Join Causemarketing.Biz Google Newsgroup, Get a Cool Tool You Can Use Today

Kind Readers:

Shawn T. from San Diego, California is the latest to join the Causemarketing.biz Google Newsgroup.

It couldn’t be easier to subscribe. Simply send me your name and your email address to aldenkeene at gmail dot com.

When you subscribe each new post comes directly to your email, usually every business day.

And like Shawn, when you join I’ll also send you a PDF copy of the "Five Flavors of Cause Marketing" which explains Cause Marketing in an easy-to-follow matrix that includes examples.

It's a great brainstorming tool and helps ensure that your campaign has all the components appropriate for the flavor of Cause Marketing you’re considering.

Rest assured that I will never sell your name or contact information.

So join today.


Warm regards,

Paul Jones
Aldenkeene at gmail dot com

Has Subaru's 'Share the Love' Cause Marketing Promotion Boosted its Net Promoter Score?

A new consumer opinion survey shows that among the major car makers, Subaru enjoys the highest net promoter score. By a lot; eight percentage points better than second-place finisher Toyota.

Could it be that Subaru’s score started catching fire just as it’s cause marketing effort called ‘Share the Love’ started to gain momentum.

The Net Promoter Score, as you’ll recall is a super-simple measure of customer satisfaction. The Net Promoter Score is measured with an eight word question: “would you recommend this product/business to a friend?”

The Net Promoter scores are based on a 0-10 scale and the measure the degree to which someone is genuinely pleased with your product, company or service and why.

Here’s the scale:

9-10 Net Promoter
7-8 Neutral
0-6 Detractor

Subaru launched the ‘Share the Love’ promotion in 2008. In it Subaru donates $250 to several causes when you buy or lease a new Subaru between the middle of November and the first week in January. There’s also a Facebook ‘like’ campaign that generates another donation. In four years Subaru has donated more than $15 million to about 15 charities.

Here from BIGInsight are the Net Promoter Scores totals for the major automobile manufacturers over the last three years.

JAN 2010 JAN 2011 JAN 2012
Subaru: 42.3% 52.2% 56.8%
Toyota: 51.6% 41.3% 48.9%
Honda: 49.7% 49.7% 43.9%
Lexus: 65.0% 55.3% 43.2%
Volkswag: 26.5% 43.2% 40.7%

GMC (0.1%) (3.6%) 27.9%
Cadillac 11.8% 23.7% 19.8%
Ford 5.4% 7.9% 15.7%
Chevy 12.6% 11.3% 12.3%
Buick 17.0% 4.8% 6.2%
Chrysler (7.2%) 1.5% 0.3%

Of course it’s hard to draw a direct line of causation from ‘Share the Love’ cause marketing efforts to Subaru’s higher scores based only on this information. Although Subaru’s sales are also up since 2008 and the company now enjoys 2.3 percent of U.S. market share, its highest level ever.

Throwing all caution aside, the argument could be made that Subaru owners are responding not only to the automobiles the company makes, but how it makes them feel to see their company give back.

Fictional Cause Marketing From DC and Time Warner

For the next two years, says the press release, Time Warner Entertainment and Time Warner businesses will be supporting the work of the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and Mercy Corps in the horn of Africa, which is in the throes of a deadly drought made worse by wholesale political instability in Somalia in particular.

Called ‘We Can Be Heroes’ the face of the campaign will be DC Comics superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg. When you make a donation at We Can Be Heroes website, DC Entertainment will match your donation up to $1 million. DC Entertainment is owned by Time Warner.

Time Warner also sells T-shirts, mugs, i-Phone cases and stainless steel water bottles emblazoned with the silhouette of the Justice League superheroes in front of an outline of the African continent. Fifty percent of the purchase price of the merchandise goes to the cause.

This is where I say something really catty like Time Warner cares so much about the tragedy in Somalia that it’s sending the crème de le crème of its stable of fictional characters. Apparently other beloved Time-Warner fictional characters like Elmer Fudd and Foghorn Leghorn didn’t test as well with audiences as did Cyborg.

Now I know that the Superman and Batman franchises are worth hundreds of millions to Time Warner and in putting these characters behind this cause, the company is showing real commitment.

But, seriously, the fictional Justice League supporting the all-too-real need in the Horn of Africa? It’s worse than a non-sequitur. It’s insulting.

Time Warner has taken on causes in a very public way before. The company sent reporters from Fortune, Money, Essence, and Sports Illustrated to Detroit for year-long in-depth coverage of that troubled city from every possible angle. Called Assignment Detroit, Time Warner even bought a house in Detroit for its reporters to crash at.

