek: And not just that, I would add one more piece to that, which is consistency. Being able to deliver that and have the quality and meet and or exceed expectations on a consistent, regular basis, time and time again.

DP Knudten: Yeah. And the key word that, again, I want to underline this, is consistency, absolutely. And let me tell you this story from my past as a young copywriter working at McCann Erickson in Atlanta on Coca-Cola.

I would regularly go over to present ads, whether it’s an outdoor board or a radio script or a print ad, TV, or whatever. And I would sit across the table from about five people. Each one of those was… Ivy League MBAs, who were there to do one thing, and that is killing my ad.

They literally would test it because there were, at the time I worked at McCann, there were seven layers of approval at Coca-Cola. Seven layers of approval for a company that makes sweet, brown, bubbly water? Yeah, because they understand they’re a company that makes sweet brown bubbly water. It’s a commodity. They understand that their commodity if it’s just a commodity, it’s purchased for the lowest possible price. But for a premium brand, you can charge whatever people will pay for that premium brand.

So they understood something, and I learned a ton while working there. “Oh, if you’re not a brand, you are by default a commodity”.

A commodity like a 4×8 sheet of plywood. A commodity like pork belly or a pound of coffee, or orange juice. These are all commodities purchased for the lowest possible price.

If you’re a brand, you can be like an Apple iPhone. An Apple iPhone, some people will say, “Is just like a Samsung Android phone”. To which I’ll say, “No, not quite”, because I am an Apple fan.

But there’s a reason why I’m an Apple fan, and that is because they are consistent in everything they do. They aren’t perfect. I will quibble about some things, but they are consistently delivering value to me in the way that I value what they have to offer me.

I value being an IT dad at my house. I value not having to go in and fix everything all the time. Or when I do, I can find out how to do it intuitively rather than in some tortuous way that, frankly, doesn’t work half the time. I value what they offer and I pay a premium for that. So if there’s $300 worth of parts in a $1,000 iPhone 14 Pro Max, I’m okay with that because they deliver value to me, the value in terms of what I value most.

I love the design. I love the easy, intuitive interface. I love the fact that my phone talks to my computer, that talks to my watch, that talks to my Apple TV. I love all these things, just work. These things I value.

And again, when I was younger, I loved to open the hood of my 1976, Jeep CJ7. I loved getting under the hood in that straight six engines, pulling plugs, changing oil, doing this, that, and the other thing, trying to squeeze out another horsepower of power out of the power plant.

Well, I’ve gotten to the point now where I have more money than time, I don’t care if they weld the hood shut as long as the car works. One, the Jeep was perfect for me age 30 or 25 or whatever I was. But Apple iPhones are perfect for me, age what I am now, which is based on the colour of my beard, I’m just south of Santa Claus territory.

David Pisarek: Yeah, there’s something to be said about having an ecosystem built around your brand. That’s exactly what Apple did. They built an ecosystem and platforms and products and services and their support network and everything, and they make it easy. If you had to call Samsung, you’re hours waiting for somebody.

DP Knudten: Yeah. And half the time, none of it talks to each other. So again, all of the stuff Apple is creating is based exactly on who they are, what they do, how they do it, and the value they offer and execute. I am not over-promised. I am not under-delivered. They’ve got a customer for life so much so that full disclosure, I own Apple stock. That’s how much I care about that company.

David Pisarek: Well, maybe this episode will help the stock go up for you.

DP Knudten: I would hope so. I would hope so.

David Pisarek: We’re talking about it. Might as well. Let’s get something out of it. Okay, so we’ve talked about what a brand is, but how can an organization drive awareness about their brand?

DP Knudten: Well, one of the beautiful things going on now is for the first time in the history of humankind, you’ve got 24/7 always on worldwide global channels available to you for free. And I’m a big fan of social media, even though I hate social media. What does that mean? What do I hate about it? I am not obviously a digital native that grew up with all these devices.

Put it this way, when I was in college, I never wrote a single college paper on a computer because no one had one. I had an electric typewriter, but it was a typewriter. So yeah, let’s just say digital native, I am not. However, I do recognize the value of the always-on 365 Worldwide Web-oriented social media platforms out there.

