Cause-Related Marketing Not Meant to Raise Money

Cause-related marketing is about motivating people to change their behavior. Frequently the motivating carrot involves money going to a cause. But not always.

For instance, in the campaign on the left from T-Mobile, the American mobile phone company and a division of the European Union’s largest telecommunication company, Deutsch Telekom AG.

This is from the newsletter called ‘scoop’ that came with T-Mobile’s March 2008 billing statement.

When you switch to paperless billing, T-Mobile, in conjunction with the Arbor Day Foundation, will plant a tree in your name in a blighted area of the United States. The Arbor Day Foundation, a tree-planting charity headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, calls it the Restoration Project.

The tree planting is concentrated in the region around New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and areas of Southern California which were denuded of trees by the fires of 2007.

The creative, from the March 2008 statement is clean and bright, if a little visually cliché. I’d prefer a photo of an actual tree-planting event with volunteers scattered all over a mountain or up and down a New Orleans street. And the offer is clear and easy to understand. It’s a simple matter to switch to paperless billing at the T-Mobile site by following the link on the page.

I have two nits to pick, however:

1. Normally with cause-related marketing I advocate a deadline to impel action. And indeed the deadline to this offer is April 25. But in a case like this where T-Mobile would really prefer to have all its subscribers switch to paperless billing, the deadline seems more artificial than usual. Maybe the one-tree offer could be ongoing… like Campbell’s Labels for Education campaign… while this offer could be for five trees to be planted if you sign up before April 25.
2. T-Mobile’s website must have a cajillion pages, so finding the campaign is a challenge if you don’t go straight to the sign up page. You can search on ‘Arbor Day,’ and ‘tree planting,’ ‘paperless billing’ and find the campaign, but not ‘New Orleans,’ or ‘Southern California’ or ‘plant.’ That’s not T-Mobile’s fault, that’s just the inherent weakness of current search engines. The solution is to give the campaign some presence on the home page.

Reponse to Sandra Sims

List-Schmist?

Sandra Sims had a comment on the recent post about the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s “e-Shamrock” campaign. Her points were so interesting that rather than respond to her via Blogspot's clumsy comments system, I thought I'd post directly to the blog.

Sandra's comments are here in italics, followed by my response.

“This is an interesting update to the paper icon campaigns. When Chili's did their campaign for St. Judes at their restaurants last year they had an online site where you could create a pepper and print it out, though they didn't charge for it. So that ability, with a donation, would be another good suggestion.

MDA could have also added to Honor/Memory of component by sending an email to the person it was made in Honor/Memory of.

I think your points about it going viral and the fact that MDA builds a list are two of the campaign's strongest points.

Though the question is how strong is that list? If the people are donating low amounts and possibly doing so only because a celeb endorses it, are they really good potential repeat donors?”

Hi Sandra:

I think you're spot on here and your suggestions for improving the MDA's campaign are good. Thanks for your comments.

To your point about the strength of the list resulting from the campaign: I would argue that the MDA must segment their e-Shamrock list, rather than dumping it into their master list.

If they do that... and don't try and over-solicit it... the list could do just fine for them over the years.

That's because there's so little cost in soliciting via the Internet. It's not like direct mail where the package might cost a dollar and the postage is another $.22 cents, give or take. In that paradigm, you eventually stop sending solicitations to people who once sent you a $10 check.

Once the system is in place, the cost of soliciting a donor is basically free and even the transaction cost would be just pennies. Even the biggest charities pay a few pennies for printing their paper icons.

In this paradigm even a donation of $1 is meaningful.

Best wishes,
Paul

Pennies from Heaven

CLOSE ON GUS -- He holds the envelope in his hand, trying not to show his excitement. But you can practically hear his heart pounding. Now, almost afraid to look, he slowly edges the check out of its envelope. He closes both eyes. Now he opens one eye and peeks.

INSERT -- On the "Expenses" check emerging from the envelope.

First we SEE the name: AUGUST GORMAN. And then...the amount: $85,789.80!

GUS
(o.s.) (quietly)

Pennies from heaven.




