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.

One (Bronx) Cheer for Philanthropist Kim Kardashian

Fox News reports that reality star Kim Kardashian is pocketing 90 percent of the money raised from her eBay Giving Works auctions.

The auctions ostensibly benefit the Dream Foundation, which grants wishes to terminally-ill adults. Kardashian's father died of cancer. But Fox found that only 10 percent of the money actually went to the cause, something she states openly on her blog when promoting the auctions.

Ten percent is the minimum Giving Works allows.

Most of the items are from the Kardashian’s collection of fashion apparel. Fox reports past items have included:

• A Herve Leger dress.
• The robe she wore on “Dancing With the Stars.”
• A pair of Christian Louboutin Nude Patent Platform Pumps.
• A Rock Stella & Jamie Cropped Faux Fur Vest.
• A pair of Balenciaga White Leather Peep-toe Platform Heels.

In effect Kadashian, a multi-millionaire has figured out a way to monetize the churn of her wardrobe inventory. All with the gloss of charity.

My headline says one cheer for Kim and that’s because she was open about the meager donation percentage. But it’s a Bronx cheer because 10 percent just ain’t enough.

Finding More Donors With the Ultimate Question

A couple of years back I sat in on a very interesting presentation by Ryan Davies of Progrexion, a multi-disciplinary marketing research firm.

One of Progrexion’s house specialties is customer satisfaction surveys, one of the more dreary parts of marketing research. You know what I mean if you’ve ever been subjected to a customer satisfaction survey that runs 4 pages single-spaced in about 9-point type. Completing those surveys can be like that scene in the Dustin Hoffman movie Marathon Man when Sir Lawrence Olivier plays the Mengele-like ex-Nazi dentist Dr. Christian Szell who extracts information by pulling teeth.

But Progrexion draws from the work of author and Bain consultant Fred Reichheld to come up with a much more streamlined and painless approach. Reichheld wrote the 2006 book “The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth.”

Reichheld maintains that under pressure to meet growth targets modern corporate managers are going after the wrong customers and doing so badly. Hence the implicit statement in the book’s title that profits can be bad and growth wrong.

What’s the ultimate question? Well hold your breath because it’s all of eight words: “would you recommend this business to a friend?”

How people answer that question and a few more carefully selected questions are used to calculate something called the “Net Promoter Score.” 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

Fine and dandy, you say, but what does this have to do with cause marketing or nonprofit fundraising?

Certainly the Ultimate Question and the Net Promoter score could be used gauge the success and lasting power of a cause marketing campaign or program. Want to know if your paper icon campaign is actually costing you money (even while raising money)? Ask the Ultimate Question.

But there’s another possible use.

Progrexion also uses the Ultimate Question as a lead generator.

In effect, the Ultimate Question and the Net Promoter Score is a way of identifying salesmen and mavens, to use Malcolm Gladwell’s terms.

And what cause marketing campaign couldn’t use more of both?

Cause Marketing Circa 2022

The current issue of Fortune magazine, modestly called 'The Future Issue,' examines what the world and the world of business will be like ten years hence in 2022.

Fortune’s prognosticators see video projected on every window surface, 3-D printers on every desktop, smart holographic table tops as in the movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, real-time subtitles for teleconferences, and apps that help you put together your ideal office work group. (That's an Eden 3D printer on the left, although it's not exactly a desktop model.)

Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of nonprofits, although Fortune does see people working later in life thanks to new miracle drugs and treatments for chronic conditions like arthritis. Great, I get to work for years to come!

But it set me to thinking; what’s the 10-year future of cause marketing, nonprofit fundraising and corporate social responsibility?

I put on my Merlin cap and came up with these three ideas:

• Big Data and Cause Marketing. Fortune raises the idea of ‘big data,’ which means making sense out of all the data points that your mobile devices generate. Your phone collects tons of data having to do with time and place. In the near future when your phone is also your digital wallet, it will generate even more data. Part of that data will be records of you buying Campbell’s soup instead of Lipton, buying a bracelet at Starbucks that supports some cause. In 2022 a new kind of mathematician/marketer will parse all this data and deliver to your phone cause marketing offers customized distinctly to your behavior and preferences.