I always like to get people to think a little bit differently about the situation they’re in right now. So if the audience is a person who works at a non-profit or a small business, throw that aside for a second and pretend that you are in a band. Pick your instrument. You’re a bass player, guitarist, keyboard player, bassist, or whatever you want to be, but you’re part of a band. You guys have worked overtime trying to craft a set of songs, and you’re really proud of what you’ve created. You’ve got this whole, dare I say, an album of songs available.

Back in the day, and I’m talking back in my day, your best hope would be that you’re playing at a single venue in a town where an A&R artist and repertoire agent from a major label might just happen to hear you by accident. They’re in there to have a drink with their friend. They hear you and go, “You guys are great. I’m going to sign you to a record label. Follow me”.

There were so many gatekeepers between you and success as a band, as a songwriter, as a musician that, well, let’s just face it, there are more musicians who never play anywhere than there are musicians who play on big stages, right? Well, guess what? Now we’ve got these social media channels where a young Canadian boy can go in the basement of a church and sing a song that’s recorded on a crappy camcorder, upload it to YouTube, this new thing, and be discovered by who was it? Was it Puff Daddy at the time or P Diddy, whatever he was calling him at the time?

So this kid from Nowheresville in Canada (no offence, Canada) is able to be in a bidding war for people who want to put him on a label. Do you know who I’m talking about?

David Pisarek: The Biebs. Justin Bieber.

DP Knudten: Yeah, the Biebs.

Literally, what’s the likelihood that circa 1975, Justin Bieber could have been discovered in Canada? It’s not a zero number, but it’s really close to zero. But now with social media, he can get himself, his voice, and his talent out there, even if it’s not perfect, in a way that allows people to discover them, embrace him, and turn him into a global superstar.

David Pisarek: It’s that let’s create content. Let’s do something and put it out into the universe sphere of society. Whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever your platform of choice is.

I think part of that I want to touch on is you need to know who your audience is, who your key person is that you want to go after, who your ideal donor is, understand who they are, their philosophy, their psychographics, their demographic, where they hang out, and then go into those networks. And try to create messaging there if that’s how you want to connect with people.

DP Knudten: But we live in such a connected society, hyper-connected, that you don’t know where the connections are going to happen that really make a difference. Let me give you an example.

Southeastern Guide Dogs is located next to a highway interchange. There’s an overpass and we have an outdoor board that has various messages. We rotate it periodically. But one day there’s this beautiful puppy on there and something about… I think the active board was “Heroes Train Here” and it was right associated with the campus.

Well, turns out they’re down in Florida near Sarasota between Tampa and Sarasota, a place where a lot of retired people go and live, and it so happened that a man was driving by. He saw that it piqued his interest enough that he got off, he exited the highway, went on to the campus, walked in the front door and started talking to the receptionist there. And the receptionist had standing orders from our CEO that if it seems like it’s someone who might be there to make a donation, go ahead and give me a call, “I’ll come down and talk to them”. So the receptionist called down the CEO, who didn’t know who the guy was.

He looked like a regular guy and walked up to him and said, “Hi, I’m Titus Herman, the CEO of Southeastern Guide Dogs”. The guy took out his phone, and said, “Hold on a second, Titus”, rings up his office and says, “Hey, I want you to cut a check for $100,000 and send it to Southeastern Guide Dogs. Yep, Palm Meadow, Florida. Okay, bye”, and then what he proceeded to say was, “I have been looking forever for an organization like yours that is doing things the way that I do things with my businesses”. It does it first class. It’s not a pity party. It’s a “We are about empowering people and helping people”. “I was attracted by the billboard. I saw your campus. I was impressed with the idea that you guys understand that you don’t have to be wearing a hair shirt and flagellating yourself because you’re a non-profit. Instead, you can do quality and make quality the thing you do. That’s why I wrote that check”.

Now he may be on our Board of Directors for all I know. But the whole point is, what made that connection? It was a billboard along a highway. That, in his case, generated a $100,000 check.

Now, does that mean every tweet you put out has the potential to connect with someone like that? Well, yes it does. Does that mean it will? Not necessarily. But you don’t know, and that’s why you’ve got to pick a small subset of social channels and do it. I like to call it “Fewer, better”. Pick the ones where your people live.

