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.

Profile of Cause Marketing Veteran Joe Lake

Blogger's Note: What follows is a profile and interview I wrote of Children's Miracle Network co-founder Joe Lake, who was recently installed as the CEO of the Starfish Television Network. This originally appeared in the Salt Lake Enterprise on Monday, May 11.

Lining the walls of the office of Joe Lake, the new CEO of the Starfish Television Network, a 501(c) (3) public charity and television network founded in 2006 and headquartered in Midvale, are pictures of the many celebrities he has worked with.

There are pictures of Joe with Goldie Hawn, Sidney Poitier, Jeff Bridges, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Rob Lowe and Walter Cronkite, and affectionately-autographed publicity stills from Bob Hope and Rich Little.

It’s something you’d expect in the office of a Hollywood agent, or at a celebrity hangout in Manhattan, or Chicago or Vegas. But the Starfish Television Network, whose mission is to tell the stories of nation’s nonprofits in a way that educates, entertains and inspires its audi…

Top Eight Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns of 2007

Yeah, You Read it Right. It's a Top 8 List.

More cause-related marketing campaigns are unveiled every day across the world than I review in a year at the cause-related marketing blog. And, frankly, I don’t see very many campaigns from outside North America. So I won’t pretend that my annual list of the top cause-related marketing campaigns is exhaustive.

But, like any other self-respecting blogger, I won’t let my superficial purview stop me from drawing my own tortured conclusions!

So… cue the drumroll (and the dismissive snickers)… without further ado, here is my list of the eight best cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007.

My list of the worst cause-related marketing campaigns of 2007 follows on Thursday.

Chilis and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
I was delighted by the scope of Chilis’ campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As you walked in you saw the servers adorned in black co-branded shirts. Other elements included message points on the Chilis beverage coas…

50 Cent, Cause Marketer

Curtis Jackson, aka rapper 50 Cent visited the horn of Africa in September 2011 hosted by the United Nations and committed to provide 1 billion meals to the World Food Programme over the next five years, funded in part by several cause marketing efforts.

The Horn of Africa has a lot of problems right now, nonetheleast of which is that starvation there is rampant, long-term drought is endemic, and working institutions are few.

Since the UN's World Food Programme can manage to deliver a meal for about $0.10, Jackson has basically committed to donating $100 million (or 200 million 50 cent pieces). That's a very big number.

He gave his commitment a kick start with a donation of $350,000. Like him on Facebook, and when he reaches 1 million new likes, he’ll donate another $1 million.

50 Cent is also tying the sales of his Street King energy drink to the World Food Progamme (WFP). For every bottle sold, 50 Cent will donate one meal.

Street King competes with 5-Hour Energy Drink, a ca…

Cause Marketing

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