Amazon, I'm Calling You Out

In 2011, Amazon’s sales were $43.59 billion and its profit was $7.64 billion. It is the world’s biggest etailer. That's part of their Seattle headquarters at the left.

And how much did Amazon donate to charity? It's not clear. Although I suspect that MercyCorps and the Red Cross have both received meaningful donations from Amazon.com.

We do, however, know that Amazon.com spent $1.5 million in lobbying in 2011, and more than $21 million since 2001. Likewise, we know that Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire founder and chief executive, his mother and father, and his wife, author Mackenzie Bezos, have given more than $28,000 to Washington Senator Patty Murray (D) since 2009.

Amazon’s website reports that its “customers have contributed more than $35 million to global relief programs since 2001.” But Amazon’s piece of that is probably in-kind only.

A statement at Amazon.com says:

“We… contribute to the communities where our employees and customers live. Our contributions can be seen in many ways – through our donations to dozens of nonprofits across the United States, through the disaster relief campaigns that we host on our homepage, through our employees’ volunteer efforts, through the grants that we make to the writing community, and through the Amazon Web Services credits that we provide to educators.”

For instance, the Fernley Little League, Fernley Wadsworth Lions Club and Fernley Youth Football. Amazon has operations in Fernley, Nevada. Fernley is on I-80 about 20 miles east of Reno.

Apart from its donations to causes like the Pike Place Market Foundation, and the Macungie Farmers Market, Amazon takes a rather libertarian view on corporate donations to causes. The website explains the company's approach:

“At Amazon, if we do our job right, our greatest contribution to the good of society will come from our core business activities: lowering prices, expanding selection, driving convenience, driving frustration-free packaging, creating Kindle, innovating in web services, and other initiatives we'll work hard on in the future.”

Milton Friedman couldn’t have put it better himself.

“The discussions of the ‘social responsibilities of business,’” Friedman wrote in the New York Times Magazine in 1970, “are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that ‘business’ has responsibilities? Only people have responsibilities.”

Instead, companies should maximize their profits and return capital to shareholders so that individuals could then donate to whatever cause they wished to, or not. For companies to do anything besides maximize profits was simply immoral, Friedman wrote.

Listen, I’d be the last guy to say that Amazon should somehow be required to be a more generous corporate donor or to take up cause marketing in a notable way. (Although I’m not above shaming a company into doing either or both).

But Bezos, who is famously very bottom-line oriented, and his company seem not to have gotten the memo that cause marketing helps the bottom line and that customers expect a certain level of corporate charitable donations in 2012 in a way they didn't in 1970.

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...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

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...

Cause Marketing

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