Round-Up Some Change

Imagine if, like Richard Pryor’s character Gus Gorman in Superman III, that the charity you work with or for could get just a few pennies from each retail transaction. It wouldn’t necessarily mean an $85 million payday, but a bunch of pennies really adds up. (The excerpt is from scifiscripts.com. Superman III was written by David Newman and Leslie Newman).

If the charity you work for or with generates a lot of affinity and has a particularly strong relationship with a retailer or a banking institution, you may be a likely candidate for a super Web 2.0 version of the change round-up campaign.

Change round up campaigns have been around for decades now and probably much longer. What am I talking about? There’s a number of possible iterations:

• There could be a jar next to the cash register with a little narrative story on it.
• It could be a type of kinetic sculpture that bids you to watch the show for the price of a quarter and benefiting a charity.
• When I was at Children’s Miracle Network, our Canadian office devised an ingenious campaign with Air Canada whereby international travelers were asked to disgorge their pockets of foreign currency when they arrived back home.
• A more sophisticated version might involve a retailer programming a key in a cash register that rounds up the cost of purchase to the next Euro, Renminbi, Yen, Pound, Dollar or Rupee. So if the transaction comes to €22.67 Euros, the cashier would ask if you would like to round up the transaction to an even €23 Euros, with €0.33 Euros going to the cause.

Now there’s two new change round up efforts ready for the Web 2.0, one that’s already built and one that a tech-savvy charity would have to build on its own, probably in conjunction with a bank or other financial institution.

Already in place is a service called ChangeRoundUp.com, which allows online retailers to add a virtual coin jar to their shopping cart. Customers making an online purchase are asked to round up their change for a cause during the transaction. The software is free to retailers. Change Round Up extracts a 10 percent fee from each donation.

The second one is my own brainstorm. But feel free to steal it. Because that’s what I did.

Bank of America has a campaign for its customers called “Keep the Change” that has signed up more than 2.5 customers. When those Bank of America customers make a purchase using their debit card, it automatically rounds up the purchase to the nearest dollar and transfers those pennies into their savings account. It’s a form of enforced savings.

A shrewd charity with a lot of affinity could do much the same if they had a strong relationship with one or more financial institutions. It goes without saying (I hope) that you’d need to get a customer’s approval first. Also, this is probably more of a promotion than an on-going campaign. The charity better have a lot of affinity to make an ask like this and you’d need to market it effectively.

I’m not a geek, but building this change-round-up system doesn’t strike me as being technically complicated. The bank/financial institution would probably want survey its customers first. And while there would be up-front costs those costs would be largely sunk after the change round up software was developed.

What are the benefits to the bank or financial institution? They include:

• Cause-related marketing can directly enhance sponsor sales and brand.
• Cause-related marketing can heighten customer loyalty.
• Cause-related marketing can boost a company’s public image and help distinguish it from competition. It also gives corporate PR officers a new story to tell.
• Cause-related marketing can build employee morale and loyalty.
• Cause-related marketing can improve employee productivity, skills and teamwork.

How to Sign Up for the Cause-Related Marketing GoogleGroup

Linda P. in London asks how to sign up for the Cause-Related Marketing GoogleGroup.

It's simple, just send an email to me, Paul Jones, with your name, email address, city, state (if applicable) and country.

I don't sell your email address to anyone.

And I ask for your name and location only because it helps me know who my audience is.

So to subscribe, send an email to: aldenkeeneatgmail.com. And of course you'll need to replace the 'at' with the @ symbol.

I spell it out that way to keep the spam at a minimum.

MDA's Electronic 'Paper' Icon Campaign

We turn again to the icon campaign only this time an all-electronic version.

It’s the season of St. Patrick’s Day in the United States and the Muscular Dystrophy Association is selling their paper Shamrocks in stores and other retail locations. I saw them advertised as a top banner ad on the website of my local newspaper.

I clicked on the ad and it took me to a secure page on the MDA website. It took forever to download, but in time a video appeared featuring a short performance from by singer Ace Young from their telethon.

Young, a former American Idol finalist, then made a call to action to support the MDA by buying an electronic version of their Shamrock in $5 or $10 amounts, or more.

Some of the traffic comes from Young’s Myspace page and he addresses those fans directly in the script. MDA also has a Myspace page and counts Young as a friend.