• Honesty Machines. In the near future competitors, advocacy groups, government agencies and others will be able to deploy mobile machines able to accurately and remotely monitor smokestack emissions. Or the amount of CO2 released at airport taxi stands by idling taxis. Or the amount of offal generated by factory farms. Think of them as lie detectors for your business. By 2022 corporate social responsibility won’t be a matter of self-reporting any more. Independent groups and agencies will do the reporting and they will catch the liars and the fibbers.

• Crowd-Sourcing Your Idle Hours for a Cause. Crowd-sourcing has been going on in nonprofits for several years now. Think about how amateur birders, for instance, currently help to complete population counts for university researchers, the Audubon Society or the state fish and game services. But by 2022 it will all the more convenient. Imagine, for example, that you’re jetting off to Seattle for a meeting and your smart phone knows that you... an amateur astronomer... have time to help The Royal Astronomical Society identify potential planets in distant star systems while you’re on the plane. It will route to your mobile device screens of space for you to review and analyze.

What do you see in 10 years for cause marketing? Please comment below.

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.

What I Learned When I Bought a Starbuck Indivisible Wristband

Since November 1, 2011 Starbucks has been doing its best to help boost the economy via a cause marketing standard; the wristband.

'Indivisible' wristbands are $5 at 6,800 company-operated stores in the United States.

All the money goes to the Opportunity Finance Network, an umbrella group of 180 Community Development Financial Institutions, which specialize in making loans to small businesses. Starbucks seeded the effort with a $5 million donation.

Studies suggest that new businesses in particular are the ones most likely to generate jobs.

(Parenthetically, another company that started small and grew big, the Boston Beer Company, which makes Samuel Adams beer, has offered a small business mentorship and financing effort called Brewing the American Dream since June 2008).

Since all this has been well-covered elsewhere in great depth, I want to describe the exemplary way the transaction took place when I bought mine late 2011 at a nearby Starbucks.

The wristbands at my Starbucks were displayed on a shelf below the cash register. The barrista was super friendly. She took my order and I told her that I wanted to buy the bracelet.

“Oh, that’s so great! This is such a great idea,” she said as she reached for the wristband.

“Do you know what it’s all about?," she asked.

I did, but I let her go on.

“We’re working to help the economy recover and put people back to work.” And with that she reached and grabbed for the explanatory brochure at the left.

I didn’t open it then. But inside the brochure is an infographic worthy of an Al Gore presentation.

I handed her my credit card and she said, “Thanks for doing this.”

She was so unrelentingly cheerful and good-humored that I really felt thanked.

Plainly she had been trained well enough to understand and explain the effort as well as get behind it. It won’t be that way with every barrista at every Starbucks. But it was with this Starbucks and this barrista.

And that, my friends, is how a cause marketed paper icon or a premium items like a stuffed animal or even a wristband ought to be sold.

Cause Marketing en Español

Late last year Walgreens ran the paper icon campaign at the left benefiting its long-time partner the American Diabetes Association in English on one side and Spanish on the other.

Walgreens is the giant drugstore/C-store chain with more than 8,000 locations coast-to-coast.

Such efforts are old hat in Canada, which is officially bilingual. But I can’t remember seeing any other paper icon efforts Stateside that came in two or more languages.

The potential payoff is efficiency: Walgreens/ADA only has to print one paper icon to reach two separate cultures.

But I doubt it will pay off. For one, the shape, design and colors make the icon easy to miss, no matter your culture. It’s rather blah.

Then there’s the interesting issue of which side to display at the register.

In big chunks of the Southwest and Florida you’d probably want to display the icon Spanish side up, and English side up in most of the rest of the country.

Except that even here in the Mountain States, where I live, there’s a substantial Spanish-speaking immigrant population. It’s not unlikely that a Spanish speaker might come into the Walgreens were I bought this but miss the icon because it was English side up.