I think it’s fair to say that if Time Warner sent a phalanx of reporters to Somalia and the refugee camps in Kenya to undertake blanket coverage for a year, that progress would be made in the Horn of Africa.

Or, if Time Warner is super-attached to the DC Entertainment angle how about of the company donates a 1 percent share of total gross generated by Christopher Nolan’s new Batman pic, the Dark Knight Rises, set to release this Summer? If that movie follows form, such a donation would be worth a cool $10 million.

Outside Magazine's 'Best Places to Work' and Cause Marketing

The electrons were barely dry on yesterday’s post about cause marketing and Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list when I got an email from a friend in the outdoor business. ‘What about us?’ she asked.

Indeed Outside magazine also publishes an annual list of the ’50 Best Places to Work.’ Outside’s list is based on surveys of employee benefits, compensation, policies, job satisfaction, environmental initiatives, community-service programs and more.

More than either the Fortune list or the list from Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, Outside’s list is made up of very small companies. Take away Eddie Bauer and Chesapeake Energy and no other company on the list has even 1,000 employees.

Not surprisingly because of the emphasis that Outside puts on community service and environmental initiatives, this list also features a number of firms that do cause marketing.

By my count, four of the top ten and 23 overall use cause marketing as a part of their marketing mix. The full list follows.

What can we conclude from the fact that three ‘best company’ lists feature so many cause marketers? Frankly, I’m going to be cautious and say that the criteria that all three lists used to select their best companies slants towards firms more likely to do cause marketing.

And I’m not even going to try and draw the causation arrows. Does cause marketing yield good companies or do good companies yield cause marketing? Truth be told, there’s just not enough information here to say.

That said, I think we can nonetheless conclude that one of the earmarks of good companies is that they frequently are also cause marketers.

3 Sterling-Rice Group
5 Clif Bar
7 Groundspeak
8 Skullcandy
10 Colle + McVoy
11 Kashi
13 New Belgium Brewing
19 Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners
20 USANA Health Sciences
26 Fuse
28 NOLS
29 Osprey Packs
34 Keen
38 Patagonia
39 Carmichael Lynch
40 Brooks Sports
41 Livestrong
42 Smartwool
43 Mireball
44 Camelbak
45 Deckers Outdoor
46 Nixon
48 Eddie Bauer

As before, I ask that you backstop me by going to Outside’s website and looking at their full list. If there’s companies on their list but not mine which you believe utilize cause marketing, please comment below or email me at aldenkeeneatgmaildotcom.

Cause Marketing and Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For List

Fortune magazine just published its annual “100 Best Companies to Work for” list and I wondered, how many of these companies are also known for their cause marketing?

Regular readers know that I have found a strong correlation between the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship 2011 CSR Index and whether or not the company was active in cause marketing.

By my reckoning six of the BCCCC CSR List made the top ten and 33 of the 50 companies listed did at least some cause marketing.

Fortune’s ‘100 Best’ list is a little trickier when it comes to cause marketing. Cause marketing almost always faces the consumer, but a good number of companies on Fortune’s list are B2B. There’s several law firms for instance, and multiple energy companies and construction firms.

Moreover, Fortune’s list includes a number of companies that are either regional in their focus or otherwise unfamiliar to me. Which is another way of saying that they may be cause marketers and I just don’t know about it.

Those caveats aside, I found that five of the top ten, and 25 overall do at least some cause marketing.

Here’s my list preceded by the ranking on Fortune’s list:

1 Google
4 Wegman’s Food Market
8 Recreational Equipment (REI)
9 CHG Healthcare Services
12 Mercedes Benz
14 Dreamworks Animation
16 Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
22 The Container Store
32 Whole Foods Market
39 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
46 Intel
49 Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
55 Men’s Wearhouse
57 Marriott International
60 American Express
61 Nordstrom
62 Build-A-Bear Workshop
63 General Mills
70 Teach for America
73 Starbucks
76 Microsoft
78 Publix Super Markets
79 Mattel
82 Hasbro
99 Darden Restaurants

Over the last five years, I’ve profiled cause marketing campaigns from about half of these companies in this space. Indeed, companies like Marriott and American Express were among cause marketing’s very earliest practitioners. Jerry Welsh at American Express coined and trademarked the phrase 'cause-related marketing.'

Others, especially the grocers Publix and Wegman’s, were pioneers as well. And if you put General Mills’ name in the search box above it will come up dozens of times.