Like all icon campaigns this is “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” type fundraising, but for MDA an 'e-Shamrock' is vastly superior to the paper version:

• A nearly infinite variety of versions of the electronic icons is possible.
• MDA acquires a database of donors.
• Once all the electronic backend is in place, your costs are limited to the fees charged to process credit cards and Paypal donations. By contrast a typical paper icon campaign has more variable than fixed costs.
• Likewise, MDA has fewer personnel costs with an e-Shamrock than with the paper version; it’s cheaper and easier to move electrons than atoms.
• There’s all the advantages of tracking made possible by the Internet that tells them great deal about who donates, where, how, at what time, where they came from, etc.
• Electronic icons don’t clog landfills after the campaign is over (although even electrons pollute in that they require electricity to power the servers).
• It’s very easy for the campaign to go viral, and MDA enables that to a certain degree by including HTML code for various versions of the e-Shamrock.

Like I said, this electronic version hold many advantages for MDA. The question is, aside from the affinity that MDA possesses, why would potential donors participate?

• With a paper icon, there will likely be a direct ask from a cashier. Young fills that role in this campaign. But saying no to a persistent cashier is harder than not clicking on a link. And what about the people that don’t know or like Ace Young?
• People get to sign their name on paper Shamrocks and have them display them for all to see, or even take them home. There’s nothing similar in this campaign.
• It seems small, but when there’s hundreds of paper icons hanging up in a store it creates subtle social pressure to donate. This campaign doesn’t duplicate that aspect either.

That said, I think there are a couple of things MDA could do to help compel support.

1. First of all, it needs some kind of ‘tell a friend option’ whereby when you buy a Shamrock, it gives you the option of alerting your friends to your generosity. Handled right the creative might work to ‘shame’ friends and family into matching your gift.
2. The other idea is harder to execute but potentially much more valuable to would-be donors. MDA ought to give as premium to Shamrock buyers an unreleased track from Ace Young’s upcoming album.

Now music rights are notoriously hard to clear and while the artist might go for it, that doesn’t mean his record label would. Still, it would give Shamrock buyers a real incentive to buy.

Combined with the ‘tell a friend’ option, MDA’s Shamrock campaign would stand out in a way none of its competitors ever have. And given its 42-year telethon archive and thousands of celebrity appearances, it has celebrity access and an inventory of performances no charity could match.

Message-Driven Cause-Related Marketing

Hamburger Helper and Pink for the Cure


Not all cause-related marketing is about raising money, per se. Sometimes it’s about the charity's messaging.

Pictured are images from a box of Hamburger Helper, purchased within the last six months. Prominently featured on the front and back of the box is Susan G. Komen’s ‘Pink for the Cure’ campaign.

And while the front makes it clear that General Mills is donating $2 million to Susan G. Komen, there’s no mention that this package of Hamburger Helper has any role in that donation.

It’s on the back of the box that it becomes clear that this is about raising awareness more than raising money.

At the bottom Komen lists “3 ways to help protect yourself.”

1. Get a mammogram.


2. Get a clinical breast exam.


3. Learn how to do a self-examination.

Nothing earth-shattering there, but like the saying goes, sometimes it’s better to be reminded of something we already know than to learn something new.

For that matter, while these recommendations may be old hat for 50-year-old women, every year there’s a new crop of 20-year-olds who may not have heard the message yet.

General Mills now makes Hamburger Helper in single-serving portions meant for lunch or dinner for one. (Many’s the time when I’ve sat down to eat a Hamburger Helper Microwave Single with a nice bottle of red wine!) But the messaging is better suited for a box of Hamburger Helper, since mom is still the person most likely to prepare the meal.

How many people saw this box?

I couldn’t find out what kind of unit volume Hamburger Helper does, but General Mills’ meals division, which is dominated by Hamburger Helper, does about $1.8 billion a year in sales.

For the sake of argument let’s say that half of that amount or $900 million comes from Hamburger Helper sales. Let’s also assume that General Mills makes the same amount of Hamburger Helper every week. At a retail price of $2.69 per box they would make 334 million packages of Hamburger Helper a year, or 6.4 million units a week.

