What it's about:

In Animal Impact, Caryn Ginsberg, an animal advocate with an extensive background and education in effective marketing (she’s even cofounder of a marketing consulting firm), applies her knowledge of traditional marketing strategies and techniques to the challenge of swaying public opinion in favor of animals. To accomplish this, she breaks complex marketing principles down into an easy to remember framework, “ACHIEVEchange,” where every letter stands for a different concept. Letter “I,” for example, stands for “I am not my target audience,” which is a topic we explored briefly in our last social marketing blog.

Animal Impact walks readers through the steps of the ACHIEVEchange system, exploring how to understand your audience, what motivates them, and how to communicate with them, as well as how to transform education into action, and evaluate where programs were successful and where there is room for improvement.

What we love:

As a classroom educator who has taught marketing courses at John Hopkins University and Humane Society University, Ginsberg applies a unique approach to introducing the subject of social marketing in Animal Impact. Instead of creating a dense tome of marketing strategies and concepts, Ginsberg presents each topic in short, readable and actionable sections. Using bullet points and bold text, the book is easy to skim and browse, as well as to revisit for specific insights depending on where in the ACHIEVEchange process you or your organization currently are.

Additionally, the chapters are stocked with personal experiences and stories from animal advocates around the world. These individual experiences provide examples and ideas which can be applied to any animal protection campaign, as Ginsberg says, “whether you refer to ‘pets’ or ‘companion animals,’ ‘farm animals’ or ‘farmed animals.’” These examples are a colorful and practical way to show how the marketing principles presented can be applied in real-life advocacy situations. Lastly, each chapter is full of exercises, which prods readers to consider the material they’ve learned and how it applies to their own “pet” issue or cause.

Where you can find it:

You can find Animal Impact (ISBN 978-0-9847660-7-9) new and used on Amazon or for e-readers on Smashwords.