Then there’s the question of the translation. My Spanish is of the high school variety, but it appears to me that the translation is directly from the English.

I don’t specialize in cross-cultural marketing. But I have heard enough cross-cultural marketing specialists speak about the discipline to know that they generally recommend against literal translations.

Finally, where’s the emotion in this appeal?

Absent in two cultures, I’m afraid.

More Cause Marketing Mashedup With Games in 2012

One trend I expect to see more of in 2012 is the mashup of cause marketing and video/computer games.

Certainly the market is huge.

The Entertainment Software Association reports that 72 percent of American households play computer/video games. And it’s not just teens and preteens. The average game player is age 37. And while video/computer game players are more likely to be male than female, across the board 42 percent of players are female (which is about the same gender mix as the NFL's audience).

That it’s a 60:40 male to female strikes me as a positive for some businesses and causes. Men can be a hard audience to reach, especially if you can’t afford the premiums that come with sponsoring professional sports or buying sports television airtime.

• Cause marketing has already been successfully undertaken by Zynga, makers of Farmville and Mafia Wars on behalf of the victims of the Haiti Earthquake of 2010. In 2011, they did another relief effort on behalf the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
  

• Last year at this time Diet Coke produced a ‘Capture the Flag’ game that generated funds for the American Heart Association’s Heart Truth effort.
  

• GamesThatGive.net allows you to play common video games like Solitaire, Sudoku, and Blackjack for free, while making a sliver of a donation to one of a number of nonprofit charities.
  

• General Mills fruit snacks brands had a game that allowed you to donate a free XO laptop computer to school children in Africa based on performance in a game associated with the promotion.

Those examples notwithstanding, there’s a lot of room for growth and innovation here folks.

Contact me if you need some help figuring out how to make video/computer games and causes work well together.

The Worst Cause Marketing of 2011

Pathology, that is trying to figure out what went wrong, is both fun and entertaining. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the CSI franchise on television among many other production credits, personally made $113 million! in 2011 thanks in part to our fascination with the pathology of crime.

Even when it comes to cause marketing this fascination with the bad is strong. Many more people find the Cause Marketing Blog because they searched on ‘bad cause marketing’ and similar search terms than found it by searching for ‘good cause marketing’ and equivalent terms. Yesterday's post, was my annual list of the best cause marketing of 2011.

You asked for it, so here it is listed in order of the date of the original post; The 10 Worst Cause Marketing Efforts of 2011:

• Faux Cause Marketing Ad From Groupon Bombs on Super Bowl. After watching Groupon’s first Super Bowl ad campaign, all I could do was scratch my head and ask; “Holy crap, what was Groupon thinking?” They ran two ads: one started out looking like an homage to the people and culture of Tibet and it turns out to be actor Timothy Hutton looking smarmy and paying half price at a Chicago Tibetan restaurant thanks to Groupon. The second ad with a save the whales theme and featuring Cuba Gooding Jr. was no better.) Groupon’s Tibet ad somehow managed to be tasteless, inane, and insulting at the same time. The airtime alone costs $3 million in the high-stakes world of Super Bowl advertising. But that’s the smallest cost to Groupon. Instead the private company just erased millions of dollars in brand equity in one 30-second ad. This was faux cause marketing at its most reckless.

• This Paper Icon Effort Didn't Exactly Bowl Me Over. A paper icon effort at a bowling alley in my market made me wonder who could have launched this ill-conceived effort. What was wrong with it? How to count the ways: • There was no indication of the benefiting charity and no explanation on the back, although I learned later it was issued by the local Susan G. Komen for the Cure chapter. • At 10 inches high it was bigger than it needed to be and required an expensive custom die-cut. • The layout and typefaces made it look cheap. • When paper icons are shaped after the sponsor rather than the cause, as in this one shaped like a bowling pin, it usually strikes me as being too self-referential to the sponsor and self-defeating. In this way the halo is reflecting light from the sponsor to the cause, rather than the cause to the sponsor.

