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June 2005
Rob Densen Speaks at the Second Annual Philadelphia Marketing Conference

Tiller founder and CEO Rob Densen spoke at the second annual Philadelphia Marketing Expo and Executive Conference, held on June 13th and 14th at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

In his presentation, entitled "Advocacy Marketing/Cause Commerce: Aligning Corporate and Consumer Interests," Densen expounded on the importance for businesses in identifying and leveraging the inherent social value in a company's product and services.

Commenting on the conference, Densen said, "It was encouraging to see that more and more companies — large and small, manufacturers and service providers — understand the business sense and benefit in meaningfully aligning their interests with those of their customers."

The two-day conference featured a wide array of top marketing executives, including Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO of the Kaplan Thaler Group, and the creative executive behind the AFLAC Duck.

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April 2005
Susan Bishop Speaks at the "Make Your Career (& Life) Make a Difference" Symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Susan Bishop of Tiller was a speaker at the "Make Your Career (& Life) Make a Difference" spring symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bishop participated in a panel discussion entitled "Corporate Social Responsibility at Consumer Facing Brands," focused on addressing the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility in gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Jointly sponsored by the MIT Sloan Socially Responsible Business Club and the Babson Net Impact Chapter, the conference was dedicated to discussing the growing demand for information about careers in corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, socially responsible investing, and the non-profit and public sectors generally.

Held on Tuesday, April 19th in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the symposium brought together respected social sector professionals and area-focused students in an effort to maximize the benefits of the unique learning opportunity.

"Being asked to present at a conference with such a knowledgeable and receptive audience is an honor," said Bishop. "It was great to spend a day with people who have a similar business philosophy as Tiller, and who are interested, as we are, in teaching other about the business benefits of social responsibility."

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March 2005
Tiller CEO Speaks at Harvard's Sixth Annual Social Enterprise Conference

Tiller CEO Rob Densen was a panelist at Harvard University's Sixth Annual Social Enterprise Conference, sponsored jointly by the Harvard Business School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The conference was held on Saturday, March 5 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Densen participated in a panel discussion entitled Marketing Strategies for Social Enterprises, moderated by HBS professor Kash Rangan. Panel participants included Joseph Perello, Chief Marketing Officer of the City of New York.

"The Social Enterprise Conference is the leading conference of its kind, bringing together some of the best young minds in business and public service," Densen said. "It's encouraging to see such well-regarded institutions devote so much time and energy to social enterprise," he added. "It's an honor to have been asked to participate."

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November 2004
Tiller Presents at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism; Authors Lead Article for Prestigious Marketing Journal

Tiller CEO Rob Densen gave one of two keynote addresses at the first annual marketing communications conference hosted by the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Densen's presentation was based on his article, "Cause Commerce: The Case for Aligning Corporate and Customer Interests," which appeared in IMC's 2005 Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. The article discussed advocacy marketing campaigns through the lens of integrated marketing communications.

In his speech, Densen contended that advocacy marketing programs are critical in an era of consumer distrust of corporations because they meaningfully align consumer and corporate interests. "In this era of consumer apprehension and cynicism, those corporations that act in their customers' interests with conviction, business smarts and earnest intent will grab attention and market share from those that hide in the shadows," Densen said.

Unfortunately, advocacy marketing is a low priority in most corporations. "That's too bad," Densen said. "Executed smartly and with conviction over time, these programs can have powerful, even transformational branding and business-building effects. Companies and even whole industries ignore them at their own risk."

"These programs are the proverbial win-wins," he added. "There is a corporate benefit at the same time that a public interest is advanced."

Densen also discussed the essential practices of effective advocacy marketers: Put the customer first; know both the issue and the marketplace; think cross-functionally, and don't shy away from leading or taking initiative on a cause.

To read the entire corresponding article, click here.

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July 2004
Tiller Authors Op-Ed for Financial Planning

Tiller CEO Rob Densen and intern Arielle Densen, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, collaborated on an article about young adults and investing for the August issue of Financial Planning, the leading industry trade publication for financial planning professionals.

While it's important to invest early — assuming an 8% annual return, start saving for retirement at 21 and you need to save half as much if you start at 35 — few young adults do. Written in a Q&A format, the article explored the factors keeping young adults from investing sooner and more rigorously.

"Ever since I received my first pay check I have been partaking of the wrong 'S' word — splurging instead of saving," Arielle wrote. "When everyone around you is spending, it's hard not to."

A large part of the problem is that no one is encouraging young adults to save and invest. Or as Arielle put it, "It's certainly not part of the curriculum. College is about accumulating knowledge. The accumulating wealth part comes later, apparently. I don't think anyone on college campuses is encouraging students to invest. Still, every student is going to receive a paycheck someday. Managing it should not come as a big surprise."

To make matters worse, the one message young adults do receive is this: spend, spend, spend.

