Cause-Related Marketing for Africa from Tampax

There I was, glancing through my March issue of Teen Vogue (don’t ask) when I came across the arresting image on the left.

Like any fashion magazine, Teen Vogue is mostly ads of girls in fashionable attire in chichi locales. So this ad for a cause-related marketing campaign from Proctor & Gamble’s Tampax brand really pops.

The campaign is another branch of Proctor & Gamble’s growing relationship with African causes and the United Nations. P&G’s water purifier brand Pur supports water purification efforts in Kenya. And P&G has been doing a packaged goods cause-related marketing campaign for UNICEF for at least a half-dozen years.

The campaign is multi-faceted and, frankly, more than just a little confusing. You don’t need to go to the beinggirl.com/hero website to get that. Just look at the ‘logo soup’ at the bottom of the ad.

Here’s the bones of the campaign: P&G is donating $1.4 million to HERO, a campaign of the United Nations Association (UNA-USA). The money goes to support orphans and other vulnerable children in the African countries of Ethiopia, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. Since some 12 million kids in Africa have lost one or both parents due to AIDS, the campaign has a special emphasis on kids affected by that scourge. HERO monies go to providing clean water, building classrooms, and of course providing sanitary pads to girls who would otherwise miss school during their menses.

P&G's HERO campaign has a youth ambassador element whereby 24 kids… girls and boys… from the U.S. go to work in African villages during the summer. On the website there’s a donate now button, some suggestions on how to raise money for HERO, some factoids on Africa [“The cheetah (an indigenous animal of Africa) can run faster than any other land animal, at speeds up to 70 mph!”], video webisodes from the work of the 2006 Ambassadors, and more.

I like it. It’s important and life-changing and the ambassador campaign is a smart touch. Although it doesn’t seem like the website or the program is fully leveraged given the audience.

That said, the creative gives me pause, particularly the call to action. It reads: “Use your period for good.”

I’m long past any boyhood embarrassment about menstrual periods. I have a wife, daughters, a mother, four sisters, a mother-in-law, and six sisters-in-law. My consulting business is as likely to put me in the company of women as men. I live surrounded on all sides by a wall of estrogen. (And I’m comfortable enough in my own masculinity that don’t even need/have a ‘mantuary’).

Moreover, it’s fair to say they didn’t write the copy for me in particular or for men or boys in general. They wrote it for girls. I dare say that Proctor & Gamble probably did some copy testing to make sure it ‘played.’

I don’t want to parse this out too far, but in American English the line has a double-meaning. “For good” certainly means what it sounds like; use your period to benefit others. However, in the American idiom “for good” also means ‘permanently.’

That’s where it gets sketchy for me.

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...

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