Skip to main content

Non Breast Cancer Cause Marketing in October

Clients ask me all the time: have the breast cancer charities sucked out all the oxygen out of the atmosphere for cause marketing during October? That is, can anyone else do cause marketing during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

I can't give a categorical answer, but here are three quick takes on cause marketing campaigns going on in this month that aren’t about breast cancer, plus a forth that is about breast cancer, only with fewer pink ribbons than usual.

Sigg Drop of Hope Water Bottle for the Jane Goodall Institute. When you buy the Drop of Hope water bottle from Sigg, the Swiss aluminum bottle makers, they’ll donate $5 to the Jane Goodall Institute to build rainwater tanks for schoolchildren in Africa. The campaign is well-timed coming, as it does the heels of news that Sigg used BPA as an element in the plastic liner of its water bottles after first denying doing so.

Benihana/Fuji Water Co-Promotion for Best Buddies. Last night at dinner with the fam at Benihana I saw a small sign that said when you ordered Fuji Water with your meal, an unstated donation would be made to Best Buddies. I can’t find anything online about it, although Benihana has supported Best Buddies in the past with a change round-up effort.

Weight Watchers “Lose for Good.” Weight Watchers is repeating its successful “Lose for Good” campaign. When Weight Watcher members and subscribers loose weight during a defined period of time from September thorough mid-October, the company donates money to Share Our Strength and Action Against Hunger and encourages members to donate food to local food banks. In 2008 members shed 4 million pounds, donated 1.5 million pounds of food and Weight Watchers donated $1 million.

Sharpie Breast Cancer Campaign for City of Hope. Sharpie, the permanent marker brand line from Newell Rubbermaid, is supporting the City of Hope with pen sales and an e-Bay art auction from prominent designers including Rachel Roy, Betsey Johnson, Tracy Reese, Donna Karan, and others. Sharpie markets actively to the artistic and DIY crowd, encouraging them to post work they’ve done using Sharpies on the Sharpie Uncapped website. Given that, it would be cool if Sharpie had figured out a way to integrate their community of users more completely in the City of Hope campaign.
Labels:

Comments

www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com said…
Great post! I mentioned it today! Thanks for highlighting some case studies - and pointing out the saturation around breast cancer messages. - Katya
10/30/2009 5:17 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Even Absurd Cause-Related Marketing Has its Place

Buy a Bikini, Help Cure Cancer New York City (small-d) fashion designer Shoshonna Lonstein Gruss may have one of the more absurd cause-related marketing campaigns I’ve come across lately. When you buy the bikini or girls one-piece swimsuit at Bergdorf-Goodman in New York shown at the left all sales “proceeds” benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . Look past the weak ‘ proceeds ’ language, which I always decry, and think for a moment about the incongruities of the sales of swimsuits benefiting the legendary Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Cancer has nothing to do swimming or swimsuits or summering in The Hamptons for that matter. And it’s not clear from her website why Shoshanna, the comely lass who once adorned the arm of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has chosen the esteemed cancer center to bestow her gifts, although a web search shows that she’s supported its events for years. Lesser critics would say that the ridiculousness of it all is a sign that cause-related marketing is
3 comments
Read more

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor
1 comment
Read more