Finesse Shampoo and Conditioner and Locks of Love

Not Exactly Golden Locks

How do you target Gen Y, the 76 million [in the States] ‘Millennials’ born between 1978 and 2000? Well a cause campaign is not a bad idea because the members of Gen Y are characterized as idealistic, optimistic, honest and sincere. And they like to shop.

Few of them remember the time before the Internet and they’re the most technologically savvy generation ever. We used to say they were the most wired generation, but that’s no longer true; if I have any Gen Y readers they’re probably reading this on their cell phones.

But what kind of cause appeals to them?

United Way is for people who drive Buicks.

Susan G. Komen is for the mothers and grandmothers of Gen Y.

Make-A-Wish? You’re getting warmer.

Finesse hair shampoo and conditioner picked Locks of Love, the Lake Worth, Florida nonprofit that solicits donations of natural hair which is then manufactured into wigs and distributed to kids and adults with long-term hair loss, usually due to a condition called alopecia areata.

Locks of Love generates publicity like crazy. Their story is straightforward, emotional, and particularly well-suited for television; a kid cuts 10 inches off his or her head, puts it in bag and sends it to Locks of Love to become a wig for a bald kid. I must know half a dozen kids who are presently growing their hair out for Locks of Love or who have done so in the past.

Here’s Finesse’s campaign. A contest began July 17, 2006 to pick a model for their advertising in 2007. Entrants submitted their names and a before and after picture that shows how their “hairstyle has adjusted.” The contest doesn’t explicitly require that the entrants cut their hair for Locks of Love, but it appears that many did just that.

Finesse then invited people to vote for their favorite entrant. The contest ended March 31, 2007. Finesse will name the winner on May 15 from among 10 finalists. Finesse will donate $1 to Locks of Love for every contest entry it received. I may be reading it wrong, but it looks like a grand total of 923 people entered the contest. If that’s the case Finesse isn’t exactly going to have to crack open the corporate vault for Locks of Love.

I like the promotion, but it seems half-hearted. I hope I’m wrong about the donation amount. But whether I am or not, they should have based the donation on the votes, not the entries. To make that worth their while they could have used the voting mechanism to generate usable information like a registration that collected names and email. Or they could have asked a short list of survey questions. They could have provide means for the contest entrants to email their friends as apart of the registration process.

And where’s Finesse on MySpace, YouTube or any of the social media so popular with kids? Why wouldn’t they encourage entrants… if they cut their hair for Locks of Love… to film it and put it on YouTube?

If Finesse tries this contest in 2007-8, there's a number of improvements that could be made.

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

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

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

Cause Marketing

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