• Do These Anti-Teenage Pregnancy Advocacy Ads Really Work? Who Knows? Advocacy ads from The Candies Foundation, featuring Bristol Palin and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, among others, aimed to “shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood.” Candies, for whom the Foundation is named, is a teen fashion brand. But watching them made me wonder if they don’t have a counter-effect. I know of a former smoker, for instance, who can’t watch certain movies because the sexy way smoking is portrayed therein makes him crave the wicked weed again. One medical researcher’s study confirms in part that anecdote. The Foundation’s website says that since 2001, Candie’s Foundation ads generated more than 500 million media impressions. A very large number indeed. The website also claims that teen girls who have been exposed to the Foundation’s campaigns see the negatives of teen pregnancy and parenthood more so than teen girls who haven’t seen the campaigns. Certainly I’m glad for that. But what I really wish the Foundation could claim is that teen girls who are exposed to the campaign are any less likely to get pregnant. I, for one, have my doubts.

• Catty Faux Cause Marketing from Church and Dwight. In my ongoing effort to identify and root out faux cause marketing I came across this ad from Church & Dwight, makers of Arm & Hammer baking soda products, including Feline Pine kitty litter.The ad depicts militant beret-wearing cats fronted by ‘Che Gato,’ paws of fury raised against clay kitty litter, and the attendant dust, perfumes, and harsh chemicals. Che Gato is even looking left of the camera's perspective, like the iconic picture of Che Guevara. And that’s where the faux cause marketing comes into play. There’s a website with a dot-org extension; catsagainstclay.org. Now any of us could go and register an available dot-org extension. It’s not like ICANN, the official registrar of top-level Internet domain extensions, checks anyone’s nonprofit bona fides before allowing someone to register a dot-org domain name. That said, there’s a widespread expectation that a dot-org extension means that the website is for the public good. But www.catsagainstclay.org sends you directly to the product’s regular URL. Che Gato notwithstanding, there’s no revolution here. Just faux cause marketing.

• Heidi Klum, Cancer Pin-Up Girl. Actress, supermodel, TV producer, philanthropist, and mother of four Heidi Klum wants you to buy the hoodie off her back to benefit StandUp2Cancer, the telethon and charity. The hooded sweatshirt retails on the STU2C website for $46.99 and features versions of its logo on front and back. Klum, of course, is lovely and talented and STU2C is an admirable, innovative and hard-pressing cause. STU2C has always struck me as a charity in a hurry, and I like that about them. Cancer has bedeviled the world for too long as far as I'm concerned. But I’m always little chary when causes use sex to sell. Why? How does STU2C know whether it’s the sex appeal or the cause that’s working on people? Plus, there’s just something too weird about cancer pin-up girls.

• Justin Bieber’s Cause Marketing Should Be More Bieberiffic.Canadian teen heartthrob Justin Bieber wants you to buy his new perfume line called Someday, and when you do all net profits “after taxes, royalties, expenses and company requirements are deducted” will go to Pencils of Promise, a school-building charity and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It’s hard to say whether or not Bieber is making any scratch on this deal. Royalties is one way celebrities make money from endorsements. But I’m willing to give him the benefit of a doubt. However, in the wake of a $5 million class-action lawsuit filed in June 2011 against Lady Gaga for the way she sold a special bracelet meant to benefit Japan earthquake relief, the fact is Bieber and Give Back Brands need to be a little more transparent here. Bieber’s rabid fans probably don’t care require an exact breakdown of the transaction, but for the sake of prudence Bieber needs to be more precise. The fact of the matter is that Paul Newman, the first celebrity to build his own “all benefits company,” set a very high standard of probity and frankness with ‘Newman’s Own.’ And both regular folks and the blood-sucking lawyers who filed suit against Lady Gaga expect model behavior from celebrities.