Finally, I could use your help to make this list as complete an accurate as possible. Go to Fortune’s full list here. If there’s a company on Fortune’s list that should be on this list of cause marketers, please let me know. Either comment below or send me an email to aldenkeeneatgmaildotcom.

As you do so, bear in mind that I’m not looking for evidence of good corporate citizenship, or generous corporate philanthropy. I’m looking for evidence of active cause marketing.

Responding to Outside Magazine's Article on Livestrong.org

The February 2012 issue of Outside magazine has a critical assessment of LiveStrong, Lance Armstrong’s anti-cancer foundation and I feel obliged to respond to it.

The first criticism is that LiveStrong no longer donates to cancer research efforts and instead has transitioned itself into a role as kind of information conduit for people fighting cancer. Livestrong is now primarily a cancer awareness-raising charity.

The problem is that some of the charity’s supporters still promote Livestrong as a cancer research charity. That, of course, is wrong and supporters should depict Livestrong's mission honestly and forthrightly.

Livestrong began phasing out of hard science research funding in 2005 because the charity's board didn’t feel like it could make a big enough dent in cancer research. Armstrong survived two bouts with testicular cancer.

A second problem, says the author of the article, Bill Gifford, is that Armstrong wears Livestrong around him as a kind of armor against the darts being thrown his way by the likes of 60 Minutes, Sports Illustrated, the Outside article, and others. Many people expect Armstrong to be indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury for illegal doping and probably perjury.

Gifford’s secondary point is that Armstrong and Livestrong are so inextricably linked that any marketing effort on behalf of the charity directly and distinctly benefits the man. And so the goodly chunk of money that Livestrong pumps into branding and marketing pumps up Lance Armstrong as well.

Finally, Gifford and others have charged that Armstrong and his associates have materially benefited from Livestrong.com, a “content-farm” that looks suspiciously like Livestrong.org.

Let me address those one-by-one.

As I’ve said before, I’m in no position to say whether or not Armstrong doped.

However, Livestrong’s repositioning as a cancer-awareness charity strikes me as a result of the strength of the charity’s branding. The word ‘Livestrong’ doesn’t sound like a testicular cancer research charity. It sounds like a rallying cry.

The Livestrong board could have left the cause as a testicular cancer research charity. But the fact of the matter is that testicular cancer presently has one of the highest cure rates of all cancers; better than 90 percent.

And while testicular cancer isn’t exactly an orphan disease…roughly 8,000 Americans are diagnosed with it every year... that number is dwarfed by the approximately 225,000 women every year diagnosed with breast cancer.

So the Livestrong board faced a choice; be the charity of choice for a form of cancer that doesn’t affect a huge number of people and isn’t terribly deadly, or become something bigger. (A third option would be to become a generic anti-cancer research charity. But given the landscape of cancer charities that’s probably a fool’s errand).

I won’t fault Livestrong for the direction it took.

As for the criticism that Livestrong over-brands itself, I’ll fall back on the defense of nonprofit marketing mounted by Dan Pallotta in his book ‘Uncharitable.’ Pallotta says, in effect, that marketing works. Who among us doesn't believe that if anti-tobacco forces marketed with as much budget and skill as the tobacco companies do that we wouldn't substantially reduce smoking?

Why, then, do nonprofits and their supporters expect to get same marketing results that for-profits get when nonprofits spend pennies on the dollar for their marketing?

Now, the issue of Armstrong benefiting from Livestrong’s branding is tricky. But at its core the issue is a version of ‘founder’s syndrome.’ As any nonprofit consultant worth her salt can tell you, the ultimate test of a charity’s long-term viability is whether it can escape the shadow of a charismatic founder.

Given that, Livestrong might be better served by making that break with Armstrong sooner rather than later.

Finally, the whole Livestrong.com deal seems shady.

OluKai Cause Markets For Local Cause at Outdoor Retailer Show

Trade shows are a natural for cause marketing because there are so many like-minded people under one roof. For instance, at the Outdoor retailer show that took place last week in my small State of Utah, the show was right around the 30th largest city in the State!

I almost always suggest to clients that if they’re going to do cause marketing at a trade show that they consider doing it on behalf of cause in the city where the show is being held. In so doing they have the chance to leave legacy that can long outlast the show.

OluKai, a footwear company, has real bon fides when it comes to cause marketing, corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. Every year the company sends employees and others to Hawaii to help the nonprofit Maui Cultural Lands reforest the island and stabilize archeological sites.

