The Five Flavors of Cause-Related Marketing

At Alden Keene we use a handy-dandy chart we call “The Five Flavors of Cause-Related Marketing” that helps us build cause-related marketing campaigns for our clients. That’s the same chart I send you when you sign up for the Cause-Related Marketing GoogleGroup.

Until now, I’ve never published it on the blog. But the time seems ripe to share a version of it with all my readers. The chart we use is in graphic form and has more information. But what follows is substantially the same.

I need to give props to Professors Michael Jay Polansky and Richard Speed of the University of Newcastle and University of Melbourne respectively in Australia, who published it in their paper called “Linking Sponsorship and Cause-Related Marketing.”

Without further ado, The Five Flavors of Cause-Related Marketing:

Broad-Based. A large campaign, perhaps one the runs year-round, and generally has no limits on the donation that might be made. Example: the General Mills Box Tops for Education effort.
Limited. A campaign where the amount of donation is capped. For instance: Five pence goes to charity for each litre of petrol pumped up to ₤100,000.
Market focused. A campaign that targets a specific market. Example: A credit card issuer gives $3 to charity every time a new customer signs up for their card.
Replacement. In this type of campaign the donation has already been made or pledged to the charity and the fundraiser serves to replace that donation.
Multiphase. In a multiphase campaign, there may be several steps leading up to the donation. For instance, the Silk Soy Milk campaign that requires you to enter a number from the carton’s green cap, and which also enters you into a sweepstakes.

That’s the wide-world of cause-related marketing in five bullet points. Everything in cause-related marketing is just a variation on one of these themes.

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

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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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