"The focus with young adults is on spending," Arielle wrote. "I've lost count of the number of credit card applications that have been sent to me at school. Then there are the ones that are sent to me at home. It's nice to feel wanted."

Read the full article.

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May 2004
Tiller Profiled in Leading Trade Publication

Tiller and advocacy marketing was profiled in the May edition of Financial Advisor, a leading journal for financial advisors. The article examined the impact that advocacy programs can have on a variety of businesses, from large corporations to individual advisory practices.

The article made the point that advocacy models work across business disciplines, including a financial advisor's practice: "Every company has something socially useful in what it does," said Tiller founder Rob Densen. "Our job is to identify it, build on it and express it in a way that builds their reputation and gets people to self-identify with their goods and services."

The article also expressed the notion that financial advisors are in a "unique position to restore the faith and financial wholeness to investors bruised by the corporate and Wall Street scandals of the past three years." Moreover, in a competitive industry in which advisors are increasingly hard pressed to distinguish themselves, the article pointed our that advocacy programs can be a powerful differentiator and cited examples of several advisors who were using cause-related marketing approaches.

"Advisors need to inject more passion into their marketing effort," Cathleen Stahl, a senior consultant at Tiller, said in the Financial Advisor article. "Instead of getting a mailing list of all the rich women in town and sending your business card to them, it's picking some substantive issue that's meaningful to you and to them and finding a way to affiliate with this group in a meaningful way. Then the services become a benefit you bring to the table as an offshoot of a real relationship."

Read the entire Tiller profile (PDF, 712KB) in Financial Advisor.

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May 2004
Rob Densen Participates in Panel Discussion at ICI's 2004 General Membership Meeting

Tiller founder Rob Densen participated in a panel discussion in May on the topic of investor communications at the Investment Company Institute's (ICI) General Membership Meeting in Washington DC.

Entitled "Focus on the Investor: Communicating in Times of Change," the panel also included Hannah Grove, Chief Marketing Officer at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and Dick Davies, Executive Vice President of AllianceBernstein. It was moderated by the incoming chairman of the ICI's Public Information Committee, Ivy McLemore, Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Communications at AIM Investments.

In his remarks, Densen said that individual fund companies as well as the industry as a whole need "to meaningfully and tangibly demonstrate to the investing pubic that they have investor interests and concerns at heart and are working smartly and with conviction to address them. Revisions of policy, practices and procedure are a nice place to start, but they're not the be-all and end-all."

Founded in 1940, The Investment Company Institute is the national association of the U.S. investment company industry. Its mutual fund members represent 86.6 million individual shareholders and manage approximately $7.4 trillion in investor assets. The May conference was attended by more than 1,200 mutual fund industry executives.

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January 19, 2004
PR NEWS Profile of Tiller

Tiller and CEO Rob Densen were recently profiled in PR News, a leading PR industry publication circulating weekly to corporate and agency communications professionals nationwide.

The front page article, entitled "Changing Mindsets on Cause Marketing, One CEO at a Time," was part of a special issue devoted to corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Volume 60, No. 3; January 19, 2004). The issue also included discussions with Starbucks' Kevin Martinez, Edelman's Steve Voien, and Cone Inc.'s Carol Cone and Mark Feldman.

The article recounts Densen's history with Cause Marketing, from his work on OppenheimerFunds' landmark Women & Investing campaign to his creation of Tiller LLC, a consultancy that uses innovative advocacy marketing approaches to help companies build both their reputation and their business.

As editor/reporter Matthew Schwartz writes, "...Densen wants to do for cause marketing what he's accomplished for women and investing: steer it in a profitable, new direction and show the marketplace there is a better, more cost-effective way for companies to do well by doing good."

The article cites many people who have worked closely and extensively with Densen. Among them are: Jean Chatzky, editor at large at Money Magazine and financial editor for NBC's "Today Show"; Bill Heyman, President-CEO of Heyman Associates, an executive search firm in PR and communications; Frances Emerson, SVP/Corporate Communications for MassMutual Financial Group; and Rich Thau, president of New York-based Presentation Testing Inc., which uses dial technology to improve business presentations.

"In every piece of research Rob does, he pushes a button that gets released again and again and again and that's how companies get their messages out," Chatzky said in the article. "What Rob has found a way to do is to further the underlying mission of a business while enabling the business to accomplish something that's good for the world."

According to Thau, "Rob has a way of disabusing companies of the notion that just because they are underwriting a CSR of some sort that the world will pay attention. Instead, he will come up with a plan that advances a corporation's trust with society."

Read an article excerpt describing the key differences between Tiller's approach to advocacy marketing and traditional cause marketing.

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October 2002
NEWS FROM THE CITY

9/11: The Lessons Learned

For Rob Densen's perspective on the communications lessons of 9/11, please visit his article available on the Heyman Associates website.

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