[PAO] Marketing question

Mon Jun 30 17:39:51 CDT 2014

There are two issues Paul brings up I would like to further address... 

Under 2) Great observation! Every unit has a tshirt and every unit has its own design and slogan. Put out a unit tshirt PDF and include in the regs that all unit tshirts must comply in style and color. Basically, the only thing that should be different is the wing designation and unit/group number. 

3) Not necessarily your area, but... woodland BDUs are getting ridiculously difficult to find and many members are not able to wear them due to uniform regulations. If CAP would adopt the navy blue blouse and pant utility for ES, all members would be in the same uniform regardless of weight or facial hair. This would also keep us from being misidentified as military. I believe the flight suit is also available in navy blue, if it is not, I am sure we are a big enough organization to find a vendor for it. 

JMO 

Jaimie Henson, Maj. 
Kentucky 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Lt Col Paul Cianciolo" <pa at natcapwg.cap.gov> 
To: djessmer at cap.gov, "CAP PAO Listserv" <CAP-PAO at lists.sempervigilans.org> 
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2014 5:57:42 PM 
Subject: Re: [PAO] Marketing question 

Lt Col Jessmer, 

Thanks for reaching out to the field with this important question! 

In my opinion, one thing that we don't need is more "crap" in the sense of wasted money on give-aways and printed material from NHQ that are not always relevant or effective. I have a huge pile of promotional material that is outdated and/or not relevant to the wing. The slogans and logos used are all over the place in terms of unity. And there are way to many options of recruiting type materials. It confuses people when they come up to a CAP display at an event. Either people don't pickup anything because there is too much to choose from and walk away, or they load up with everything because they don't want to miss anything -- even if half of it is not relevant. The idea should be to drive potential members and/or customers to a website that they can easily navigate and find the information relevant to them. 

I think the marketing focus needs to be on CAP as a single brand. If you are going to spend money, then assisting the wings with specific projects would be useful, e.g., creating a national video promo to be used on YouTube, converting wing artwork to vector graphics, or assisting with creating a promotional commercial specific to the local audience. Here are 4 areas that make it near impossible for CAP to be a single, recognized brand, and here is how I think it can be fixed. 

1. Prohibit the "branding" of CAP functional areas. 

An example of this is the safety directorate (not sure what to call it, which is part of the problem) at NHQ. The Safety Beacon is sent out around the Web to members and non-members alike. It doesn't even have the Civil Air Patrol logo or seal on the front page or anywhere in the "official" newsletter! How can anything official not be branded like this? There are more functional area newsletters floating around than I can even count. 

"CAP Safety" also has it's own social media presence on Facebook . Looking in from the outside, it looks like it's a separate organization -- equipped with its own slogan, logo, and mission. Is this the message CAP -- as a brand -- wants to portray? 

>From another perspective, this same principle applies to national activities, encampments, and events. Does every activity and program really need it's own logo and slogan? This type of leadership leads to clicks, which in-turn leads to hurt feelings and resentment when someone who created the "program" is removed or it needs to be shut down for budgetary reasons. Leadership decisions are based on the individuals involved and not the overall mission of CAP. 

2. Define who's in charge and who's Civil Air Patrol it is. 

How many CAP units have their own slogan? Many squadrons and wings brand themselves to portray something specific, which may not always be in the best interests of CAP. Who is to say something or make a decision? Where does the buck stop? Is NHQ there to support the wings as the operational component of the organization, or are the wings and squadrons there to support NHQ? From a public perspective, where to groups and regions fall in? Should they even have their own identity on the Web and social media, or should they be silent administrative components of CAP? With so many layers of organization, these questions need to be understood by the membership before any single CAP branding can happen. 

3. Maintain uniformity in uniforms. 

The CAP uniform is the single most valuable piece of marketing real estate. It's what the public sees, and it's what our members see at every activity. However, when is the last time you went to a CAP event and everyone was uniform? Exactly, pretty much never. CAP as an organization intentionally ostracizes its own members who are not allowed to wear one type of uniform. CAP will never have a functional "brand" when it's own members cannot all be branded the same. It's time to desegregate CAP as either Civil Air Patrol members or U.S. Air Force Auxiliary members. I'm sick of being embarrassed to wear the uniform. 

4. Create an official social media registry for CAP. 

In order for the public and our own members to know what's official or not, a national social media registry is needed. There should be checks and balances so the command at the next level knows what platforms are being utilized. It could also aid in the "CAP Unit Search" function when someone looks up a prospective squadron. The website comes up in the search, so why not the social media platforms? 

The point of all this is that CAP cannot and should not focus it's major marketing efforts to the public before it fixes it's internal brand and has an image to sell to the public. 

v/r 
-- 
PAUL S. CIANCIOLO, Lt Col, CAP 
Public Affairs Officer 
National Capital Wing 

Cell: 301-751-2011 
Work: 202-385-9599 (@FAA) 

On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 5:58 PM, DOUGLAS E. JESSMER, Lt Col, CAP CAP/PM < djessmer at cap.gov > wrote: 

This may be the first of a few questions I ask, just to better assess the marketing needs in the field, and as I'm in the midst of a branding project for CAP. This may be a little random, but there is a method to the madness, so bear with me. 

— What's the need right now for posters, brochures, flyers, et al., and what do you think would help better tell our story? What would you change about what we're doing now? 

— What do you see as flaws in CAP's branding, whether it's in the visuals, the brand message or overall messaging? 

— Do you perceive a need for tschotchkies — key chains, stress balls, stuff like that — and since budgets are as they are, if online ordering (let's say, from eServices) were stood up, or if preferred vendors were identified, would you use it/them? 

Fire away at djessmer at cap.gov . 

DOUGLAS E. JESSMER, Lt Col, CAP 
National Marketing Officer 

COM: (727) 480-9606 
Clearwater, Fla. 

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