Perhaps one of the best case studies in social networking and meaningful marketing comes from a brand that has been around at least since 1703. This brand creates incredible followers in a true community of shared passions. And it does it without blogs, Facebook, or Twitter. Welcome to the story of red caps from Mount Gay Rum.

More than two years ago in an offsite with the executives of Bridge Worldwide, I first introduced my draft thinking on this Marketing with Meaning concept. I had assigned our small group to bring in examples of marketing that had a personally positive impact on their lives. My idea was for this to help spark the conversation around marketing that people choose to engage with, marketing that itself improves people’s lives. I best remember the example brought by our Chief Operating Officer, Michael Graham. Michael brought in a red hat branded with Mount Gay Rum, and he couldn’t wait to tell me its story.

Michael told us about how Mount Gay Rum has a long history with sailors. The brand was first launched in Barbados when a trip to the island was challenging, and ship captains would bring back barrels of Mount Gay as proud proof that they had successfully landed at the island. Since then, Mount Gay has continued to be closely associated with sailing events. It is a sponsor of more than 100 regattas each year. What’s special is that at these regattas, Mount Gay distributes its iconic red hats with the specific regatta name sewn under the logo. Only regatta participants get the hats, so it is a modern-day proof of sailors’ skills. Instead of another piece of marketing swag, these hats are prized trophies from a very special event. And they become collectors’ items for the recipients.

Michael also described how these hats become a kind of social networking trigger as well. Fellow sailors use the hats as a way to broadcast their common interest in public places. Sailors who see someone wearing one at the airport, beach, or baseball game will just walk up and start a conversation.

What’s interesting is that every sailor knows and repeats the story of Mount Gay Rum, so not only does this core group of high-income, passionate people stay incredibly loyal to the brand, but they become walking, talking ambassadors to the general population, many of whom are attracted to the story. A quick Google search brought me to a blog (captured above) where an identical story is told. And when I shared this story with a marketing class at Miami University last week, one of the students talked about how a friend she went with on spring break wore her Mount Gay hat and ended up meeting a dozen fellow sailors on the trip.

I believe these are the keys to take from Mount Gay Rum’s success:

1. Embrace your brand’s history and backstory – or create a brand with a story at its core.

2. Focus on a very specific, core customer group that shares a common passion.

3. Go beyond focus; be selective and exclusive.

4. Do something to encourage social connections among your target customers.

5. Don’t just sponsor; add some unique value to the event itself.

My final takeaways from Mount Gay are that this kind of marketing doesn’t take a giant ad budget or rely on the spread of new digital technology. Instead, it comes from standing for something and creating meaning in people’s lives. And don’t you dare buy one of those hats on eBay!

UPDATE: I got a great email from one of our readers, John Irving, who shared the following story:

This weekend, our community had a picnic to celebrate the return of Captain Richard Phillips from his ordeal with the pirates off Somalia.  (He lives about 2 miles from me in Vermont).  When I went up to shake his hand and congratulate him, I was wearing my red Mt Gay hat from a race from Havana years ago.  He looked up with a big smile and said ‘Nice hat, that’s my rum’.”

Like many fellow marketing-geek friends, I have a hard time disconnecting my brain from my day job when I’m outside of work and just having fun. Recently there was just such an occasion, when Jay, Michael, and I from Bridge Worldwide took our girls to the annual Daddy Daughter Dance in the Cincinnati suburb of Anderson. We had a blast with our little princesses, but we also came up with a few ideas that could lead to meaningful marketing and business results in our local area.

This annual Daddy Daughter Dance is a pretty big deal here in Anderson Township, a fairly large and higher-than-average income area. The dance is so popular that it actually is held on both a Friday and Saturday night in February each year. Many fathers who I know in the area attended on the Saturday we went. There had to be at least 250 couples in attendance. It was the first time attending for Jay, Michael, and I, as our girls are just now able to attend a later-night event such as this without melting down.

We had a wonderful time. My wife bought the girls corsages, and we met for dinner at a fancy restaurant nearby before the dance. The price of the event included a free photo (above), and a red carnation for the ladies as we left. We danced and had a blast, but I just couldn’t help thinking that many opportunities for marketers were left untouched.