If they put the S.G. Komen messaging on just one week’s worth of Hamburger Helper boxes, that’s pretty good exposure.

This campaign is head and shoulders better than just the charity’s logo on package. Could they have done more? Probably not on the box itself. Komen got some valuable real estate here.

But they could have done more on the back end.

Instead of listing Komen’s regular website and toll-free phone number, the campaign could have built microsite. There users could find valuable coupons, more breast cancer tips and maybe some kind of sweepstakes. If the sweepstakes was sponsored by Komen rather than General Mills, than the charity could capture contact information.

And the very sophisticated Komen operation knows what to do with contact information.

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 company… who already sat on St. Jude’s board. The national campaign begin out of local effort at seven Chili’s locations in Memphis.
• Chili’s executive meetings have been held in Memphis, Tennessee… where St. Jude is headquartered… and Chili’s employees are always invited and encouraged to tour the hospital. Likewise regional Chili’s management meetings are held in Memphis.
• Chili’s kicks-off the campaign by sending executives to Memphis to cook dinner for patients.
• Internally, the Create-A-Pepper campaign receives the same emphasis as any other employee-based marketing initiative. In fact, St. Jude messaging and Create a Pepper are integrated into Chili’s menus, to-go bags, coloring books, crayons, even employee recruitment advertising.

Efforts are also made by Chili’s to incentivize employees to do their best.

• Top daily performers from each shift get $5 grab bags that includes gas gift cards, movie tickets, and the like.
• The company provides travel vouchers worth $1,000 for each of their operational regions. Servers who raise $200 or more are entered into a drawing for one of the travel vouchers. For every additional $100 they raise, they can earn an additional entry in the drawing.
• The chain’s overall top server gets $2,500 travel voucher. In 2007, the top server generated $27,423, more than five times as much as the typical Chili’s restaurant raises!

St Jude recognizes the Chili’s contributions in numerous ways:

• Naming rights to the hospital’s diagnostic imaging center.
• Recognition on St. Jude’s website.
• Public relations efforts with a special emphasis on restaurant trade publications.
• Named Chili’s their “Corporate Partner of the Year.”
• Featured Chili’s at their annual “Partner Summit.”

One final point worth making. Because St. Jude has on staff PR and design folks, web and IT pros, marketing people, videographers and photographers, they can quickly put out press releases, video, pictures, or publish a micro site, although they still rely on their partners to fully ‘activate’ sponsorships.

In my view the Create a Pepper campaign is a tour de force.

Bravo to Chili’s and St. Jude.

How Chili’s Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 Million for St. Jude, Part I

[Blogger’s note: This is the first of a two-part post on Chili’s Create a Pepper promotion benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The campaign is notable because it has grown approximately 400 percent since going national in 2004. How did they do it? Read on.]


The casual dining category of chain restaurants have been death for many cause-related marketing campaigns.

You can guess why.

• The chains are national, but there aren’t many charities with sufficient affinity to span the nation.
• The employee turnover rate among restaurants tends to be quite high, making continuity challenging.
• The patrons of the big chains aren’t particularly loyal. Not too many people head to their local Applebees four times a week. [Although I did hear Jim Cramer, the voluble (and volatile) TV stock picker, say that he loves to eat at Olive Garden].

And I would add that too many charities that have sold in a cause-related marketing campaign to a casual dining chain have not brought much creativity to the deal. Too often it’s just been a square paper icon campaign roughly folded to fit the round hole of the chain.

To my knowledge, there hadn’t really been a breakout performer in the category until last year when Chili’s raised $8.2 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in a multifaceted campaign. That’s an increase of more than 150 percent over the 2006 campaign, which generated $5.2 million

This from a campaign that has only been national since 2004 and a relationship that dates to just 2002. In those 5 years, Chili’s has donated more than $18.7 million to St. Jude. In fact, since going national the Chili’s campaign has never generated less than $2 million a year!

Now St Jude has a powerful national brand, a talented and energetic fundraising staff, and has long been a force in cause-related marketing. But even for them $2 million a year is a significant amount of money. So to cross the $8 million-a-year mark so quickly is a break-out-the-champagne kind of achievement.