• Respecting Your Cause Marketing Partner. From Freschetta, the bake-at-home pizza brand found in your grocer’s freezer case, came this pink ribbon cause marketing campaign that seemed ashamed of its esteemed non-profit partner. Here’s the campaign: when you bought pink-beribboned packages of Freschetta pizza products, Schwan Food Company, the brand's owner, donated $1 up to $50,000 total to guess who? You almost have to guess because the type is so small in this FSI (Free-Standing Insert) you might not be able to read it without the help of artificial magnification. It's only slightly better on Freschetta's website, which requires an extra click behind the mention of the campaign on the home page to find out who it benefits. In fact, with the aid of magnification and good strong light, I can report that the ad says the donation is headed towards Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, one of the most respected hospitals and cancer research facilities in the world. So why so little respect of its nonprofit partner from Schwan?
  

• Cause Marketing from Dillard's That Doesn't Exactly Fit. Dillard’s, the department store chain, had a cause marketing effort benefiting Feeding America last year that hit all the high points, until… cue the record scratch sound-effect… it didn’t. What did Dillard’s do right? It’s a pretty good list. First off Dillard’s choose a venerable cause marketing partner, Feeding America, which has an accomplished record in cause marketing and a vitally important mission. At $2 per transaction, the donation amount is generous. The promotion itself was activated through this ad in my local newspaper.There was a QR code in the ad that leads to a video about Feeding America’s Give a Meal holiday campaign, so check off that cool tactical implementation. Dillard’s, which has about 300 stores across most of the country, specifically states that the total donation amount is as much as the value of $40,000 in meals, so mark off the transparency checkmark, too. So far, so good. But here’s where Dillard’s stumbled, the promotion in question is for bras, shapewear, sleepwear, and other lingerie items. Like I said, cue the record scratch sound-effect. What do well-fitting bra and panties have to do with hunger? Darned if I could guess.
  

• Towards a More Hygienic Cause Marketing Campaign for Lysol. The Lysol brand disinfectant Blue Ribbon Attendance Challenge awarded $25,000 in prizes to the school with the highest average attendance from November 1 to 30, 2011. If you’re like me it took me a couple of beats to understand what school attendance has to do with Lysol. But even after I got it the Lysol Challenge didn’t seem to do all the things Lysol needs it to do. What Lysol really needs out of this effort is to generate good buzz for a brand that’s pretty stale. What part of anything I’ve described above would you Tweet or post on your Facebook or Tumblr page? Part of the problem is the donation amount. Total prizes of $25,000 just can’t be taken seriously in a country with more than 90,000 elementary schools! But by itself a better and fairer prize package wouldn’t make you more likely to Tweet out the Lysol Blue Ribbon Attendance Challenge either. Imagine in addition to better prizes some kind of contest asking schools to produce a small play that depicts germ-free hygiene in schools, and open up divisions for middle schools, junior and high schools. Naturally videos of the plays would end up on YouTube. In fact, YouTube oughta be the official entry vehicle for the contest. Call it the Lysol Blue Ribbon Video Challenge. And, of course, thousands of videos would be publicity fodder for Lysol and its PR agency, who would pitch this story to media outlets wherever schools enter the Challenge.

• Stealing Your Competitor's Cause Marketing Approach. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then TOMS Shoes must be beaming with pride. Skechers a brand of shoes that occupies the vast middle range of pricing and quality offers a line called, I kid you not, BOBS, which promises to give a new pair of shoes to a needy child when you bought a Shoe Carnival gift card valued at $25 or more through Dec. 24. TOMS, of course, did more than anyone to popularize this buy one, give one approach (BOGO) by giving away a free pair of TOMS Shoes to a needy child in the developing world every time you buy a pair. I don’t think TOMS would complain about other companies lifting the BOGO approach. But for a direct competitor to do so with a similar name (I mean, c’mon, BOBS?) comes off as underhanded.

The Best Cause Marketing of 2011

One of the things I love about cause marketing is also one of the things I love about my wife; it (like she) continues to surprise me. Here are 10 cause marketing efforts or campaigns, culled from more than 200 posts in 2011, that were cool or fun or smart or effective or innovative or surprising. And sometimes all of those adjectives at once!

