As part of my broader project, Intentional Insights, to spread rational thinking and Effective Altruism, I want to create some Effective Altruism merchandise, and I would appreciate your feedback and ideas on doing so.
The goal of this merchandise would be for Effective Altruists to wear it both as a signal of their affiliation with the movement and to prompt non-EAs to talk to them about it. In other words, the merchandise would both help build community with fellow EAs since the merchandise would make EAs feel closer to each other and also remind each other of their commitment, but also serve as a means of outreach to others. All profit made on the merchandise would go to the cause of promoting Effective Altruism and rational thinking effectively.
Intentional Insights already has merchandise designed to convey rational thinking, with slogans such as "Glad To Change My Mind," "Less Wrong Every Day," "Please Provide An Example," and others. I would like to integrate some explicitly EA-themed slogans into this set, following the same format. Namely I'd appreciate ideas for slogans with 6 words or less that convey crucial ideas about the EA movement that would be engaging for non-EA members, without using jargon, and that you or other EAs you know would likely wear on a T-shirt.
For example, a good slogan might be "Doing Good Effectively By Using Reason" since it fits both purposes, of cultivating an EA community and reminding each other of our commitments, and also of prompting others to ask us about how we do good effectively by using reason. A poor one would be "Optimizing QALYs By Consequentialist Utilitarianism" since that fulfills only the first purpose, but not the second, as it contains three words that most non-EAs would be unlikely to know.
Thanks for any ideas you have, and please upvote and comment on posts whose slogans you most approve.
P.S. This article is part of the EA Marketing Resource Bank project lead by Intentional Insights and the Local Effective Altruism Network, with support from The Life You Can Save.
Sure!
I'm a professor in the history of science, working at the intersection of psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral economics. The particular areas of research that I focus on have to do a lot with persuasion and social influence, and as part of that, I have read quite a bit on marketing and promotion, including using modern marketing tools. I have also done quite a lot of practice in marketing since starting up the organization over a year ago. Other core members of Intentional Insights have strong educational backgrounds in marketing as well, particularly in the nonprofit context. For example, my co-founder, Agnes Vishnevkin, has an MBA in nonprofit management, and has over 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, including marketing/fundraising.
If this is the case:
Why aren't you pursuing a typical marketing path? Or are you, and it just hasn't been shared? I've seen no evidence of your attempting to identify a consumer target, build a positioning, etc.
Why aren't you testing your merchandise against the target? Someone with marketing experience should know that asking the people who are already converted (into EAs) are the exact opposite of those whom you want to test your message against, you want it to work with non-EAs you're targeting. Frankly, if your testing was working, I'd expect to se