How’d St. Jude do it? I put that question to Amy Morris, Director of Corporate Relations at St. Jude with responsibility for the relationship with Chili’s.

“Chili’s just gets it,” Amy said, “it’s an amazing brand and a true partnership. We stay in regular contact… we meet on a weekly basis. And both parties are always thinking about what else we could do to make it better.”

Here are the elements for the September 2007 effort:

• The campaign’s ‘hook’ is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which takes place in September.
• Chili’s employees encourage patrons to donate $1 to color a paper icon in the shape of the chain’s iconic chili. There are then displayed in the store. The paper icons are called “Create-a-Pepper.”
• Servers, bartenders and hosts raise money selling customizable t-shirts and wristbands. Order taking and fulfillment are accomplished on the campaign’s website, createapepper.com. Chili’s built the site and hosts it on their servers.
• On the last Monday in September, Chili's donated all profits from its sales that day to St. Jude.
• St. Jude-branded gift cards at Chili’s denominated in the amounts of $25 or more generate a $1 donation to the hospital.
• Meanwhile, in 2006 St. Jude presented an opportunity for Chili’s to pledge $50 million over a 10-year period to help fund advanced diagnostic imaging. Chili’s accepted and St. Jude’s state-of-the-art Chili’s Care Center houses the Department of Radiological Sciences, the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium and other facilities.

On Thursday: How Chili's and St. Jude motivate support from frontline employees and management.

Cause-Related Marketing Advice to a Nonprofit Startup

[Blogger's Note: What follows is a letter I received from a startup nonprofit asking for advice on how to get an HIV/AIDS charity off the ground along with my response.]

I am a Nurse that Dares to Care; my name is McKenzie English, LVN. Located in Riverside, California I just recently returned from Nigeria, where I was taken to two villages to hear of their concerns for the villagers and children. Then I got married. The faith based organization was started November, 2007. African American Initiatives for Africa Forgotten Ones, the website is http://www.aaiafchildrensponsorship.org/

http://www.aaiafchildrensponsorship.com/ is registered in Nigeria as NPO, here as sole prop. Have to get NPO for American tax exemption. So far not one sponsors, all out of my pocket for expenses. It is concerning 115 children that are unable to go to school or continue their education do to poverty in their environment.

Also, as a nurse the spread of Hiv/Aids and not information is getting to the rural areas. Traditional medicine men are telling men to have young virgin girls to rid themselves of Hiv. I have doctor on staff we have office set up in Nigeria. And learning as I go about promoting this in America, any suggestions this is how I found your name Mr. Paul Jones.

A humble Servant,
McKenzie English, Lvn, Mt
President/ CEO
AAIAF Children Sponsorship

Hi McKenzie:

Thanks for your note. I appreciate the chance to learn more about your cause and the need in Nigeria.

By now I think we all understand, to at least some degree, the devastation that HIV/AIDS has wreaked on Africa, especially the children.

First off, I should say that I really don’t have any particular experience with sponsorship organizations.

If that’s where the AAIAF is headed the best suggestion I can offer is that you study the most notable child sponsorship outfits out there and learn from them. Maybe you can find some kind of mentor who is either still at one of those charities or who has experience working there and listen to everything they’ll tell you.

You already know that your best bet is to get your 501(c)(3). The chief advantage 501(c)(3) status confers is tax deductibility for your donors. It also conveys a sense of trust to donors and would-be donors.

Until the approval comes through from the IRS, there are organizations out there called “fiscal sponsors” that might be helpful. They are existing 501(c)(3)s that will accept donations on behalf of your cause and offer your donors a tax deduction while you await approval from the IRS. Fiscal sponsors usually perform this (and other) services for a fee. Sometimes local community foundations will take on this role. Riverside, California has a community foundation called The Community Foundation.

One of your first orders of business is to put together a board. Find people like you who are passionate about your cause. You’ll need the board for at least 5 reasons:

1. In a nonprofit setting a board is a legal requirement and takes the place of “shareholders.”


2. The board is also responsible for governance of your nonprofit.


3. Especially in this early stage the board can help shoulder the load you must be feeling.


4. I don’t recommend it, but you can require that board members donate to the cause as a condition of membership.


5. Whether or not you and your board choose to require board donations as a condition of membership, a dedicated board can and should help raise money for the AAIAF.