Here in date order of the original post are my top eleven Best Cause Marketing Efforts of 2011.

• Instant-On Cause Marketing for Earthquake Relief. In March I was wowed by an instant-on cause marketing effort from Infinity on behalf of the American Red Cross for the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake that arrived in my email box less than 6 days after the quake rocked Japan’s northern islands. Cause marketing has its failings and one of them is that picking causes, figuring donation amounts, concepting and messaging, and clearing legal can take so darn much time. In cases like Haiti earthquake in January 2010 and Tōhoku in March 2011, time is of the essence. Kudos to Infinity for bringing their campaign… a matching effort… online so quickly, and for providing their example of alacrity to other sponsors.

• Win One, Give One Cause Marketing. As we’ll see, Buy One, Give One remains an important strategic approach in cause marketing. In May I reviewed a new spin on the strategy from General Mills, which offered a Win One, Give One promotion benefiting schoolchildren in Africa. In 2001 specially-marked packages of Betty Crocker Fruit Rollups were vouchers for a free XO computer. A matching number were donated to school children in South Africa. There’s was a fun online game you could play that generated further XO donations. General Mills also donated cash to One Laptop Per Child, the nonprofit behind the XO, based on sales of packages of Fruit Rollups.

• Cause Marketing for Dudes. In 2011, cause marketing aimed specifically at men begin to come into its own. One of the best such efforts came from Budweiser, which asked men to forgo shaving to save water. Called 'Grow One. Save a Million' (GOSAM), the promotion has been going on in a low-key way since 2010. Budweiser also donated $150,000 to the River Network, a watershed conservation charity. But in 2011 the campaign went Hollywood with the inclusion of Nick Offerman, the butch star of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. GOSAM was primarily Facebook and PR-driven. As a hirsute fellow myself, I think it wouldn’t take much effort to turn this into something very like Lee National Denim Day, only for dudes.

• Buy One Give One Blankets. The New York office of the design firm Beattie McGuinness Bungay designed and is selling an infant blanket meant to help new parents in the developing world to understand things like vaccinations, average infant growth, breast-feeding, illness-warning signs and the like, and they’re taking a Buy One Give One approach to marketing the blankets. ‘The Information Blanket’ is made of double-knit cotton and features bold info-graphics screen-printed in water-based dyes. The BOGO (Buy One, Give One) price is $40 and the donation-only price is $25. The Information Blanket isn’t the equivalent of a new baby manual. It’s more comparable to one of those laminated quick reference guides they sell at bookstores which lay out how to conjugate verbs in Latin or easy Wordpress shortcuts. It’s design and cause marketing teaming up to take on one of the thorniest problems in the developing world.

• Buy One Plant One Cause Marketing. Footwear company Oboz, which is a contraction of the words Outside-Bozeman specializes in shoes and boots true to its Montana roots. Their BOGO cause marketing is a straightforward and appealing; buy a pair of Oboz and the company will plant a tree via a cause called Trees for the Future. Trees for the Future thinks of trees much the same way that Heifer International thinks about domesticated animals; that is, as a provider of wealth for people in the developing world. Trees for the Future plants trees that can become a source of wealth to local families. Think about it, in addition to the environmental benefits of trees they also provide fruits and nuts, fuel, sap, windbreaks, shade, fertilizer, fodder, a protective canopy for other plants, and more. Since its founding in 1989 Trees for the Future has planted 50 million trees in 12,000 villages in 58 countries. It’s the coolest charity I’d never heard of. Three cheers for Oboz for finding it.

• Paper Icon Campaign at Whole Foods Helps Launch FoodCorps. In August I was impressed by Whole Foods use a paper icon campaign to help launch the Garden Grant Program, whose aim is to offer 1,000 schools a $2,000 grant to either create or expand an existing school garden. The nonprofit partner is New York City-based FoodCorps, a subset of AmeriCorps. There were a number of things I liked about the campaign. * It was full-color front and back. * The headline served as a clear to action. * They used a narrative account to persuade. * There were donation options at $5 and $10. * There was a UPC code to speed transaction times. * It was placed on the counter, right next to the credit card machine. * It effectively branded both FoodCorps and Whole Foods. But what I like best was the enthusiasm with which the bag boy sold it to me!

