RIP Paul Newman, the Preeminent Face of Cause-Related Marketing

After a private battle, Paul Newman passed away from lung cancer on Friday, September 26, 2008 surrounded by family and friends.

He will be remembered as a splendid actor, a competitive professional race car driver, a political activist, philanthropist and accidental leader. But I’ll remember him as the preeminent face of cause-related marketing in our day. (And certainly as the star of my favorite Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. See left with Katharine Ross).

On a lark in 1982 along with his neighbor and friend writer A.E. Hotchner, Newman started selling salad dressing that they called Newman’s Own. Later they added pasta sauce, popcorn, salsa, wine, cookies, among many other items, to the line.

The labels featured jokey caricatures of Newman and the pledge that 100 percent of the proceeds from the venture, after taxes, would be donated to charity. From its founding through 2007, Newman’s Own had donated more than $220 million to charity. Last year’s charitable donation was $28 million.

“The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films," Newman once drolly remarked.

When I worked for the Operation Kids Foundation, we were a beneficiary of a Newman’s Own donation, but not because we’d asked for money. Instead, we’d sent an inquiry asking if he’d be willing to be feted as a Lifetime Achievement Award honoree at our annual gala. He wrote back and said that such awards made him uncomfortable. Inside the envelope was a check for $10,000.

Until about two years ago Newman was still personally distributing the company’s profits. About the same time he stepped back from that responsibility, Newman set up a private independent foundation called Newman’s Own Foundation to receive and distribute the profits from the Newman’s Own company.

The Foundation benefits the Hole in the Wall Camps which serves children with terminal diseases and other serious medical conditions free of charge, and numerous other charitable endeavors. Newman founded the first Hole in the Wall Camp in 1988. There are now 11 camps in the United States, Europe, and Israel affiliated with the Hole in the Wall.

Newman worked very hard at keeping the marketing for Newman’s Own… and even its operations… light-hearted and open to input from almost anyone. It was a legacy of Newman’s lifetime of film-making that he believed good ideas could bubble up from almost anywhere.

You can read about Newman and Hotchner’s merry pranks in two books: In Pursuit of the Common Good, published in August 2008; and Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good from 2003.

I’ve written before about how the success of Newman’s Own has inspired many imitators. If Helen of Troy was the face that launched 1,000 ships, Paul Newman looking back at you from a bottle of Newman’s Own was the face that launched 10,000 social enterprises.

So in memory of what he did and who he’s inspired, join me now and raise a toast of Newman’s Own wine (or lemonade) to Paul Newman, the accidental cause marketer sans pareil.

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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