In terms of what to do first, I suggest you raise some money. One approach that may be a good match for you and your cause at this time are “Houseparties.” A house party is a party given with the express purpose of fundraising for causes or projects. The settings are intimate and when it comes time to ask for money it’s typically low key and certainly expected.

One of the best resources I know about house parties comes from author Morrie Warshawski, author of “The Fundraising Houseparty: How to Party With a Purpose and Raise Money for Your Cause.”

His book is short, easy to digest, and helpful. I can recommend it without reservation.

Now some people will fault me for saying that you need to raise money first. Others would say that you need to figure out your mission, your purpose, how you’re going to fulfill those two things and how you’re going to effectively communicate that to your various constituencies, etc.

But right now you’re doing all this by yourself, which is unsustainable. Moreover, the mere act of putting together your 501(C)(3) application and raising money via houseparties in the way that Warshawski suggests will force you to do much of this foundational work.

Also, two heads (or three or four, etc) are better than one. Once you get the organization’s initial startup behind you and have a board and some staff onboard, you can certainly revise things like mission and purpose statements.

It seems to me that your real goal is to do enough that you can attract the help that you need, but not so much that you burn yourself out and empty your personal bank account. That doesn’t serve those kids in Nigeria or you.

There’s another factor here at work that we consultants call “Founder's Syndrome.” It implies organizations that are unable to thrive after their founder leaves because she or he didn’t do the work necessary to secure broader support. Among your responsibilities as a founder is to make sure that whenever the day comes for you to leave, that the organization can continue to flourish.

Now, on to the subject of my blog, namely, cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing is a way to raise unrestricted funds for your cause while promoting a company’s products or services. How that takes place is limited only by human imagination.

My blog has highlighted plenty of examples over the last 18 months or so. But be assured that even though the cause-related marketing campaigns you see most often tend to involve large nonprofits and larger for-profits, that smaller scale CRM campaigns take place all the time.

At the top of this post is a sales flier from a small grocery chain that illustrates two different cause-related marketing campaigns; one very large and national, one small and local.

The national campaign is for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Buy a paper Shamrock and a $1 goes to the MDA. Also, a percentage of the sales frozen food sold by the chain during March goes to the MDA.

But note the cause-related marketing promotion at the very bottom of the picture with the images of the soldiers. When people buy a 20lb box of frozen chicken at just one of their locations, they split the proceeds with the Utah National Guard Charitable Trust.

In other words, you don’t have to be a super large charity with years of experience and a well-known brand in order to successfully carry out a cause-related marketing campaign. All you really need is affinity, the ability to explain your cause in a compelling fashion, and the right sort of corporate partner.

Best wishes,

Paul Jones

Cause-Related Marketing and William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley, philanthropist, author, bon vivant and intellectual leader of American conservatism for more than 50 years, died a week ago today at the age of 82.

He was also the father of my favorite American political satirist, Christopher Buckley. As evidence of his versatility, the old man wrote a darn fine series of spy novels himself, many of them set during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.

I had exactly one personal experience with Buckley. Personal in the sense that I (along with about 1800 other people) watched him debate the towering American economist John K. Galbraith on stage at Symphony Hall in Phoenix, Arizona.

I blogged about the experience on Nov. 6, 2007. As I wrote then, when Buckley started to lose a point to the physically-imposing Galbraith, he would back up to the curtains and start to make them sway, thereby drawing attention away from Galbraith.

Even in the nonprofit world it’s a crowded marketplace for resources and attention. And like Buckley, there are times when you'll need to practice showmanship to stand out.

In memory of William F. Buckley, may he rest in peace, here’s a re-run of that post.


I happened to catch a few moments of Gene Kelly and Van Johnson dancing in the 1954 MGM musical Brigadoon on television the other night.

As was typical of Kelly’s choreography, when he and Van Johnson danced together their steps mirrored each other. And Johnson, who was a pretty good hoofer, acquitted himself very well.

But still I couldn’t help looking first and most often at the immortal Kelly.