• The Best Cause Marketed Country Band. U2 gets my vote as the best cause marketer in rock and roll based on their efforts on behalf of [RED] and Bono’s own cause-marketed clothing line called ‘Edun.’ But which country act earns honors as the best country music cause marketers? In September my answer was the Zac Brown Band. Marketing bands and their music these days is a whole lot different than when file sharing came along. The Zac Brown Band, a country music act, uses cause marketing as a part of its promotional mix. Regular readers will remember that back in July 2010 Dodge sponsored a cause marketing effort that featured the Zac Brown Band in a promotion called ‘Letters for Lyrics.” In July 2011 the band announced a deal with outdoor retailer Gander Mountain that benefits the charity Soles4Souls, which provides shoes to children worldwide. When you buy a co-branded Zac Brown Band-Soles4Souls baseball cap at GanderMountain.com, proceeds go to the charity. Rock on, Zac Brown Band!

• IGA Stores Using Private Label Food Brands To Benefit Wounded Warriors Project. Last September through November participating IGA stores across the United States offered $0.05 to the Wounded Warrior Project for each case of certain private label food brands sold. IGA is a huge buying and distribution cooperative for 5,000 member stores in 40 countries. The Wounded Warrior Project is a nonprofit charity that raises money and awareness for the nation’s injured service members. I’ve been agitating for private label cause marketing in these pages since November 2008. Here’s why: in recessions private label brands do very well. But once the hard times are over, consumers return to the name brands. But if a cause marketing effort could help an outfit like IGA preserve even 5 percent of the customers that switched to store brands during the recession, it could potential be worth tens of millions to the bottom line every year.

• Embedding Cause Marketing into Your Business Model. Tegu makes handsome blocks made from sustainable hardwood embedded with magnets in its Tegucigalpa, Honduras factory. And cause marketing is as embedded in the business model as the magnets are in the blocks. The result is a toy that’s more interesting to kids than just blocks, and the very opposite of something mind-dumbing, like Angry Birds. When you buy a set of blocks, Tegu allows you to choose between two causes to support. You can choose: To have 12 trees planted in Honduras (and elsewhere). Or, help educate a caste of Honduran kids that would otherwise do scavenging work in the Tegucigalpa city dump. As of this writing the counter at Tegu.com says 18,011 trees have been planted and 1,798 days of school have been donated.

• Integrated Cause Marketing with Starbucks and MSNBC. Long-time readers know I’m a sucker for integrated cause marketing campaigns that are activated across multiple media because I believe they’re more effective and because… having done of few of these campaigns myself… I know how much hard work they are. That’s why I like this one from the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC and Starbucks. When you buy a package of Starbucks branded Morning Joe coffee at your local grocer, Starbucks with MSNBC donate to the DonorsChoose.org project of your choice using a redemption code. Morning Joe is the name of the MSNBC morning talk show hosted by former member of (U.S) Congress from Florida, Joe Scarborough, along ‘with’ Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist.

• Nature Valley Puts You In the National Parks. One Way Or Another. Nature Valley granola bars, a General Mills brand, wants you to experience the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Great Smokey National Parks in-person, or virtually. Nature Valley sent camera crews to capture 100 or so trail miles in each park using much the same technology that Google does for its famed street views on Google Maps, only all the equipment was mounted on people, not vehicles. In February 2012 Nature Valley will unveil the first stage online. And you and I can follow along at a real-time walking pace. When I posted in October, Nature Valley was also donating $1 for every UPC code entered from a box of Nature Valley to the National Parks Conservation Association up to a maximum of $100,000. I applaud Nature Valley’s donation of money and time for making these… what to call them?… ‘trail-umentaries,’ ‘docu-hikes.’ It’s a invaluable service to the parks.