Liam Neeson for UNICEF

Celebrities Are Just Like You and Me, Only They Get to Stay Free at the Mandarin Oriental

There are two kinds of celebrities in the world; those that are in the Mandarin Oriental ad campaign running right now and those whose agents are trying to get them in.

It’s an image ad campaign for the 17 hotels that are part of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. In it celebrities including I.M. Pei, Zubin Mehta, Helen Mirren, Elle McPherson, and Dame Edna-Barry Humphries are photographed in settings of their choice and they name their favorite Mandarin property. Dame Edna-Barry Humphries get to name two!

Every celebrity appearance carries with it a $10,000 donation to the charity of the celebrity’s choosing. Neeson’s charity is UNICEF and his short profile on the Mandarin website includes a UNICEF logo and link. Most of the other charities are smaller and less prominent than UNICEF.

It goes almost without saying that the donation amount is too small to be meaningful. I don’t know how the deal is structured but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the celebrities wave all or part their cash fee in lieu of the charitable donation and then take the rest in hotel stays.

That’s what makes it so appealing to celebrities… they get to stay in lavish Mandarin hotels for the price of the time it took to do the photo shoot. Better still for the celebrities, the ads feature them, not the hotels. In the process they look like good citizens. If you listen closely you can almost hear agents the world over calling the Mandarin’s ad agency.

By contrast, how interesting would it be if the Mandarin Oriental Group agreed to match what the celebrity donates to his or her preferred charity up to a certain amount? Interesting and unlikely. Most charitable donations from celebrities come in the form of in-kind gifts…read ‘time.’

There’s other things to like in this campaign. The celebrity list is an accomplished and eclectic group, with an especially strong showing of Asians, which makes sense since better that half of the Mandarin’s hotels are in Asia.

However, I think the creative is spare and subtle to the point almost of obfuscation, especially when it comes to the charities. “Liam Neeson for UNICEF” makes sense because UNICEF has plenty of built-in affinity.

But Helen Mirren’s charity is called “Help the Aged.” Sounds worthy enough, but I’ve never heard of it and there’s no website link, which means that most of these charities will get no more than just the $10,000 out of this thing.

That’s a pity.

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...

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 ...

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 Marketing

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