Download or purchase the book being called “THE marketing book of the year” here. Then download the free musical guide to the book here. You’ll have plenty of rock ‘n roll reading to help grow your business!

When the delicate art of cause marketing works, it is wonderfully powerful.

Take the new initiative that Chipotle restaurants has embarked on. Chipotle has always been about “food with integrity”, supporting local growers and ranchers and purchasing organic and naturally grown crops and meats.

To demonstrate their commitment to this cause, they commissioned a short film by filmmaker Johnny Kelly that depicts a farmer who grows weary of the industrial menace his family farm has become, and takes his farm back to it’s roots, to a more sustainable future.

They invited Willie Nelson to sing the theme song. But not just any song. Willie sings the haunting Coldplay song “The Scientist”, with a chorus that reminds us ”nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be so hard… I’m going back to the start”.

The combined impact of this little movie and its understated score is massive.

This is cause marketing at its best, and here are five key reasons why:

1. A relevant brand. Chipotle has held sustainable farming close to it’s heart from the very beginning. Nobody doubts their dedication to the cause. This didn’t come out of left field. How many times have you seen a company jump on board the cause-of-the-day and wondered why they are really getting involved?

2. The partnerships make sense. Willie Nelson is a perfect choice, with his outlaw country roots. And the Coldplay song is ideal, with a haunting chorus that will stick in your head for hours.

3.  It doesn’t preach. The film conveys the simple and powerful message that a sustainable future isn’t easy, but it is vitally important and worthwhile. Nobody appreciates being preached to or spoken down to.

4. Nothing is being sold. In fact, the only connection to Chipotle is at the end, when the farmer loads product onto a Chipotle delivery truck and drives away. Cause marketing fails when it tries to sell product, and it nearly always tries – in some way – to sell.

5. Total transparency. All proceeds from the song and film (available now on iTunes), go towards the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. Not a “percentage of the profits”, but all proceeds. When cause marketing campaigns are vague about where the money is going, we all get suspicious. Cause marketing must be transparent to be accepted as sincere.

Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress this week, two weeks after his sexting scandal broke.

Until the scandal emerged, Weiner had a reputation as a passionate and hard-driving member of Congress. He was known for his powerful stance on health care and other social issues, as well as anti-terrorism steps. After voting to support the war in Iraq, Weiner gained a reputation for honesty when he later admitted that it was a mistake.

A few years earlier, President Bill Clinton was treated to oral sex in the Oval Office nine times from a 22 year-old intern and held on to the highest approval ratings of any president since World War II.

How can one person be brought down by sending inappropriate photos of himself, and another survive a sex scandal unlike any the political world had ever seen?

I think it has a lot to do with expectations.

Maybe we sort of expected that kind of behavior from notorious womanizer Bill Clinton. As wild as the allegations against him were, we weren’t all that surprised.  Weiner, on the other hand, was a newlywed with friends like Jon Stewart and a reputation for taking a strong stand on what is right and wrong. Maybe we expected more?

For example, Willie Nelson has been repeatedly arrested for marijuana possession. Nobody notices. If that happened to Taylor Swift, it could be a serious problem for her career.

Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off a bat, and it only enhances his reptuation. If Justin Beiber does it, the effect won’t be quite the same.

KFC can introduce the Double Down sandwich, and business goes up. If Chipotle creates a sandwich like that, they lose customers instantly.

When people expect something from your brand, you’d better live up to it.

Because when expectations aren’t met, bad things happen. Customers leave. Congressmen resign.

Do you really know what your customers expect from you?

Do you have the balls to live up to those expectations?

And the tougher question…

Do you have the balls to say no to opportunities that are temptingly profitable in the short term but damaging to your brand in the long-term?

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So much of how the world views your brand is based on what they expect from your brand.

Manage expectations.  That’s a big lesson for brands.

The 77 year-old Willie Nelson was arrested on the Thanksgiving long weekend for pot possession. 

Reaction?  Here are some comments from Twitter.

“Willie Nelson arrested for pot.  That’s like arresting a fish for being in water.”

“Finding pot on Willie Nelson is like finding the clap in a whorehouse.”

“The real news is that they ONLY found 6 ounces of pot in his tour bus.”

“You’d think at 77 year old he would have learned how to hide his pot better by now.”

“Willie arrested for pot possession. God, who made it, is still at large.”

Willie Nelson could get arrested for possession every day of the week and it wouldn’t damage his brand one bit.  In fact, it might actually enhance it.  The world expects Willie Nelson to smoke pot.

On the other hand, if Taylor Swift was arrested for pot possession the entertainment universe would explode with breaking news that would shock and horrify people across the globe.

As a brand, do you truly understand the expectations of your fans?

Rock star brands know those expectations.  They do research to figure it out definitively.  They watch their customers, talk to their customers, and never fail to live up to the expectations of their customers.

If you don’t know the expectations of your fans, and you simply guess at them, you could find yourself in extremely uncomfortable and unprofitable situations.

McDonald’s thought that their customers expected fast food, and pizza seemed like a natural fit.  Millions of dollars went up in smoke.

At one point Coors thought that their customers expected refreshment, so water seemed like a great idea.  Millions of more dollars went up in smoke.

Fortunately, Willie Nelson knowsthat his fans will only love him more after his latest pot bust. No guessing.

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