For example, we have a lot of retirees down in Florida. Guess what? They’re more on Facebook than they are on Snapchat. Don’t waste time on Snapchat. Spend a lot of time on Facebook. However, Facebook and Instagram are really closely related, and so do both. And by the way, Twitter is really easy to do a subset of what you’re doing on Facebook and Instagram.

So yeah, we’re going to be active on Twitter too. And YouTube? All day long. The best thing a brand can do is demonstrate, right? So we demonstrate via video all the time.

Now, here’s another story. If you’re listening to this, I want you to go to YouTube and type in “Pip”, and “Southeastern Guy Dogs”. When you do, all of a sudden you’ll see a number of things on the list.

Look for the one that says, “Pip, a short animated film by Southeastern Guide Dogs”. And you’ll be presented with a four-minute, five-second video about a little dog who could. And then you’ll look and see how many views have they gotten on this thing, and the last time I checked, it was 419 million.

This video has been monetized on YouTube and is generating, let’s say, around $5,000 US every single month and has been for the past year. The first year it was out, we didn’t monetize it. That was a lost year. But now it’s paying for itself over time. And I’m here to tell you, I was not involved with Southeastern Guide Dogs when they did this. I had worked with them through an agency before, then didn’t work with them at all. Then they hired me to work with them.

And as I’m doing a little bit of research about where they are now, and also because I’m a creative director, I keep an eye out for those best-animated films of whatever year it happens to be. And so I’m watching this best-animated film of 2019 or whatever the year was, and I go, “Oh, that’s nice. Oh, I like that technique”. And “Oh, interesting story”. And then I see this one called Pip, and I’m like, “Wait a minute, I recognize that logo. Wait a minute”.

And then I’m watching the whole thing and I’m going, “Oh, my God. This is Southeastern Guy Dogs, who I used to work with. Oh, my God. This is really the first class. This is just short of Disney in terms of the quality of animation. Oh, my God. This is the cutest story ever. Oh, my God. I know what it costs to create something like this. Had I been working there, I would have told them we can’t afford to do this”. Well, they did it.

They swung mightily for the seats, and they got a grand slam home run that continues to generate viewers and revenue via a monetized video on YouTube to the tune of around five grand a month. Who knew? Nobody knew. But we did. And boom, there’s an old saying in baseball,

“You don’t score on every ball you don’t swing at, guarantee. But you just might score on that next one you swing at”. And again, your batting average is not perfect. It’s not every time out.

But you literally do not make the shots you don’t take. Let’s put it in Canadian terms…

David Pisarek: You miss 100% percent of the shots you don’t take.

DP Knudten: Exactly. And if you’re the great one, you know that it’s always best to skate to where the pucks going to be.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. So we do have a show notes page for this episode. We’ll embed the YouTube clip for the Pip video. Yeah, 419 million views in four years. Wouldn’t that be outstanding for anybody who’s listening to this?

DP Knudten: And it keeps going because it’s evergreen. And if you get nothing out of our conversation today, brands always look for what is our evergreen communications and what are our emergent communications. Our evergreen ones go out all the time, every year. Coca-Cola owns the holiday season.

Why? Because they’ve owned the holiday season since Harold Sunblown did an illustration of jolly old Saint Nicholas with a big old belly drinking a bottle of Coke in 1930. They own and do a holiday season so much that people are like, “Oh, are they going to do Polar Bears this year? Is it going to be the Polar Bears with the Sears?”.

Well, they can’t do Penguin because that’s Antarctica. But maybe they’ll come up with a way that they can get Penguin up to the North Pole. Wouldn’t that be cool? People are asking already, “I wonder what Coke is going to do this holiday season?” Emergent communications are things like, “Well, we’re right in the hurricane zone. The hurricane that just came through threatening Florida? Well, we had all our communications lined up to let people know about the safety of our dogs, how much damage, if we had any damage, which, thankfully, we did not”.

But that’s emergent. It literally is something that is emerging that we need to communicate. And this is not 100 % true, but generally true:

Brands focus more on evergreen communications than emerging things they have to communicate. PR does emergent 100%.

Today, as we’re speaking, Adidas just dumped Kanye West for his comments about certain racial groups or ethnic groups. That’s an emergent thing that PR has to handle. Brands, Adidus the Brand, I am incredibly interested to see what Adidas the Brand is going to be doing to counteract the negative aspects of the emergent communications that had to happen to surround the Kanye West debacle.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And I think that’s something to be really mindful of if you work with celebrities, A, B, C, D, Z whatever. Things that they’re going out and doing. How are you perceived as a brand by being associated with “here”, “here”, and “here”? It could be another organization. Maybe there’s another organization and somebody high up was arrested for embezzlement. How does that portray your organization by way of association?