But during the run of the show, OluKai held a pro sales event every day at 5pm and sent the proceeds to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Pro sales means that it targets the people at the trade show rather than consumers.

Listen now as Kellen Trachy explains what the OluKai brand is about, why supporting Hawaiian nonprofits is important to that brand, and why their pro-sales benefited a Utah cause.

Lastly, my apologies to Kellen for slaughtering the pronunciation of his last name. Kellen’s name is correctly pronounced like ‘Tracy.’

Made in America Cause Marketing

Liberty Bottleworks fabricates rugged water bottles in brand-new factory in Yakima, Washington of recycled aluminum and using America-made machinery. Liberty is the only company making metal water bottles in America today.

While that sinks in a little consider that Liberty also has a strong cause marketing component with its partner Big City Mountaineers (BCM), a Denver nonprofit that gives urban kids a wilderness experience that often proves to be life-changing.

The night before my interview with Alex Strickland of Liberty at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City the company hosted a beer bash that raised $2000 for BCM.

During the Summer Outdoor Retailer show in August 2011, Liberty released a bottle featuring BCM's logo which benefited the nonprofit. This year the BCM benefit bottle (at left) was designed by Yakima graffiti artist Bernardo Boeragor.

Liberty pledges to do a new benefit bottle for BCM every year.

The company also produces a series of bottles imprinted with topographic maps. For each topo bottle sold, Liberty gives 1% of the profits to the Conservation Alliance.

Art and design is a big part of the appeal of the Liberty bottles. And because the company has a proprietary printing process that allows it print directly on the bottle, they can do designs no one else can. Boeragor's BCM bottle, for instance, has a cool raised texture that’s eye-catching and impossible not to touch.

Smart design. Cool art. A strong desire to help causes and Made in America of recycled materials. Liberty Bottleworks gets it.

Nike Vet Keeps Bike Inner Tubes Out of the Landfill and Benefits the Humane Society

Paul Fidrych left a promising career at Nike to start a business with his wife that takes old bike inner tubes and upcycles them into useful things like dog collars, chew toys and water dishes. All while benefiting the Humane Society chapter in Portland. The company is cleverly named Cycle Dog.

To me that business model sounded like the much-heralded company TerraCycle, which upcycles juice pouches, for instance, into brightly-colored messenger bags.

When I suggested that analogy, Paul politely told me that Cycle Dog positions itself as the leading US recycled pet supply company. Cycle Dog is laser-focused on the pet market.

Listen now to this interview with Paul at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City as he talks about Cycle Dog's products, how they keep inner tubes out of the landfill, how they benefit the Humane Society, and how to crack open a cold one with man’s best friend.

Teva’s BOGO Cause Marketing Returns Company's Philanthropy to its Watery Origins

Teva, the footwear company, started out making sandals for Colorado River Guides. And at its founding in 1984, Teva supported the nonprofit Save the Colorado, as it still does today. But as the company grew the footprint of its corporate philanthropy got ever-wider and more diffuse.

No one likes to say to worthy causes with compelling stories, after all.

But in this exclusive interview on the topic with the cause marketing blog, Jaime Eschette, the company’s long-time public relations manager told me that with the company’s current cause marketing effort… called A Pair for a Foot… the company returns to its watery heritage.

With every pair of Teva’s purchased in 2011 and 2012, the company and its partners will protect a linear foot of river, lake and ocean waterways, with a goal of protecting 4.3 million linear feet of water. It's a Buy One, Give One (BOGO) with a twist.

The effort includes employees, retailers, and volunteers as well as cash donations to the partner causes. The key partners are the Waterkeeper Alliance, Ocean Conservancy and Save the Colorado. Other capable charities will also participate.

Watch now to learn how Teva refined its corporate philanthropy efforts by interacting directly with its customers.

Cause Marketing Your Athletic Performance

In the 1926 World Series Babe Ruth heard about 11-year-old Johnny Sylvester, a New York boy who had been hurt in an accident and was in the hospital desperately ill. The Babe rushed to the hospital to visit Sylvester and promised to hit a home run on his behalf. The next day the Sultan of Swat hit not one but three home runs for the youngster. Sylvester rallied, went to Princeton, served in World War II, had a successful business career, and died in 1990 at the age of 74, a lifelong Yankee fan.

(That's Johnny and the Babe at the left).

Good causes, it seems to the founders of New York City-based company Charity Bets, can be a terrific performance enhancers.

Now Charity Bets is betting that people are willing to wager their athleticism against their friends' scepticism!

