Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves

Circuit City-Mary J. Blige Duet Album for Boys and Girls Clubs of America

Throughout November 2006, Circuit City diligently promoted its exclusive deal with Hip Hop Soul artist Mary J. Blige called Mary J. Blige & Friends that benefits the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in commemoration of their centennial year. The recording features the appealing Blige in duets with an impressive array of artists include Sting, LL Cool J, Jamie Foxx, Elton John, Santana, and others.

Given the season, you’d expect this to be a charity Christmas album. But it’s not. Evidence, I think, of the creativity of the dealmakers at Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

The offer is straightforward. The album is ‘specially-priced’ at $16.99 for a two-disk set, and “all proceeds benefit Boys and Girls Clubs of America.” I’m almost always critical of the ‘proceeds’ language as being too vague to be helpful. The last research I saw on this said that consumers prefer more concrete language.

But I’m not here to criticize so much as praise and warn.

Led by Kurt Aschermann, who is still there so far as I know, the cause-related marketing efforts of the Boys and Girls Clubs have long been impressive, especially given the organizational constraints of Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of America is itself a kind of a club. Organizations can apply for membership and may be admitted based on whether they meet the national organization’s criteria. Local clubs must recertify periodically. The national organization has programs that are available to the local clubs, but they’re generally not required to use them.

This loose affiliation means that cause-related staff can do deals, but the local affiliates are under little or no obligation to administer the campaigns in their local clubs or markets. For instance, the national headquarters did a deal with Coke 10 or more years ago that involved placing Coke vending machines in the clubs. Some local clubs accepted the deal, but others did not because they had existing relationships with local bottlers that were more lucrative.

So bully for the Boys and Girls Club cause-related marketing dealmakers for this deal as well as a long string of cause-related marketing successes that preceded it.

It’s easy when you’re putting together a deal like this to get caught up working on creative side: securing the artists, the music, the arrangements and the musicians; cover art; promotions; setting up the recording times and places. A producer probably did most of the heavy-lifting on these details, but the charity was certainly very involved.

But two of the most important determinants of the success of one of these charity albums isn’t creativity, it’s accounting. If the charity has to cover returns, which always come, they lose. If they accept trade credit terms 2-10 Net 30, which are standard in retailing, then the charity loses 2% of the proceeds, because retailers typically have terrific cashflow and will pay quickly in order to get a discount. 2-10 Net 30 credit terms…which means the payer gets a 2 percent discount if they pay within 10 days of delivery… are one of the finance tricks large discount retailers use to ensure profitibility.

So while nonprofit charities are thought of as harmless doves in business, they need to be wise as serpents when negotiating these deals.

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...

An Interview with Cause-Related Marketing Pioneer Jerry Welsh

Jerry Welsh is the closest thing cause marketing has to a father. In 1983 after a number of regional cause-related marketing efforts, Welsh, who was then executive vice president of worldwide marketing and communications at American Express looked out his window in lower Manhattan at the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was then undergoing a major refurnishing, and in a flash Welsh determined to undertake the first modern national cause marketing campaign. I say modern because almost 100 years before in January 1885, the Statue of Liberty was sitting around in crates in New York warehouses because the organization building the pedestal ran out of money. And so Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the newspaper called The World , proposed a very grassroots solution reminiscent in its own way to Welsh’s cause-related marketing. Pulitzer ran an editorial promising he would print the name of everyone who donated even a penny. Sure enough pennies, along with dimes and nickels, quarters a...

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