DP Knudten: Frankly, I said earlier that brands associate with brands as much as they possibly can. There is a danger in that, but it’s a whole lot less dangerous than associating closely with individuals because individuals can blow themselves up at any moment. Brands are very careful to avoid that at all possible costs.

And you look at the huge brands like I mentioned Disney, I mentioned Apple, I mentioned Coca-Cola. Let’s look at some around the world, Mercedes Benz, Adidas, Toyota, you name it. These brands are very careful with their communications, but also with what they choose to serve out to people. And I like to say “Where you don’t go, won’t go is as important to know as where you do go on a daily basis”. Meaning, what do you stand for?

If you haven’t done that exercise defining, “Here’s what I do, here’s what we will not do”, then you need to do that. Because we have done that.

Even when it comes down to things like dog toys or animal-related products and services, we have to be very careful about that because we do have certain brand partnerships that we need to maintain, cultivate and protect.

If we said yes to everything, that’s the recipe for disaster. And I love to say the most important word in branding is “No. No, we won’t do that. Why? Because it’s not us”.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And that’s a really important insight there. Absolutely. So if you only get one thing out of this, that is probably one of the most important pieces of insight that you’ll get out of this episode is to know your brand and know what you will and won’t do.

And if you don’t have a brand guide, you should get a brand guide. We could talk about that probably for three hours. What should be in a brand guide, what shouldn’t, all that type of stuff but some of the messaging, some of this ideology about your organization should be included in there, absolutely.

DP Knudten: It needs to be codified in the same way that here in the United States, we have the Constitution in the United States of America. It’s very much this is what we stand for.

We have a Supreme Court, you have a Supreme Court, they are there to protect the brands that are the United States of America and Canada. They literally are there to say “Yes” to some, and “No” to others, because the “where we are” is on the things that we say “Yes” to, but the things we say “No” to define us as much or even more.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. Yeah, in Canada, we also have a Constitution. Absolutely. I think that’s really important for everybody to think about and know about.

If you are a non-profit and you’re listening to this, you’re like, “What is he talking about? Brand? What we do… How can we brand this?”, “We’re collecting money to feed children to get them breakfast in our local area because there are some issues around that”. What do you say, DP, to people who are like, “I can’t brand this”?

DP Knudten: Everything is brandable. Do you know why? Because everything is based on who you are, what you do, how you do it and your value to other people.

So consequently, let’s just say the hypothetical local food bank type thing, one of many. A commodity, a food bank is a food bank is a food bank. Well, if we sat down for five minutes, I’d ask some questions. I’d say, “Who started this food bank?” “Oh, actually, it was started in the 1930s. We had a famine and the Little Sisters of Mercy, which is a religious organization, started a soup kitchen”. I’m like, “Okay, this is all gold right here”.

One, there was this screaming need, this existential need for famine in 1930. This religious organization came together to feed people. Consequently, you are in action order-oriented religious organization based on a specific… Playing out this scenario, let’s say it’s sisters of Mercy, the Catholic nuns or whatever.

You’ve just told me right there, it’s the Catholic organization based on a faith foundation that is not about talking about “Heaven is glorious”. It’s about meeting the needs of starving people in desperate need right now. All of a sudden you’re a whole lot different than a group that goes to local restaurants and collects food they’re going to throw out and just gives it to homeless people, which I’m not saying that’s bad, but that’s not what you do.

You do something that’s much more elevated or more premium in my definition and it makes you more valuable. Why? Because then you’re speaking to your potential donor. Who’s that potential donor? I’m going to guess there’s a high likelihood they have a religious foundation that’s important in their life and maybe even go so far as to say they are Roman Catholic. All of a sudden you’re zeroing in and you’re targeting individuals almost because understand one thing:

There’s no such thing as an individual in this world.

There’s an individual who’s a member of a much larger group. If you focus on that one individual, you’re actually talking to a much larger group, but you’re talking to them about things that matter on a personal level.

