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 company… who already sat on St. Jude’s board. The national campaign begin out of local effort at seven Chili’s locations in Memphis.
Chili’s executive meetings have been held in Memphis, Tennessee… where St. Jude is headquartered… and Chili’s employees are always invited and encouraged to tour the hospital. Likewise regional Chili’s management meetings are held in Memphis.
Chili’s kicks-off the campaign by sending executives to Memphis to cook dinner for patients.
Internally, the Create-A-Pepper campaign receives the same emphasis as any other employee-based marketing initiative. In fact, St. Jude messaging and Create a Pepper are integrated into Chili’s menus, to-go bags, coloring books, crayons, even employee recruitment advertising.

Efforts are also made by Chili’s to incentivize employees to do their best.

Top daily performers from each shift get $5 grab bags that includes gas gift cards, movie tickets, and the like.
The company provides travel vouchers worth $1,000 for each of their operational regions. Servers who raise $200 or more are entered into a drawing for one of the travel vouchers. For every additional $100 they raise, they can earn an additional entry in the drawing.
The chain’s overall top server gets $2,500 travel voucher. In 2007, the top server generated $27,423, more than five times as much as the typical Chili’s restaurant raises!

St Jude recognizes the Chili’s contributions in numerous ways:

Naming rights to the hospital’s diagnostic imaging center.
Recognition on St. Jude’s website.
Public relations efforts with a special emphasis on restaurant trade publications.
Named Chili’s their “Corporate Partner of the Year.”
Featured Chili’s at their annual “Partner Summit.”

One final point worth making. Because St. Jude has on staff PR and design folks, web and IT pros, marketing people, videographers and photographers, they can quickly put out press releases, video, pictures, or publish a micro site, although they still rely on their partners to fully ‘activate’ sponsorships.

In my view the Create a Pepper campaign is a tour de force.

Bravo to Chili’s and St. Jude.

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

Search This Blog