Here’s how it works: You set a performance goal for a race event; triathlon, marathon, bike race, 10K, etc. Then you solicit pledges from your network of friends that you’re willing to bet them that you’ll hit some performance measure; finish in the top three, say.

Charity Bets calls that a progressive donation.

After you certify the results, Charity Bets duns the people who made a pledge and pays the charity. They currently work with more than 50 charities.

Charity Bets also takes over/under donations, and rep-based donations. A rep-based donation is based on the number of reps you do; say bench presses. An over/under donation pays more if you achieve some high mark. For instance, an over/under donation might generate $100 if you break the 3-hour mark in a marathon but only $5 if you run it in more than 3 hours.

In a sense, this is a more democratized version of one those promotions your local pro sports team does whereby a local sponsor offers $50 to the children’s hospital for every three-pointer hit during the season. Or $100 to the Ronald McDonald House for every touchdown scored during a game after the first 30 points.

Except that it’s hard to imagine that when Tom Brady is slinging touchdown passes that he cares whether or not the local State Farm Insurance agents group has to pony up a few hundred extra bucks to the Jimmy Fund.

But if you’re running along in a marathon and you hit the wall, the knowledge that if you can beat your performance goal that your buddies will have to pay a steeper price to your favorite charity might just be enough to help you power through.

Performance incentives really do work.

Tom Brady almost certainly has performance incentives of his own: games won; number of touchdown passes versus interceptions; fourth-quarter comebacks; number of times he and his wife model Gisele Bundchen show up in GQ magazine; etc.

One thing glaringly missing from Charity Bets is an easy way to contact and solicit your network. You could cobble together something with Crowdrise, the focus of yesterday’s post.

But Charity Bets’ business model would be greatly enhanced by the addition of social networking platform.

Cause Marketing Your Birthday

My birthday is in February and recently I got the notice at the left from Crowdrise, a free online platform and social media site that helps you raise money for causes you care about.

It’s similar, in several respects, to the friends and family fundraising platform that comes your way when you sign up to participate in a race event on behalf of Komen, the American Diabetes Association or the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The difference is that with Crowdrise you decide what the cause is and how to make your case for it.

You can also be sure that Susan G. Komen for the Cure spent a darn sight more on their back-end software than did Crowdrise. That’s not a dig on Crowdrise or Komen as much as it is recognition that in the Internet age a lot of software which used to cost a fortune no longer does.

Because Crowdrise is independent of any single charity it feels more organic. You direct the effort, determine timelines, goals, messaging and the like. You’re not just another cog in a giant fundraising machine.

I’ve been watching Crowdrise for about 18 months now and they’ve latched onto an idea that I think is promising. Certainly it's presented with great fun.

“In case you didn't know,” the email said, “it's only a month until your birthday.”

Emails from Crowdrise tend to be cheeky, but not rude.

“That means it's definitely not too early to start thinking about how great it'll be to pretend you don't like all the attention you're going to get and, more importantly, it's a perfect time to get a birthday fundraiser going. Really, unless you're getting an iPad2, you should start a fundraising project on Crowdrise to raise money for your favorite charity and tell everyone to donate to your fundraiser instead of getting you a present.”

That’s the tone the American Red Cross’s advertising should have taken late last year with its advocacy and fundraising effort. With this copy Crowdrise strikes a blow... albeit a glancing one... that many of us don't need more stuff for our birthdays. Although if someone wants to send me an iPad2 for my birthday, I promise not to return it to the Apple store.

Crowdrise gets a lot of publicity because one of its founders and principal funders is actor Edward Norton. If that seems surprising, know that both his parents worked in the nonprofit sector. So he comes by his advocacy on behalf of nonprofits honestly.

Good on him and Crowdrise.

Cause Marketing the Auto Shows

It’s prime auto show season right now across the country. The two biggest shows, the Detroit auto show is going on right now, while the Chicago show is coming up in early February. My home state’s much more modest show took place last weekend.

(At left is a Subaru, which offers its own cause marketing effort called Share the Love.)

All of which begs the question, how might auto shows utilize cause marketing in their promotional mix?

Here’s a few ideas:

Imagine a Rosy the Riveter kind of look with messaging that says, in effect, "Let's put the State/Region back to work."

Then in partnership with local micro-lenders when someone gets approved for a micro-loan during the promotional period, they are also entered into a drawing for a truck/car for their business from the car show’s sponsoring dealer’s association.

The drawing, of course, would take place during the car show in front of a lot of cameras.