Let’s say that I’m this moneyed individual who has been raised in the Catholic Church and supports it, and I want to find an organization where I can share some of the gifts that God has given me with other people. I hear about this group that started in the 1930s. “Oh, my God. My great-grandfather, he went through the Depression and barely survived. And it was only through the grace of his local church that he was able to survive and then become a successful businessman”.

Do you see what’s happening? All this emotion is being mixed with a story, and it’s all true. It’s all real. And this thing that was formerly not brandable is completely creating a brand within a five-minute conversation. That’s what I do. And that’s why I’m so passionate about this stuff. Because if you’ve got something to serve, something to sell, something to help, something to boost, something to promote, you got to be a brand.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. And you need to reshape your thinking in that way. It’s hard to do. If you are a small non-profit, you’re stuck in the day-to-day dealing with operations, dealing with all the tasks that need to be done, and potentially sorting out volunteer schedules. Where do you find time to think about that? But block your calendar off once a month for an hour and just sit down and think about your organization.

Think about what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for, and why you’re doing it.

Those three things will help build that and solidify your brand, at least in your mind. But it’s one thing to do that there. You got to put it down somewhere. Put it down on paper, send it out in an email, get the volunteers, your staff, and the people that you serve, and let them know what those three things are and how you bring them together. And weave that through your messaging. Weave that through the videos that you’re producing, the content you’re producing, and your tweet. You don’t have to say it in every single tweet, but there should be this thread that carries through the story of what you do through everything.

DP Knudten: There’s a concept that I like to teach people. I call it the key three. Literally, the three concepts, words, or foundational elements that truly define who you are, what you do, and how you do it. So when I worked on Coca-Cola, they were already created.

I did not come up with the Key3. They were created. I learned from Coke. The Key3 for Coke, at the time I worked with them, the key three words were authenticity, refreshment, and sociability.

Now I could go on for hours about what those things mean, but you’ll notice none of them talked about sweet or bubbly. It didn’t talk about the product. It talked about what the product was based on or who they were.

So authenticity was the real thing. They beat Pepsi by one year, but they’re still the real Cola that went nationwide in the United States of America and now is one of the most recognized brands around the world. Sociability, you always have Coke on hand with friends, picnics, football games, holiday parties, you name it, you always have to have Coca-Cola there because someone’s going to want Coca-Cola, right? And then refreshment.

That was interesting to me because I have a love relationship with the old green glass Coke bottle. Remember those things?

David Pisarek: Oh, yeah.

DP Knudten: My mom would take us to visit Grandma in Salina, Kansas, in August. Now, if you know anything about Salina, Kansas in August, it’s just about five miles short of hell. I mean, literally, it is so hot and uncomfortable.

And I remember being this little kid, I’d be outside playing around, sweating like crazy. I’d go running into Grandma’s kitchen. The screen door would slam because she was an old Swede, and air conditioning wasn’t something she ever wanted. So there was just a screen door, the screen door would slam. I would run over to the refrigerator. I’d open it up. It was such an old refrigerator. It didn’t have a light on the inside. I’d then reach around, pinching my hand through the guts of the refrigerator, trying to feel the green, cold, sweaty green glass bottle. I’d pull that out, and the first thing I did was not pop the top, but I put it against my neck. That’s when I understood what refreshment really meant. It wasn’t about the liquid in the bottle. It was about the entire experience afforded by a green glass bottle of Coca-Cola.

That is the power of the brand. And if you ever want to see one of the absolute best creative briefs ever written, look up on Google the creative brief for the creation of the Coca-Cola bottle.

They literally describe what they wanted, something that could be found in a dark fridge, something that was related to the cocoa bean because of Coca-Cola, etc. It was such a brilliantly written example of what a brand is that I always go back to that green glass bottle and say, if you can create a brand that elicits such a spiritual emotional response as picking up one of those bad boys, you’ll be as globally successful as the company called Coca-Cola is.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And just to read out what the design brief is, I’ve got it open right here. A bottle so distinct that it could be recognized by touching the dark or when lying broken on the ground.

DP Knudten: And that’s the best line, or when lying broken on the ground. Wow. That is fantastic. And boy, that gave the creatives so much direction. It’s like, “Oh, that is so helpful”. Because if you say it can be anything, it’s impossible to create something. It’s parameters, tightly defined parameters that make creativity happen. Think about it. 

