GREENWOOD IN
Eclipse Marketing & Advertising believes social responsibility starts with developing and maintaining a culture of teamwork with a brand that leads to continuous support of a socially responsible mindset for the team. The Eclipse brand, from inception over 11 years ago, is to be a paraklete (individual) or parakletos (team); a Greek word meaning to be called alongside to help, counsel, advise and advocate. We dive deep into this meaning by denying self and setting guidelines to define with whom who we do business and how we conduct ourselves in that business.
HOW AND WHY DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED WITH SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AND/OR SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS, CLIENTS AND CAUSES?
We choose our clients based on how they are called to pull alongside society and help, counsel, advise and advocate for others. For example, Eclipse currently serves over 35 not-for-profit clients that serve our global community by helping to break the cycle of poverty, by providing shelter and education to expectant mothers, by providing food via food pantries/banks, by providing academic, physical, emotional and spiritual help through community centers, by reaching those incarcerated through prison outreach, by pulling alongside of those suffering from domestic abuse, and by standing with churches who provide spiritual guidance to the community. At the same time, we choose our corporate for-profit clients based on their willingness to support not-for-profit ventures. Eclipse has a strong portfolio of corporate clients and our selection criteria in accepting business is their willingness to pull alongside others through their corporate responsibility policies.
Other aspects of our culture: we are willing to reduce our rates/fees notably as well as to amortize fees over time regarding not-for-profit clients; we volunteer and donate to many not-for-profits in order to “live” the brand and experience; we take budget consciousness to the extreme on behalf of the client; we connect dots between corporate clients and not-for-profit clients to encourage further impact socially; and, finally, we integrate ourselves beyond design, to hear and help in every aspect of the organizational structure, business model, financial model and other management models.
ARE THERE SPECIAL CHALLENGES OR OPPORTUNITIES IN PURSUING THESE GOALS IN 2017?
There are a great many challenges faced regardless of the year. For example, it is essential to be culturally relevant in our messaging and specifically in the tools to execute their brands. We are truly an omni-channel marketing firm. We believe it is the collective set of tools (digital, social, web, print, traditional mass media including billboards, newspapers, publications, trade shows, conference and other tools) that holistically deliver the brand.
One would think politics would play an important role in determining certain design and messaging. However, we have found that if we have developed a strong client brand, politics will not play a role at all. Our brands are centered in socially responsible work and can speak for themselves; therefore, politics do not play a role.
Finally, budgets and technology are always concerns. When you are serving others in your community, you want every single dime/dollar to be allocated to that service; reality calls for some marketing, advertising, design and business overhead so it behooves us to be strive to be financially efficient in all design and production. Similarly, technological advances allow us to realize greater efficiency by using Social media and other digital communications to stretch limited budgets while yielding meaningful results. And we aspire to make our design even more powerful on these media to capture attention, as there is less view time from the audience.
PICTURED ABOVE: Dustin Brenton, Creative Director and Jake Stamper, CEO