If you really wanted to doll it up, you could present it as a version of those reality talent shows, like ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and let attendees vote on the winners using Facebook and Twitter.

You could even invest it with all that cooked-up drama that’s so typical of those shows: “Amanda Peterson the judges liked your business plan and operational moxie. But Auto Show attendees were more reticent” …dramatic pause! … “still, you’re safe from elimination.”

How many vehicles would be given away? It could be just one new car or truck. Or, it could be some combination of new/used vehicles such that there was at least one winner per county, or some other meaningful number.

Other likely partners might include banks and credit unions and one (or more) of the small business incubators in the State, and of course media outlets like a TV station, radio stations and newspapers.

The positioning is this: the State's car dealers are so invested in the State that they want to help small businesses lead the State's recovery.

New businesses, after all, are the engine of job growth in the American economy.

And the kind of businesses that apply for loans from micro-lenders or seek help from incubators are the smallest of the small, and, thereby, almost romantic. Everybody loves to hate big businesses after all. But a small startup is almost like a child in that in the abstract it’s all but immune to criticism.

Micro-lenders typically require a business plan and meet extensively with would-be borrowers to help them succeed.

Also, I'd suggest one 'male' business and one 'female' business, since while owning a business is aspirational for both genders, it's different for women than for men.

And vice versa.

Kroger’s Giving Hope a Hand Campaign is Gaining Momentum

Kroger’s Giving Hope a Hand campaign, an anti-breast cancer effort is gaining momentum for much the same reasons that General Mills’ Boxtops for Education and Campbell’s Labels for Education have; it’s opened up the effort to other brands.

That is, Giving Hope a Hand… like Campbell’s Labels for Education and General Mills Boxtops for Education… has made the leap from its exclusive relationship with Kroger to including the participation of other brands, including Dannon’s Activa brand of yogurt, Freschetta pizza, Kraft cheese, Pepsi, Purina, Windex, and Ziploc, among others.

(Parenthetically, it’s interesting to note that other Dannon brands participate in Labels for Education. Ziploc also participates in Boxtops for Education! Kraft, of course, also does a prominent cause marketing effort on behalf of Feeding America).

At the left are the front and back panels of a box of Keebler’s Town House crackers that I saw in December 2011, but which certainly predated that time period. The Keebler brand is owned by Kellogg’s.

By following the lead of the ‘Boxtops’ and ‘Labels’ efforts, Kroger’s Giving Hope a Hand has done a valuable service for participating brands.

Freschetta, the freezer pizza brand from Schwan’s, can piggyback on the framework that Kroger has built. It could go as far as Keebler has with this box of Town House crackers, something less involving, or something in-between.

By building the framework Kroger, the only large grocery chain giant in the United States to successfully withstand the WalMart onslaught, spreads the risk of the Giving Hope a Hand and greatly broadens the potential reach of the campaign.

I last reviewed a Giving Hope a Hand effort in December 2010. That effort highlighted breast cancer survivor stories on packages of Kroger’s house brand of bottled water. I noted, approvingly, that it was one of the first examples of house brand cause marketing I’d seen.

Money raised by Giving Hope a Hand is currently directed to three breast cancer charities; Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and Y Me.

Increasingly I’m coming to the conclusion that the greatest contribution a large company like Kroger can make in cause marketing isn’t a cash donation but rather building a framework that vendors, suppliers and other stakeholders can add to, while providing the charity with access to their customer base.

The Cause Marketing Script

Current theory from Professor Ronald K. Mitchell at Texas Tech suggests that the people most likely to be a success at entrepreneurship are those who understand that there is an ‘entrepreneurship script.’

I contend that there is also a script in cause marketing.

In entrepreneurship the script, says Mitchell (who like Bob McDonald, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, and yours truly is an alumnus of the University of Utah) is “commonly recognized sequences of events that permit rapid comprehension of expertise-specific information by experts; mental representations of the causality-connected actions, props, and participants that are involved in common activities.”

I’ve cherry-picked from Professor Mitchell’s paper to come up with a list of attributes that I think characterize the best cause marketers:

• They have a great base of domain knowledge of cause marketing

• They are predisposed to action

• They are deliberate network builders

• They recognize changes and know how to exploit them

• They have a great deal of cause marketing experience

• They possess a schema about the way cause marketing works which comes from extensive experience

• They have better and less biased recall of relevant information

• They have and effectively use strategic resources

• They efficiently translate problems into solutions

• They understand how value is built

Agree? Disagree? Please comment below.