Every canvas an artist uses has edges, and that defines what they can do within that canvas.

Parameters help. A budget can be a parameter. Timeline or how much time you have for it can be a parameter. The Bandwidth of your team, what they can do, that’s a parameter. But I love parameters because they provide creative inspiration because, “Oh, my God, we have only got 50 bucks. What can we do with this? I guess we got better to get creative”. “Okay, well, how about we do this then?” If there is no budget if there is no timeline if there is no place to start based on parameters, “Oh, my God, is it creative?” That’s pain. When everything’s possible, nothing is.

David Pisarek: Absolutely a nightmare.

I’ve been there like, “Okay, we need to accomplish this, but how do we get there? Where do we start?” And you’ve got to start with some a limitation. And usually, it’s somewhere around budget, really. Timeline or budget is usually one of those two, sometimes a combination of those. And I think that that’s really some key insight there for sure. “How can we create something memorable? What’s the story?”

You’ve spoken so eloquently in this episode and so grateful for the stories that you’ve told us. You’ve had five or six really key stories, and each one of those evokes a memory.

Your Coca-Cola story, I might not have been there, but I know exactly what you’re talking about. How can organizations think about the work that they’re doing in a storytelling mindset to build their branding credibility?

DP Knudten: You hit the keyword, which is the story. Humans transmit information most efficiently through story transmission. I like to say going all the way back to that campfire after the mastodon hunt when Agnes was telling Morg that Slog died because he put the spear in the wrong place. That was transmitting information to the next generation of cavemen. “Oh, don’t put the spear in the wrong place or you’ll die”. Yes, that’s how they learned. That’s how we learn.

People learn through stories. So if you’re a non-profit, you have more stories than just about any other type of human endeavour out there. Why? Because everyone you serve has a different story that still touches on the same stuff that really engages people and builds emotion.

For example, I mentioned the fact that some of the people we serve, obviously, can tell stories all day long about traditionally visually impaired people and how guide dogs help them. We tell those stories all the time. We will continue to tell them all the time. Some of the most interesting newer stories or newish stories are the ones about military veterans and dogs that are literally trained to sense the onset of a PTSD episode (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Literally, the dogs are trained to wake up the person who is sleeping, who’s about to go into a PTSD nightmare situation. You tell men, and I’m not trying to be sexist at all, but primarily men who fought in war zones, that their buddy now has a dog to help them with PTSD, and they know the guy, they know how tough he was, they know all that stuff. All of a sudden that person’s story… And by the way, I cannot tell you how many friends and spouses of former veterans have been the ones to make the initial call because they’re like, “I know this could help my son, my brother, my husband”.

And by the way, there are very many veterans who are female who are facing PTSD challenges as well in a slightly different way. You tell the stories of one person who faced it, you’re actually talking to a thousand. And one of the interesting stories I’ve heard, one of our dogs is with a guy. Do you know the movie, The Lone Survivor with Mark Wallberg?

David Pisarek: No, I’m not familiar with that one.

DP Knudten: Okay, well, just quickly, a Navy SEAL team is sent into Afghanistan to do a mission, and it doesn’t go well. There are, I think, four men, three of them die. There’s one lone survivor. The guy who was with the SEAL team, who was supposed to be with that SEAL team, was not with his SEAL team because he had been injured in a training accident.

That guy carries a level of emotional weight that you would not believe until you hear the story. And all of a sudden, that story is told to veterans who may be facing something similar or even worse.

Much so that this Navy SEAL’s commanding officer was the one to make the call for him saying, “You need one of these dogs, and that’s an order”. That’s powerful stuff, let me tell you. It’s very powerful.

David Pisarek: 100% of the event. There’s a reason that TV commercials are so prolific because you don’t just get the story, you get the visual with it. And it sticks in our minds and it brings back memories.

Maybe you weren’t involved in a war zone, but maybe it brings back the memory of something else. And being able to create those emotional connections is what’s going to drive your organization forward into the future and be successful.

DP Knudten: This is another one of those things that when I talk to people, I try to get them to understand. I’ve never served in the military. I want to be clear about that. But I learned so much from the structure and experiences of the military that I find instructive.