Little wonder, I suppose. Gene Kelly was so talented, famously perfectionist, and a grindingly hard worker who somehow managed to make every step look fluid and easy.

So much so that when the great Latvian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov was considering defecting to the West during the bad old Soviet days, one thing that gave him pause was that all American dancers were as skilled as Kelly or Fred Astaire. Hah! (Baryshnikov once said of Astaire, “His perfection gives us complexes, because he’s too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity that’s hard to face.”)

All that’s a given. Even though Van Johnson was pretty good I had to force myself to watch him. As I did so, it finally came to me why it took effort to notice him there next to Kelly.

Part of the reason my eyes gravitated to Gene Kelly was that he wore his pant legs hemmed quite high (we called them ‘floods’ or ‘highwaters’ when I was a kid). As he danced you could see flashes of red socks peeking through. I couldn’t see any of Van Johnson’s socks, even though red socks were his trademark.

In other words, Gene Kelly was practicing showmanship. Maybe even gamesmanship.

John Wayne practiced showmanship, too. I saw an interview wherein he confessed that he developed his famous rolling walk early in his career… when he wasn’t the featured actor… so that when he was in a scene he wouldn’t be missed, even as a secondary character.

And it’s not just performers who employ the tricks and techniques of showmanship to make them get noticed.

I once watched a debate between William F. Buckley (who launched modern American conservatism) and John Kenneth Galbraith, the eminent liberal economist. The debate took place on the stage of a large symphony hall and featured two podiums set about 10 feet apart.

Not far behind them was a massive floor-to-ceiling curtain. Galbraith was 6’9” tall (206 cm) and even in the cheap seats where I was you could see that he towered over Buckley. When Galbraith would score points, Buckley would aimlessly back up to the curtains and position himself between the folds where he would gently sway back and forth, drawing attention his way. It was a rude and brilliant act of stagecraft.

A showman’s greatest technique might be his professionalism or imperturbability. The American writer Mark Twain had intertwining careers as both a writer and a speaker. When he spoke he seemed off-the-cuff. But that was only because his preparations were so exhaustive. Twain would script not only his text, but also his asides and quips, and then rehearse it all until he appeared to be speaking extemporaneously.

Winston Churchill, who we think of as a completely unflappable man of the moment, did much the same when he gave speeches.

How does this relate to cause-related marketing? If you’re a charity, agency or sponsor, look around. No matter how worthy your cause or campaign you’ve got competition. Certainly for money, but also for people’s attention.

Like Gene Kelly and Van Johnson you may be doing the same dance… the same bunch of cause-related marketing steps… that other respectable and worthy causes are doing.

How do you make sure that your campaign stand out?

Tax Deductions for Cause-Related Marketing

Anup Malani and M. Todd Henderson, two professors at the University of Chicago Law School, proposed in the March 10, 2008 issue of Forbes magazine that individuals be allowed tax deductions for the donations made when they buy products that generate a donation to a charitable cause.

Here’s what they say:

“We think the tax law should be changed to equalize the deduction shareholders get for corporate and personal contribution. Individuals should also be allowed to deduct donations embedded in consumer products. Firms are increasingly doing good because shareholders and consumers want them to, and taxes should not favor one form of doing good over another.”

Why?

“Consumer charity is inefficient under our present tax code. If you pay $15 for
a pound of fair-trade coffee instead of $10 for regular coffee, you can’t claim
a deduction for the $5 difference. The additional cost is a nondeductible
donation.

Let me be perfectly upfront and say that I owe both these lawyers a wet, sloppy kiss.

I never dared wish that someone outside the cause-related marketing fold would propose a tax deduction for the donation individuals make when they buy a product or service that has a charitable donation built into its price.

Certainly when it comes to writing the actual law some wrinkles would have to be ironed out. It’s hard to imagine getting some kind of tax receipt when you commission a piece of music from Cantilena Music and a donation of $825 goes to a hearing cause, much less trying to figure out how many cartons of Yoplait you consumed in year with $.10 per going to Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

And it’s fair to say that any such bill would face certain opposition from legislators like Senator Chuck Grassley (R) Iowa. Senator Grassley is kind of the bête noire of nonprofits these days.

But I love this idea.



Who else do I have to kiss to make it happen?