Let’s start with the opportunity at hand. First, there are several relevant selling occasions wrapped around this annual dance; it’s the kind of event where parents open up their purses and wallets to make the experience as special as possible. The local Macy’s in the center of Anderson could benefit from clothing sales to both little girls and their fathers; the flower shops could see sales from corsages; the restaurants could benefit from hundreds of pre-dance diners; and limo services even could pick up some extra business.

Imagine what these businesses could do to add value and reap greater sales. Macy’s could set up a fashion show for mothers and daughters a few weekends before the event, and have dress consultants on hand to help them pick out a new outfit for the dance. Local restaurants could set up a special prix fixe meal served especially to get dancers in and out on schedule. I’m sure that a small sponsorship would allow the businesses access to the database of ticket purchasers for direct marketing—the kind of marketing that people would find extremely helpful and relevant.

Aside from incremental sales linked to the event, there are other benefits of creating meaningful marketing around this event. Because it is an annual tradition, it becomes less complex to prepare and plans can be made well in advance. And imagine the long-term loyalty that could result from adding value to this meaningful event. Whem Mom brings her daughter into Macy’s for a special event, she feels a tighter bond to the store, leading her to consciously and unconsciously choose this chain more often throughout the year.

So what’s the holdup? Why aren’t Macy’s, Olive Garden, and FTD lining up to get into events such as this? I think the biggest reason is that this means a major change in how these companies look at marketing. They are all raised to think in terms of TV ads and Sunday circulars. Local tie-ins such as these also take more human labor to set up at a time when head-count reduction is rampant.

Perhaps the current economic pressures will lead traditional marketers to try something new. In fact, local, meaningful event marketing such as this plays right into the hands of a company such as Macy’s. Its large, central locations and range of merchandise allow it to beat e-tailers and small specialty chains with such an approach.

We’ll be back at the Daddy Daughter Dance in 2010—and we’ll see if any marketers seize the opportunity by then.

Seth Godin interrupted my weekend by forcing me to get an entry up about his brilliant lesson on sports marketing: Much of it is completely meaningless and unrelated to the brand, product, or service that sponsors it.

Godin specifically takes aim at State Farm and its sponsorship of Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby. He makes the brilliant point that you could swap State Farm with Allstate and see no difference. Well, Allstate at least sounds better with “All Star,” but neither likely have an impact on anything other than general brand awareness. In other words, State Farm is admitting that its insurance is the same as everyone else’s – so it’s best to just make people think of State Farm first.

On the other hand, look what Nationwide insurance is doing. It created a marketing campaign called “Have the Talk” in which the brand is encouraging families to have difficult discussions in life. Examples include tough talks with teens and speaking with older parents about their living situation. At havethetalk.com, visitors can get coaching on breaking the ice and tackling tough issues. The consumer benefit is not explicitly tied to insurance. But Nationwide knows that a business issue with insurance is that many people who really should think about insurance are not doing so. By starting these conversations, Nationwide is kick-starting discussions that might help drive category growth, and drive brand affinity for Nationwide (rather than just boosting general brand name awareness).

Seth goes on to take a shot at one of the oft-ignored but real reasons that we marketers embrace sports sponsorships: We marketers love to personally be a part of them. He proposes a pretty tough test:

Here’s my number one fiduciary rule for big brand marketers: The executives involved in approving a sports or entertainment promotion should not be permitted to attend the event.”

I think this might be a little extreme, but it is something marketers should willingly confront. I’ll admit to being attracted to NASCAR sponsorships as a Brand Manager at P&G, and I gravitated to racing when I had a chance to market Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash (for the record, it worked, and we won a race). I’ve seen fellow marketers and clients fall much further under the spell of sports events. I’d rather not give examples – to protect the guilty.

At the end of the day, sports sponsorships can come to life in a meaningful way. One current example is what Visa is doing to stoke the passion of the Olympics. The brand is also adding value to visitors with an ATM locater and a downloadable tip guide. Further, Visa connects its brand emotionally through its sponsorship of the Paralympics in addition to the main show.

So the moral of the story is to make sure that your sports sponsorships are as meaningful to your consumer as they are to you….

UPDATE: Brandweek recently interviewed several marketers with MLB All-Star sponsorships.  Mark Gibson, Assistant VP of Advertising at State Farm spoke a great deal about how sports sponsorships help his company “break through the in the most media-congested marketplace that there is.”  He later praised sports sponsorships “because it is Tivo-proof.”  Net, Gibson and Allstate continue to seek eyeballs rather than provide meaningful marketing for their customers.