For example World War I, terrible trench warfare. You’re in the trench and you’re hunkering down. The shells are coming down and you’re like, “I’m not leaving this trench ever”. And then you hear the sound of your buddy out, beat over the trench, beyond the wire, screaming for help. Your intellect, every part of your body, intellectually, will never leave that trench. But your emotional core, your heart, will drive you out of that trench to save your buddy and bring him back.

Intellect begets more intellect. Intellect begets more cogitation. Emotion begets action. I wanted to share this with you because the Canadian audience got to talk about a very successful Canadian. Sarah McLoughlin, have you guys seen the Society for the Preservation or the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals TV spots with Sarah McLoughlin singing, “In the Arms of the Angel”?

David Pisarek: Oh, yeah.

DP Knudten: Okay.

David Pisarek: I don’t know anybody that hasn’t seen that. That was born before the pandemic.

DP Knudten: However you feel about those commercials, the last time I looked, they had raised $30 million for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Now, the brand guy in me is saying, “Sarah, man, you shouldn’t have associated your brand so tightly with an organization that was going to make it all about really depressing scenes of puppies and stuff like that that are being mistreated”. But that’s her problem, not the non-profit’s problem. The non-profit has taken that and run with it very, very successfully.

And if you do a little research, you’ll find out that Sarah McLoughlin herself cannot watch those TV spots without wincing and going, “Oh, that’s just terrible. That’s too much”. But it did net $30 million plus for that organization.

David Pisarek: David, sorry, DP. These have been some amazing insights around branding, the importance of storytelling, and how to leverage what you do in a way that you can connect with people. I hope everybody listening (or watching this) has been able to get some really great insight and advice or pointers from you today. If you were to challenge everybody to do one thing coming off of this episode, what would that be?

DP Knudten: Okay, this is an easy thing for people. One, go to nonfictionbrand.com/gift. And there are three little worksheets PDFs that you can download. They’re free. You don’t even have to join my email list because, frankly, I never send anything to my email list. But I just want you to get started.

One of those worksheets is a five-question thing to start thinking about, “What are the foundation words for your Key3?” Remember, Key3 is “Coca-Cola”, “authenticity”, “refreshment”, and “sociability”… That’s one example. DP Knudten, what are my Key3? “Well, do you have a Key3”, well, yes, I do.

My Key3 is creative, obviously, I’m a creative guy. I have to work on the creative side of the fence. You will not get a spreadsheet from me, ever. Two, collaborative. (I have to work with other people because I am not a true fiction writer who can create everything in their head and then write about it. I have to work with other people to tease out and tell their stories. So collaborative). And the third word is provocative. Hopefully, I’ve been that today where if you’re talking to me, you better feel like I’ve provoked you, hopefully in a kind, engaging, inspiring way, not a negative way.

But I hope you didn’t take umbrage, but you went, “Wait a minute” about something I said. Because the second I do that, I know what you’re thinking. I’m not just repeating something you’ve heard. I’m testing one of your assumptions. That is my value as a creative collaborator. “Oh, to be a provocative creative collaborator”. That’s exactly what I promise. That is the right promise of my brand.

What’s your Key3? Get started by downloading that free PDF at nonfictionbrand.com/gift, and answer the five questions. And as I say, one of the questions is, “One thing that is completely legal in your area of human endeavour that you won’t do?” Why ask that question? Because what you don’t do, won’t do, defines you as much as what you do-do.

And the example I give is me, I work in advertising. I have never worked on tobacco products. Why? I don’t like them. I used to smoke way, way back in the day. It doesn’t do anything good for anybody. I’m not going to do that anymore. “Huh, that defines who I am now”. Yes, it does. That’s how it works. You aren’t defined just by what you say you do, by what you actually won’t do either.

David Pisarek: I think that’s really important. And we mentioned this earlier as well: know what you can do, know what you don’t want to do and stick with that. Let that be part of your core values as a person, as an organization, and whatever it is that you do and let the others around you know as well. You need to have a unified voice as a brand to be successful.

Awesome. So everybody, NonfictionBrand.com/gift. Thanks again so much for joining in. DP, it’s been great having you here on the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast.

To everybody listening, if you want any of the links or resources that DP provided or that we spoke about, just head over to our podcast page at nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com/podcast. Click on this episode for all the details. We’ll have the links for the downloadable PDFs and all that great stuff there for you.

And until next time, keep on being successful.